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Supercomputer Centers : High Performance for the Average Joe

© Adam Hughes

In this series, we've examined a wide range of computational techniques to aid the scientist in his research endeavors. From scientific visualization tools to parallel processing, each advance provides a key piece to the discovery puzzle. But for most researchers, the means to house all of this technology locally are simply not available. So what is the scientist to do, short of throwing up his hands in frustration and going back to the "drawing board", literally? The answer often lies in the construct of modern supercomputer centers.

Supercomputer centers usually provide their users access to all of the myriad technologies which make up scientific computing. To make the situation even better for the scientist, all of this heavy duty artillery is available for free. The catch (you knew there was one, right?) is that the researcher must submit a grant proposal which carefully outlines which resources he wishes to gain access to, how much of those resources he'll take up, and the justification for granting his wishes. If the scientist can show that he has a viable research project on his hands, the door usually swings open for him.

As an example of what a supercomputer center can offer researchers, consider the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), located at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. OSC's arsenal of computational toys begins with its hardware systems : a Cray T3E, a Cray T94, and an SGI Origin 2000. These workhorse machines offer nearly 200 high-speed processors among them. OSC also provides its users with a sophisticated data storage system, which allows scientists to save scads of data for later perusal.

Beyond just setting the powerhouses out and letting their users have at it, most supercomputer centers also provide the resources for taking full advantage of the available computing power. OSC is no different. They provide a well-developed queueing system which helps to manage user's jobs and ensure that everyone gets his fair turn on the machines. In addition, several powerful commercial software packages are available to the user who wishes not to develop his own. Finally, and probably most importantly, OSC employs a full complement of computational professionals who can help you do anything from logging on to running the latest weather prediction code to writing the next great parallel solver.

The Ohio Supercomputer Center is just one example of how an integrated environment can help the common computational scientist better approach his research problems. To learn more about this institution, you can visit the OSC web site at

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