Mount Moran, UW’s Advanced Research Computing Center, was officially introduced Friday afternoon in the Information Technology Data Center.
Mount Moran already has captured the interest of more than 100 faculty members and researchers. The Advanced Research Computing Center is the little brother of Yellowstone, a super computer unveiled in Cheyenne’s National Center for Atmospheric Science Wyoming Supercomputing Center last month.
Nicknamed after the mountain peak in western Wyoming’s Teton Range, this new super computer is raising UW to new elevations in high-performance computing.
“This actually puts us in the tier of the top research institutions now,” Tim Kuhfuss, UW director of research, said. “We’ve got a local facility that we control and the best part is we also have the user support that goes with it. So not only do we have hardware, we have people that can help you use it.”
Mount Moran is stored on the second floor of the Information Technology Data Center among dozens of other supercomputers. Its temperature is regulated with cold water in row cooling cabinets, and it remains at 63 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mount Moran currently has two specific functions. The atmospheric and earth sciences faculty, who use Cheyenne’s supercomputing center, will be able to learn what to expect with its software.
Before moving on to the National Wyoming Supercomputing Center, faculty will be able to work with Mount Moran to practice using parallel algorithms. By using Mount Moran, which contains up to thousands of processors rather than the tens of thousands of processors at the Cheyenne site, faculty will diminish the chances of scaling issues.
Bioinformaticists, social scientists, pure mathematicians, theoretical physicists and other faculty working outside of the National Wyoming Supercomputing Center also will be able to conduct research on the cluster.
Though the supercomputers tend to be mainly used by faculty and researchers, Kuhfuss said that all in the UW community are welcome to take advantage of Mount Moran.
“This one is multi-user, multi-purpose; it was designed so almost any researcher could use it. And students; don’t forget students are supposed to use this as well,” Kuhfuss said.
