2020 – what a year! Normal, weird, toilet paper shortages, lockdown, travel bans, hard borders, partial freedom, new normal, and a whole lot of Zoom.
But has it been all bad? Looking back, our DUG HPC team reflects on a year that truly defined the word, “pivot” and created some highlights worth singing about.
In brief, the DUG HPC team has been busy expanding our expertise and support to include geoscience, climate and earth, physics, chemistry, life sciences, bioinformatics, astrophysics/astronomy, computer science and software development.
On the geoscience front we announced some important contract signings and new business from Polarcus, Geoprocesados, Fairfield and Equinor.
We launched our new series of HPC talks and networking events: HPC Hour with presentations from Prof. Igor Bray, Prof. Victor Manuel Calo and Dr Adam Stevens
Some important scientific research papers were published which included results from our HPC facility:
Deep multiredshift limits on Epoch of Reionization 21 cm power spectra from four seasons of Murchison Widefield Array observations – ICRAR – Cathryn Trott et al.
A rapid, low cost, and highly sensitive SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic based on whole genome sequencing – DNAZoo – Parwinder Kaur et al.
Our collaboration and work with the International Centre Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) saw approximately 80 international members of the SKA Telescope working group visit our Perth facility to learn what we are capable of and experience our immersion cooling.
We ran a 64000 core(1000 node) MPI fluid dynamics job for Dr. Reymond Chin and Dr. Byron Guerrero Hinojosa from the University of Adelaide.
Then doubled down and ran a 300,516 core (4501 node) MPI job for ICRAR@UWA and powered through hundreds of terabytes of data for ICRAR@Curtin.
Meanwhile, Prof. Igor Bray@Curtin breezed through millions of core hours (in just a few days!), running his atomic and molecular collisions code CCC.
Our expertise and support went beyond answering tickets and included workshops for DNA Zoo@UWA, Department of Physics@UWA and Jolimont Primary School.
We also supported researchers’ grant applications as an industry collaborator.
As the technology partner of the FDLAusNZ Bushfires Dataquest Sprint we were the “machine” in machine learning (ML) and the “intelligence” in artificial intelligence (AI).
The interest in our data centres and DUG Cool technology was incredible with visitors including Perth Linux Users Group, The Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air conditioning and Heating (AIRAH), Harry Perkins Institute of Medical research, Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia, Curtin University, Murdoch University, Edith Cowan University, South Metro Tafe, WA Datascience Innovation Hub, Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth (AROSE), WA Chief Scientist Prof. Peter Klinken, Prof. Lyn Beazley, and the Hon Dave Kelly to name a few.
Of course they were all eager to #touchthegreen while they had the chance as many of our photos attest.
DUG participated in many conferences, workshops and presentations during the year, both in-person when we could, and online. Highlights included RIU Minerals, HGM, Equinix Perth-Asia leaders dialogue, SIGHPC Pros, SEG, EAGE, and AARNet Networkshop.
We worked with a huge number of organisations including Curtin University, UWA, Harry Perkins Institute Medical Research, University of NSW, University of Sydney, University of Adelaide, ASKAP, ICRAR, CSIRO, ECU, Monash, Lommers Engineers, The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, ANU, Flinders Univesity… are you next?
From all of #TeamDUG and the HPC Team, thanks for your support, interesting projects, fascinating problems, and wonderful discussions. We look forward to more next year!
