June newsletter

  
Issue No. 39
June 2017

New computing platform to power NZ research



On June 8, NeSI announced a new integrated supercomputing platform to power computational and data intensive research in New Zealand. Science and Innovation Minister Paul Goldsmith announced the joint investment by NeSI and NIWA at the signing of a six-year contract worth $31.7 million with global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. This investment replaces and expands NeSI’s national compute and data platform, extending its scope and performance to meet changing needs, and will be commissioned by early 2018.

“New Zealand’s research sector is undergoing significant development, to support collaborative research addressing our larger scale challenges as a nation” said NeSI’s Board Chair, Rick Christie. “NeSI’s partners adopted a collaborative investment approach to shared infrastructure, contributing to a single integrated investment at a scale and sophistication we’d not otherwise achieve as a nation. Today’s signing kicks off a strategic infrastructure partnership powering high-performance New Zealand research over the coming six years.” Read more...

Case study: Shedding new light on dark matter

“This was a computationally challenging project and would have been impossible without the serious muscle NeSI provided. The NeSI platform tied together a collaboration between scientists based in New Zealand, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom."

Richard Easther, Head of the Physics Department at the University of Auckland, has been asking questions about the universe for more than 20 years. He’s uncovered just as many new questions as answers in that time, but he and colleagues at Auckland and the University of Canterbury, along with a number of international collaborators, used NeSI resources to shed some potential new light on a dark part of the evolution of the universe.

“The universe is continually making space between the galaxies,” says Easther. “The explosion that started our universe is still making space today.” Read more...

NeSI partners with Software Carpentry to expand research computing training


NeSI has signed a Platinum Partnership with the Software Carpentry Foundation, a global non-profit organisation that builds communities and best practices for teaching programming and research computing skills. The partnership will support the delivery of more workshops across the country, increase the number of Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry instructors trained in New Zealand, and will strengthen and build local training communities. 

“This is a significant development for the sector and for NeSI as it allows us to be more progressive in our skills and practice training, and also lifts our ability to advocate and support researchers to build communities from the ground up,” says Nick Jones, Director of NeSI. “While we have been a Software Carpentry member since 2015, this new level of partnership enhances our involvement and improves our ability to work with researchers, institutions, and other partners to advance research computing skills, capabilities, and infrastructure.” Read more...

NeSI Vacancies

We need an awesome Applications Support Specialist

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced HPC Applications Support Specialist to make a significant contribution to the New Zealand research landscape by working within NeSI.

The Application Support Specialist operates nationally, providing front-line support to researchers including installing, porting, testing and troubleshooting science codes, machine access, job submissions and workflows. This position is responsible for maintaining an awareness and understanding of scientific programming and HPC and is a specialised role requiring a background working with scientific applications and previous experience in supporting researchers.

You're already skilled at sharing your knowledge through both formal training events and your day to day engagement, and as you keep growing your professional knowledge about MPI/OpenMP and HPC practices, you'll gain the confidence of research groups around NZ.

If you fit the bill, apply before July 2!

eResearch NZ 2018 | Registrations now open

Queenstown, 12-14 February


Registrations are now open for next year's eResearch NZ 2018 conference from February 12 - 14 in Queenstown.

Join us on the shores of Lake Wakatipu for exciting discussions and debates on the 2018 theme - The eResearch Outlook: Impact, Sustainability and Excellence.


Read more...

In other news...

Recent research outputs

The First Eclipsing Binary Catalogue from the MOA-II Database M. C. A. Li et al. (2017)

Inferring Ancestral Recombination Graphs from Bacterial Genomic Data Timothy G. Vaughan et al., Genetics February 1, 2017 vol. 205 no. 2 857-870

We are always interested in hearing about research outputs generated with the help of NeSI. To notify NeSI of upcoming publications, please email pubs@nesi.org.nz.

Have a question?

If you would like to ask anything, please email us support@nesi.org.nz
 

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