High Performance Computing
Overview
The Research Computing Centre manages central High Performance Computing resources at UQ.
Central HPC facilities at UQ currently comprise the Bunya, Tinaroo, and Wiener clusters.
Note that HPCs Awoonga and FlashLite were decommissioned in March 2022 and January 2023 respectively as they had reached end-of-life status. If you were previously using Awoonga or FlashLite, please check our Bunya, Tinaroo and Wiener webpages about how to access those HPCs, or email the RCC Support Desk for guidance: rcc-support@uq.edu.au.
HPC Accounts
UQ staff and research students are entitled to free HPC accounts but need to apply.
To open an HPC account for research, UQ staff and students should do the following:
- Register for a QRIScloud account if they do not already have one (register at QRIScloud). Registration for Tinaroo is through QRIScloud.
- Request a cluster-specific service, i.e. Bunya, Tinaroo or Wiener. (See the Bunya, Tinaroo and Wiener webpages for further information about getting an account.)
Once your account has been created, your access details for HPC will be confirmed via email.
For any other support requests, please contact the RCC Support Desk: rcc-support@uq.edu.au.
Training
UQ staff and research students may want to attend a training session to familiarise themselves with UQ's HPC environment. Training is provided monthly, and researchers are welcome to consult with the RCC’s HPC staff about their projects — just email: rcc-support@uq.edu.au.
Advanced Computing Strategy
In 2013, the Research Computing Centre developed a strategy of broadening the infrastructure base for supporting computational research at UQ. This strategy is built on the belief that it is more cost effective to partition the application space into niches and serve these by different machines. These are:
- Very large tightly coupled parallel jobs that support NCG funded research
- Tightly coupled parallel jobs that support emergent research or require local infrastructure
- Loosely-coupled high throughput jobs
- Accelerated computing platforms.
Very large tightly coupled parallel jobs that support NCG funded research
National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) at the Australian National University (ANU) best serves these jobs. NCI operates a 3,200-node supercomputer called Gadi, that entered production in late 2019.
UQ is currently guaranteed more than 25 million service units (2 service units = 1 core hour) for 2021 on Gadi, through a dedicated ARC-LIEF grant, and nearly 6 million service units from a dedicated QCIF allocation in addition to anything gained through the National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme. The service units from the UQ-LIEF and QCIF share are allocated by RCC and QCIF.
Tightly coupled parallel jobs that support emergent research or require local infrastructure
Tinaroo serves these jobs. Tinaroo, introduced at UQ in April 2016, supports smaller parallel jobs than are executed on NCI, and also serves a more dynamic workload. Access mechanisms are optimised for rapid account creation, which serves post graduate and early career researchers well. It is coupled to a significant data holding on campus.
Loosely-coupled high throughput jobs
The ARDC Nectar Research Cloud is an ideal platform for running loosely coupled jobs.
QCIF operates the Queensland node of the Nectar Research Cloud. The Queensland node is called QRIScloud, and its main data centre is located at the Polaris Data Centre in Springfield, Brisbane.
Accelerated computing platforms
Wiener is specifically for imaging-intensive science, generated by UQ’s world-leading microscopy facilities. It provides near real-time outputs of deconvolved, tagged and appropriately characterised imaging data. Wiener, launched in early 2018, will support UQ’s new world-class IMB-based Lattice Light Sheet Microscope.
Wiener was developed with strategic funding from UQ and a consortium of the university’s various cutting-edge microscopy facilities housed within the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis (CMM), Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), and Queensland Brain Institute (QBI).