Advanced computing, Eric Sills, Director

Advanced Computing (AC) designs, develops and supports leading-edge computing technologies for NC State’s core research and teaching missions, including the award-winning integrated High Performance Computing (HPC)/Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) architecture. The group also coordinates OIT R&D projects, with an emphasis on enhancing service delivery and exploring new research and learning modalities.

High Performance and Grid Computing Services

NC State Office of Information Technology (OIT) offers a number of intermediate level HPC services to support research and instruction. These services are available to all NC State faculty.

To access HPC services an NC State faculty member requests an HPC project. Once the project is established, normally within one business day of the request, the faculty member can add individual accounts for students or collaborators. The faculty member who requests the project is responsible for all resource use by that project. HPC services include:

• Distributed Memory Computing
• Shared Memory Computing
• Storage
• Applications
• Consulting and Collaboration
• HPC Partners Program

The Research Computing Committee advises on policies and priorities for research computing services offered by OIT and helps to coordinate with other research computing services within the university as well as broader regional and national resources. Visit the HPC Website for more information about HPC and its services.

Virtual Computing Lab Services

The VCL provides robust and reliable high performance computing facilities for advanced research as well as 24/365 web access for all NC State students to high-end software applications. One of the primary goals of VCL is to deliver a dedicated computing environment to a user for a limited time. This can range from something as simple as a virtual machine running an office suite to a machine room blade running high end software (such as, CAD, GIS, a statistical package or an enterprise-level application) to a cluster of interconnected physical (bare metal) computer nodes.

Visit the VCL Website for more information about the VCL and its services, which are available to students, faculty, university IT departments and global education partners.