Written by Carol Sandys (Head of Advanced Research Computing) & Stephanie Thompson Thank you to everyone who took time to respond to the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research’s (PVC-R’s) ‘IT Needs of Active Research’ Survey (pdf of questions available below), open between 23 May to 1 July 2022. Whilst the response rate was lower than in … Continue reading “IT Needs of Active Research Survey News – BEAR”
Category: High Performance Computing
Using BEAR to build a database of global forest disturbance data
In the second case study for September, we hear from one of our BEAR Champions, Nezha Acil, about how she has made use of BEAR storage, data processing and our training throughout her PhD, based on studying global forest disturbance data… My name is Nezha Acil and I am part of Thomas Pugh’s TreeMort team … Continue reading “Using BEAR to build a database of global forest disturbance data”
BEAR: Maintaining Services when it’s 38C + Outside
If you are reading this, you probably know that we did not…. as we could not…. in the face of sustained temperatures beyond the design specification of the Research Data Centre. As with all engineering, there are safe operational limits and decisions are made about the conditions in which the system will operate. Similarly, air … Continue reading “BEAR: Maintaining Services when it’s 38C + Outside”
BEAR Challenge 2022
Update 15/03/24: BEAR Challenge 2024 – registration open! If you are interested in joining BEAR Challenge 2024 and are either an undergraduate or masters student, from any discipline, please see our Eventbrite registration page for details. —- After a two year hiatus, the BEAR Challenge is back! The popular three day event was held on … Continue reading “BEAR Challenge 2022”
How Green is the BEAR? Sustainable Supercomputing
Last week we attended the University’s Sustainability Town Hall where we could be found on the IT Services stand, discussing our response to the challenge of delivering sustainable supercomputing. On our agenda for more than a decade, the major breakthrough for BEAR came with the adoption of direct liquid cooling in 2015. Read on to … Continue reading “How Green is the BEAR? Sustainable Supercomputing”
Requesting BEAR Services – 2022 changes
In April 2022 we have made some changes to how you can request BEAR services (including CaStLeS), and also changes to free vs. premium resources. In this post we’ll set out some of the changes, and help you choose the right forms to use. These changes were authorised by the Research Computing Management Committee in … Continue reading “Requesting BEAR Services – 2022 changes”
New Coding Club Starting Up in January!
[For sessions in May, June and July see here: https://blog.bham.ac.uk/bear/2022/04/26/further-codingclub-sessions-may-july/ ] We are setting up a Coding Club from January for researchers and staff at the University of Birmingham to help them meet the goal of the Software Sustainability Institute of “Better Software, Better Research” i.e. if the software is incorrect then the resulting research … Continue reading “New Coding Club Starting Up in January!”
HPCwire 2021 award winners!
We are excited to announce that researchers who use our advanced computing facilities have been recognised as award winners in the HPCwire 2021 awards! Advanced Research Computing is very proud to provide the BEAR computing facilities to support life changing research at the University, which has again been internationally recognised in these highly competitive, global … Continue reading “HPCwire 2021 award winners!”
The Launch of Baskerville – a Tier 2 HPC system
On the 14th of September, 2021, we were excited to welcome visitors to the University from across the country to the official launch of our Baskerville Tier 2 HPC system, expected to rank in the Top 200 of HPC systems in the world. Invited attendees included our technology partners in the project – OCF, Lenovo, … Continue reading “The Launch of Baskerville – a Tier 2 HPC system”
BEAR PGR Conference 2021 – A view from the inside by Yordanka Dimcheva (Modern Language)
The following was written by Yordanka Dimcheck, who is a PhD student from Modern Languages and was one of the people responsible for marketing. Starting my Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham in a year marked by a global pandemic and unprecedented challenges in terms of how we communicate and do social research inevitably affected … Continue reading “BEAR PGR Conference 2021 – A view from the inside by Yordanka Dimcheva (Modern Language)”