Office of Information Technology
Sent Date: October 13, 2018
SIUC Office of Information Technology
BigDogsupercomputer access is available for research
CurrentDecember 10, 2016
This past year, Dr. Chet Langin,the Office of Information Technology’s (OIT) Research Coordinator,took charge of SIU Carbondale’s highperformance computer (HPC) BigDog cluster. With Langin in the lead, OIT can now offer faculty and students access to this cutting-edge cyber Infrastructure (CI)supercomputer and assist them with the knowledge and support that they need to use this spectacular research tool.
The BigDog cluster contains 800 CPUs and 2 high performance GPUs, and has a theoretical speedof more than 36 teraflops (one teraflop is a million million) mathematical calculations per second. If the technical specificationslose you, Langin simplifies the tech-speak with this example: “Tasks and calculations that take days or even weeks on a workstation, if they can be done at all, can typically be performed by BigDog in hours.”
Moreover, access to BigDog is free for research to SIU Carbondale faculty and supervised students. Researchers often spend grant dollars on “big” cyber-infrastructure; access to BigDog is as convenient as a departmental cluster, provides more computing power, and frees up funding for other resources. Additionally, BigDog comes with an in-house expert in Langin. This is not to suggest BigDog is restricted to researchers with grant money. Departments, faculty, or students with big projects that require lots of data, computing speed, memory, or storage are encouraged to ask about using BigDog for their research projects.
Need some inspiration? Others are using BigDog or similar supercomputers to do advanced research in biochemistry, pharmacy, medicine, engineering, physics, astronomy, and many other fields; the real limit to what BigDog can do is your imagination. If you are wondering what you could do with a world-class supercomputer, feel free to contact Langin to ask questions and brainstorm ideas.
If you are ready to get started, you can learn how on the Research Computing and Cyberinfrastructure website and apply for a BigDog account online. If you need more information, contact Chet Langin at . Langin will also offer the BigDog startup session on January 24th and again on the 25th at 10:00 am, as well as on January 31st at 1:30 pm in Room 174, Morris Library. Contact Linda Hubbs at to register.
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