e-Infrastructure
What is e-Infrastructure? E-Infrastructure comprises networks, data repositories, computers, software and skills and is an essential tool for research and development both in industry and across fundamental science.
e-Infrastructure - current status
What is the NW-Grid Service?
You can get a 2-page colour brochure to print off here PDF. Whilst this is a bit out of date now, it should give the general story.
A full report of our activity over the first four years can be found here PDF.
The North West Grid, NW-GRID, is a collaboration between Daresbury Laboratory and the Universities of Lancaster, Liverpool and Manchester. With the help of NWDA funding, we have established and operate a computational Grid comprising of high-performance computing systems coupled by a high-speed private fibre network between the sites. NW-GRID offers world-class services founded in the deployment and exploitation of Grid middleware technologies enabling the capabilities of the Grid to be realised in leading-edge computational science and engineering applications.
Universities of Huddersfield and Central Lancashire (UCLan) have recently joined the NW-GRID and the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory has contributed resources.
By subscribing to NW-GRID you can gain assess to many high-performance computer systems, the core of which is connected via a dedicated optical network. A full overview can be found on our infrastructure pages.
The Technology
For an introduction to Grid computing, HPC and related technologies see the TeraGrid HPC University site http://hpcuniversity.org/ .
What can NW-GRID be used for?
Computational power in itself is of no immediate benefit. Where NW-GRID creates real value for your project is the combined access to hardware, open source and commercial applications and expert knowledge from the partner sites. NW-GRID offers a pay-as-you-go service for access to computational resources, application licenses and expertise with a number of pricing models to meet your growing requirements.
Currently NW-GRID has completed simulation and modelling projects in the following sectors. Separate technical case studies are available for each.
- Mechanical Engineering;
- Chemistry (atomistic, quantum and meso-scale);
- Physics;
- Biochemistry and Bioinformatics;
- Medical and Pharmaceutical;
- Social Science (statistical analysis and modelling);
- Data and Text Mining;
- Economics and Financial;
- Geo-spatial and Geological;
- Food and Beverages;
- Nano-technology;
- Fluid Dynamics and Capillary Flow;
- Materials Science;
- Anatomy and Movement;
- Aerodynamics and Aircraft Engineering;
- Weather and Climate modelling and prediction;
- Energy and the Environment.
For further information about access and the services available see the contacts page.