Griffith University's High Performance Computing Facility, known as gowonda, offers a number of services aimed to satisfy as best as possible all researchers' computational requirements.
The Name?
The name, gowonda , is derived from a legendary figure from the local kombumerri tribe on whose land this HPC cluster is located. Gowonda was a legendary figure who lived in the Nerang Valley. He was from the Kombumerri clan of the Yugambeh people. He was a striking figure - big, strong and easily recognised by his long white hair. His ability to train hunting dogs was renowned. At his command his dogs would round up wallabies and kangaroos and drive them to the hunters. Gowonda lived a happy life, but eventually he grew old and died. The Kombumerri people were very sad. But Gowonda was to return, to the delight of his people. One day a group of children playing on the beach noticed a big dolphin in close to the shore. As they went closer they recognised him as their beloved Gowonda. He was the same person, but now as a doplhin he had a white fin instead of his long white hair. Just as he had taught his dogs to hunt, he was hard at work teaching the dolphins how to drive fish towards Kombumerri men who waited with nets and spears. Gowonda's descendants can be seen today - among every shoal of dolphins they are the leaders, and some have white fins just like Gowonda.
Who Can Use gowonda?
Any researcher in Griffith or QCIF member institution. The cluster is a major increase in capability for Griffith and its partners. The cluster has been funded by two stakeholders , QCIF and Griffith University.
There is no plan to charge for legitimate research usage of the cluster. However, stakeholders do have expectations of their share in the capacity that we will want to meet. Consequently, we will need to be able to account for all usage on the machine to satisfy our stakeholders that their entitlements are being met. Information is provided below about how you can assist in this.
Why use gowonda
Gowonda can cut the time taken to compute problems by running the software in parallel, or by breaking the problem into many pieces, each of which can be run on a separate cpu in parallel. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are also available on gowonda which can significantly improve computing time.
Any publication resulting from the use of this cluster must be acknowledged as "Griffith University Gowonda HPC Cluster"
Quickstart
Interested? You can request an account on gowonda by filling this form:
You may look at the quickstart page for login instructions.
http://confluence.rcs.griffith.edu.au:8080/display/GHPC/Quickstart