What is RC?

Research Computing

Research Computing refers to the advanced computing resources, software, hardware, and personnel, that are required by researchers from any discipline. In the past this was often referred to as "super computing", but in today's university the requirements for supporting research go far beyond just providing a very fast computing platform. Please see our Services Page. We are always looking for new ways to help researchers, so if you don't see a service you need please contact us.

Computing Resources

Research computing maintains the CIRCE cluster. This system is currently being upgraded to 6000 cores. It uses a Lustre parallel file system for fast IO, and Infiniband for a computational interconnect. The file systems on the cluster are available for remote mounting via several protocols to aid in data movement. USF affiliates can see more details on our Cluster Web Access pages.

Software Resources

Often research needs to use specialized software, or to be able to use particular software tools on advanced hardware. Part of Research Computing is to provide a software portfolio that provides for the computational needs of USF researchers. Research Computing will help you to use installed software, install new packages, or to help debug software issues.

Personnel Resources

Taking a computational task from the laptop or desktop to more advanced hardware and software is not always a simple process. Administering advanced computational hardware and software are specialized skill sets. Taking the results of computational science and engineering and producing
visualizations that will aid researchers or help instruct students requires specialized training and experience. Not all researchers can program advanced computing environments to take advantage of the environment's resources. This programming support is often vital to helping research progress. It is part of the responsibilities of a research computing department to provide this specialized and personalized support.