ACEnet

Atlantic Computational Excellence Networks
Abbreviation	ACEnet
Formation	2004
Type	Consortium
Purpose/focus	High Performance Research Computing
Headquarters	Memorial University of Newfoundland
Region served	Atlantic Canada
Executive Director	Graham Mowbray
Staff	14
Website	http://wiki.ace-net.ca

ACEnet or the Atlantic Computational Excellence Network is a partnership of nine Atlantic Canada institutions to organize themselves into a large scale high-performance computing (HPC) facilities for research. The nine institutions include; Memorial University of Newfoundland, University of New Brunswick, Mount Allison University, Dalhousie University, St. Francis Xavier University, St. Mary's University and the University of Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton University, Mount St. Vincent University and Acadia University.

ACEnet also partners with:

• CANARIE
• Grid Canada
• C3
• The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)

ACEnet is one of seven HPC consortia in Canada that, under the newly announced National Platform Fund (CFI) will share resources and collaborate on various research projects that would never be undertaken by a single entity. The other HPC networks in Canada are:

• CLUMEQ
• HPCVL
• SHARCNET
• WestGrid
• RQCHP
• SciNet

Current ACEnet projects

• The Response of the Labrador Sea Environment to Global Climate Change.

A research project to study the complex response of the Labrador Sea environment to global changes to estimate expected future effects of climate change in this region. With the goal of improving the capabilities of future operational short-term ocean predictions from weeks to months that will provide information that will contribute to extra security measures for the Canadian Coast Guard.

• Optimizing Location-Aware Data Management for Location-Based Mobile Commerce.

A research project to determine the transaction processing challenges in mobile commerce using location-aware data management practices to improve the level of transactional support provided by server-based informational resources to mobile users. The Genesis Group at MUN currently holds a US patent for the location-aware method.

• Protein Folding

Protein folding is a research project to understand the structure and reactions of molecules in the development of drugs and compounds.

• Protein Mineralization

A research project to understand and to develop new therapeutic applications of protein mineralization. This project, by finding ways to manipulate the process of protein mineralization will effect the way treatment of health issues such as broken bones and strokes.

• Thin Film Magnetism.

A research project of Thin Film Magnetism to identify and create new techniques for data storage and data processing and resulting in implications for high speed electronics. Research into fields which include auto magnetic materials, spintronics, and nano-magnetic technology.

• Star formation in high-redshift galaxies.

Study of star formation and feedback in high-redshift galaxies. This project involves simulation of large cosmological volumes using adaptive mesh refinement to resolve the interstellar medium in individual galaxies. The goal is to understand formation and evolution of young protogalaxies when the Universe was about 1-2 Gyrs old.

ACEnet Compute Resources

ACEnet currently has 5 Linux and Solaris clusters, made up of over 100 Sun Fire x4100 and x4600 servers. Sun Grid Engine is used for job scheduling.

An old SGI Altix system and a Sun v60x cluster are also managed by ACEnet.

See also

• Grid computing
• High-performance technical computing
• Distributed computing
• Parallel computing
• Quantum computing
• Metacomputing
• Supercomputer
• Open problems in high performance computing

External links

• ACEnet official webpage