COMPUTER CLUSTER IN LU TO HELP RESEARCHERS

A Central Facility for Computational Research (CFCR) (Computer Cluster) has been established in the Lucknow university. The fund for this facility was received under the scheme of additional assistance to universities covered under section 12(B) of the UGC Act 1956 by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi. The facility has been established in a room on the first floor of the new building of the department of chemistry.

The computer cluster contains one master node and five compute nodes. Each node consists of 16 processors, making a total of 96 cores. The softwares currently installed are Gaussian 09, MATLAB and Mathematica. The vice chancellor launched the portal of the cluster through which the users would be able to log into the server and use the facility.

Cluster is a widely used term, meaning independent computers combined into a unified system through software and networking. A computer cluster consists of a set of loosely connected or tightly connected computers that work together so that in many respects they can be viewed as a single system. Two or more computers were connected together in such a way that they worked like a single computer, said Prof Anil Mishra, incharge, Central Facility for Computational Research.

This facility was inaugurated by vice chancellor SB Nimse on Thursday. Incharge of the facility Prof Anil Mishra briefed the gathering about the configuration of the cluster and the softwares available. He stressed the need of researchers utilising this facility and also the need of upgrading this as the usage increased. Prof. S Gadre then delivered the inaugural address on doing chemistry on computers. The second session was a user awareness workshop.