NCRIS National Computational Infrastructure Program

The advanced computing requirements of the Australian research community which were served by the APAC National Facility will continue under NCRIS. A new $75M program called Platforms for Collaboration replaces APAC and other Systemic Infrastructure Initiative programs such as ARCHER and DART. Information about PfC is available at http://www.pfc.org.au and http://www.pfc.org.au/twiki/pub/Main/AeRIC/PfC.ppt provides a concise overview.

The computational aspects of PfC are predominantly addressed by the National Computational Infrastructure component, which is a new program with ANU as the lead agency. The agreement between DEST and ANU can be seen at http://www.pfc.org.au/twiki/pub/Main/AeRIC/NCIAgreement.pdf. The new program will have an investment plan that is oriented more towards research owners (universities and CSIRO) and less at the infrastructure providers. The APAC partnership essentially lives on in the PfC Interoperability and Collaboration Infrastructure component, which is now known as the Australian Research Collaboration Services. Information on this program can be found at http://www.pfc.org.au/twiki/pub/Main/AeRIC/ICIAgreement.PDF.

The transition from APAC to NCI is intended to be as transparent as possible to researchers. An Implementation Committee to guide the transition from APAC to NCI has been formed, and papers relating to its first meeting can be found here.

In short, for users of the National Facility, it is business as usual.

Further information as it develops will be available from this site.