Nimrod Portal cuts through red-tape

1 June 2011

Recent modifications to the University's ‘Nimrod Portal’ means that potential delays in using national High Performance Computing (HPC) resources have virtually been eliminated. The portal login, user registration and issuing of access certificates have all been streamlined.

The Nimrod Portal was developed by the University's e-Science and Grid Engineering Laboratory (Message Lab) of the Faculty of Information Technology.

It is a web-based interface for using HPC that contains a suite of automated tools used to run parameter sweeps where the computational task processes every distinct value/set of values from the data. It is also used for optimisation where a researcher requires the best conditions to generate some ideal outcome, such as minimal drag on the wing of an aircraft.

“Nimrod Portal now has a new single sign-on method for external researchers from institutions that are affiliated with the Australian Access Federation (AAF),” Dr Jeff Tan, who developed the new features, said. 

“Non-Monash researchers can use their equivalent of our Monash authcate access.”

Another change is online access to simpler, short-term Australian Research Collaboration Service (ARCS) certificates.

“These can be easily renewed, in an on-going manner, and can replace annual certificates that involve lengthy renewal procedures,” Dr Tan said.

“Logging in to Nimrod Portal is far more convenient now, and the provisioning of new user accounts has been vastly simplified.

The changes to Nimrod, being maintained by Message Lab and the University's  e-Research Centre, were funded by a grant from the Australian Access Federation and followed consultation with the Australian Research Collaboration Service.