Since the 1990s, scientific computing has experienced significant evolution and growth, particularly thanks to the development of computing resources. Numerical simulations concerning numerous scientific themes take into account more and more parameters and hypotheses, thus becoming increasingly "realistic." This requires larger data cubes and faster acquisition speeds.
The Côte d'Azur Observatory has long been heavily involved in vector or parallel scientific computing, both in astronomy-astrophysics and in geodesy and mechanics. Since 2005, the OCA has hosted the SIGAMM intensive computing center (Intensive Simulations in Geophysics, Astronomy, Mechanics, and Mathematics), bringing together 6 partner laboratories (Artemis, Lagrange, Geoazur, INLN, IPMC, JA. Dieudonné).
SIGAMM is the culmination of a project that began in 2004 and continues to open up to other partner units, located at the OOV, and to collaborators from all the partner laboratories.
It is a medium-sized center, so it does not aim to compete with large national sites. Its goal is to offer: great flexibility of use, a respectable computing capacity allowing a wide spectrum of problems to be addressed, support for users while remaining a testing ground for developing programs intended for large national centers.
Around a hundred users share the computing time of SIGAMM in numerous research themes: algorithmics, biodiversity, ocean-atmosphere coupling, cosmology, molecular dynamics, magnetohydrodynamics, planetology, plasma physics, stellar physics, rheology, seismology, particle transport, turbulence.
The C.R.I.MSON team (Computers and Computing Resources of the MéSOceNtre) is responsible for the administration, animation, and development of the shared computing center hosted at the Côte d'Azur Observatory.
Its mission is to manage the resources of the computing center, develop the associated services, and animate the user group of this tool.
The team works for and in collaboration with all partner laboratories of the "MéSOceNtre SIGAMM" operation. It administers the operating systems of the computers and monitors production.
The team also assists users in optimizing or parallelizing their codes. Providing advice on development methodology and making high-performance tools available are also part of its missions.
SIGAMM is equipped with 2 clusters with a peak power of 161.4 Tflop for 3672 cores. For more details:
Scientific Officer: Yannick Ponty
User Support: System and Network Administration: Awa Sepou Ngailo, Caroline Tchilinguirian
User Support: Technical Manager: Alain Miniussi
Software Engineering: Alain Miniussi