Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

The LaPalma supercomputer is one of eight nodes located on Spanish territory linked together to form the Spanish Supercomputing Network.

The LaPalma node is located at the La Palma Astrophysics Centre (Centro de Astrofísica de La Palma (CALP)) in Breña Baja.

The installation of the supercomputer on La Palma was a strategic decision aimed at supporting observations at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos—especially once the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) is in operation—and at reinforcing the development of telecommunications on the island.

The network is financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and coordinated from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, where one of the most powerful computers in Europe, the Mare Nostrum, is located. In fact the La Palma node was previously part of Mare Nostrum.

The other nodes in the network are located at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the Instituto Tecnologico de Canarias at Las Palmas and at the Universities of Cantabria, Malaga, Valencia and Zaragoza. Each of these supercomputers is capable of high speed data exchange, task distribution and resource optimization.

Other supercomputing resourses available to IAC personnel

• The Condor Distributed Computing System: The Condor distributed computing facility at the IAC enables researchers to use desktop machines when they are not being employed by other “local” users (at weekends, during the night, etc.).
  Further information: Condor at the IAC.