The Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education (ACCRE) is built and operated by Vanderbilt faculty. Its mission is to enable Vanderbilt researchers to explore and benefit from the “New World” of computing, thereby addressing questions of great societal importance that they would not have been able to otherwise. To achieve this, the center has established the following goals:
- Application Driven: ACCRE emphasizes the application of computational resources to important questions across the diverse disciplines of Vanderbilt researchers, rather than focusing solely on the development of computational hardware, tools, and methodologies.
- Low Barriers: The center aims to provide computational services with low barriers to participation, working closely with researchers to develop and adapt computing tools to their specific areas of inquiry.
- Expand the Paradigm: ACCRE collaborates with the Vanderbilt community to discover innovative ways of utilizing computing in the humanities, arts, and education.
- Promote Community: The center fosters an interactive community of researchers and cultivates a campus culture that supports and promotes the use of computing tools.
- Investigator Driven: ACCRE maintains a grassroots, bottom-up approach, operating as a facility by and for Vanderbilt faculty.
ACCRE provides computing resources flexible enough to support High Performance Computing applications in a broad range of research projects. To meet the growing demand for data storage, the center is developing and deploying solutions for both online and offline data repositories. Moreover, ACCRE offers the necessary hardware for investigators and students to visualize high-dimensional data using parallel graphics and stereo projection technologies. The center’s infrastructure also includes expertise and support staff to facilitate usage, including educational/outreach staff focused on lowering barriers to use and expanding the paradigm to encompass new and non-traditional areas of investigation.
Education/Outreach Mission
The mission of ACCRE Education and Outreach is to enable the broad application of research computing methods across Vanderbilt by lowering the barrier to entry. This goal is achieved through offering periodic workshops and training sessions, as well as engaging with the research computing community at a national level.
The mandatory training covers general computing knowledge that is beneficial even for researchers who do not intend to use the cluster. This training is open to anyone on campus. ACCRE encourages faculty who are interested in learning more about the facility, and how research computing or storage capabilities can benefit their research or educational programs, or those in their department, to reach out for meetings or discussions with groups of interested parties.