User Centers

The primary mechanism for interfacing with the Joule Supercomputer is remote login from user workstations.

Access via VirtualGL/TurboVNC software that provides a full 3D accelerated graphics interface remotely and makes user logins persistent, providing the same active login in moving from workstation to workstation, to laptops or personal systems, or even to the large scale SBEUC (Simulation Based Engineering User Center) special purpose displays. Specialized client and server software was created specifically to tie these tools together securely in an easy to use interface enabling quick desktop access, collaboration and simulation work between users.

Visualization Centers are located at all three NETL sites in Morgantown, Pittsburgh, and Albany. Each User Center features high-resolution tile displays, large screen LCD’s, collaborative workstations, and high speed access to powerful, large memory, specialized compute nodes for visualization and post-processing.

The Supercomputer has dedicated visualization hardware specifically designed to allow researchers to parse and render large data sets from high resolution/massively parallel simulations, these visualization servers in combination with the User Centers are a key component for post-processing of simulation results on the Joule Supercomputer.