Consulting Services

Computational Research Consulting

We offer technical support and consulting services for computational research. The broad label "consulting" describes support for U of L researchers ranging from the installation of new software in the HPC environment to collaboration on existing computational research projects or the initiation of new projects.

For simple questions or problems using the HPC environment or to report a bug or problem with HPC hardware, please contact the HPC Helpdesk. For more involved computational problems or for assistance beginning new computational research, please contact a research computing consultant or request consulting services.

Broadly speaking, consulting services are divided into open and extended consulting arrangements. Open consulting is typically limited to 8 hours or less of work on a project per year, but open consulting, as the name implies, is open to everyone. After contacting a consultant, we will respond to your request as quickly as possible. Extended consulting is for longer problems, larger projects, or collaborations between consultant and researcher, and the finite resource of consulting time requires that a researcher submit an application for these consulting services. Extended consulting projects are limited to 160 hours per year. For longer projects, fee-based consulting is available.

Specific examples of projects suitable for open consulting include:

• Installing open source software for a particular user or project
  
• Determining which installed software (if any) is suitable for a particular problem
  
• Discussions for initiating new research projects
  

Extended consulting projects whose goal is to lead to new avenues of research or new funding are given priority, as well as projects involving collaborations between faculty members. The feasibility of an extended consulting project is in part determined by the availability of a consultant with suitable expertise. The research computing division has in-house expertise in database design, optimization, and administration as well as broad experience developing new parallel programs. Specific research experience in computational mechanics, computational classical and quantum physics, and multiscale modeling is also available.

More detailed descriptions of the consulting policies are available.

Contact us at it-hpc@louisville.edu with any questions or for additional information.

Research Computing.  It’s happening here.