Many computations in biomedical research such as simulations, bootstrapping, BLAST searches, and many Monte Carlo algorithms are embarassingly parallel. This means that the computation can be split up into smaller computations; each of those calculations can be performed in parallel threads that do not need to interact with each other. Computations with this feature can be easily distributed, (that is, run on different computer processors), with a gain in speed that is approximately proportional to the number of processors.

The Division of Biostatistics at UCSF hosts a 6 node (12 CPU) distributed computing cluster for biomedical computing. The cluster runs on Apple's Xserve hardware and runs the Mac OS X operating system. Currently we distribute computations using utilities built into the R programming language, a widely-used open source statistical computational system. We are exploring other, mostly open-source, possibilities. The seed money for this cluster was provided by a shared equipment grant from the School of Medicine, UCSF.

In this website, you will find basic information about our system, documentation on how to use it, and who to contact for more information, or if you wish to use the system.