Astrocomp: web technologies for high performance computing on a network of supercomputers

Astrocomp is a project developed by the INAF-Astrophysical Observatory of Catania, University of Roma La Sapienza and Enea in collaboration with Oneiros s.r.l. The project has the goal of building a web-based user-friendly interface which allows the international community to run some parallel codes on a set of high-performance computing (HPC) resources, with no need for specific knowledge about Unix and Operating Systems commands. Astrocomp provides CPU times, on parallel systems, available to the authorized user. The portal makes codes for astronomy available: FLY code, a cosmological code for studying three-dimensional collisionless self-gravitating systems with periodic boundary conditions [Becciani, Antonuccio, Comput. Phys. Comm. 136 (2001) 54]. ATD treecode, a parallel tree-code for the simulation of the dynamics of self-gravitating systems [Miocchi, Capuzzo Dolcetta, A&A 382 (2002) 758]. MARA a code for stellar light curves analysis [Rodono et al., A&A 371 (2001) 174]. Other codes will be added to the portal in the future.