Services & infrastructure

Our eResearch service and infrastructure is structured to follow a research work flow. Our researchers can access services from any part of the service as required.

   

Research planning

eResearch planning service

The eResearch planning service aims to develop and implement a comprehensive technology and knowledge engagement strategy for the effective transition of scientific knowledge into practice.

Collaboration

CSIRO collaboration platform

The collaboration platform combines natural, person-to-person communication with a large shared workspace so people in different locations can work together as if they were in the same room. The platform supports life size video conferencing up to full high definition (HD) and a shared workspace of eight million pixels.

CSIRO Ultra High Resolution Visualisation System (CURVS)

CURVS enables scientists to visualise very large, complex datasets and share those visualisations with colleagues at different locations in real-time using the remote visualisation service. CURVS is being used for a variety of tasks including the collaborative analysis of large 3D images, genome sequence alignments and urban planning based on multi-layered geographical datasets.

Australian Access Federation (AAF)

The AAF has deployed a secure infrastructure to facilitate trusted electronic communications and collaboration within and between higher education and research institutions – including CSIRO – both locally and internationally. We support AAF as both an Identity Provider and a Service Provider.

Data collection

Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN ) project

Our eResearch and the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) are using an electronic laboratory notebook based on commodity software technologies.

Data capture from science devices

The eResearch team supports the capture and management of data from a variety of science devices. These include water resources, public astronomy data, biosecurity, microscopy images, sensors and sensor networks and the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder.

Data management

Research Data Service

The Research Data Service consists of two complementary components:

• our Data Access Portal, which is a ‘self-serve’ web based system enabling our staff members to follow a workflow to upload their data, set access permissions and licensing conditions and approve data for public release
• the RDS Support Service which provides advice and support for managing research data.

Computation

World Class Computational Resources

We provides researchers with access to world-class high performance computing (HPC) through our Advanced Scientific Computing team. These facilities are designed to meet processing needs that exceed a conventional desktop by a factor that might range from approximately two, to greater than 1000.

This means:

• providing a range of hardware architectures to suit different processing requirements
• utilising national partnerships that provide economies of scale and leverage government funding, in order to meet the larger requirements
• providing cloud computing
• supporting the Pawsey High Performance Computing Centre - a supercomputing facility to support the ASKAP radio telescope.

Accelerated Computing Service

Our Accelerated Computing Service is accelerating the performance of computational science applications across a broad range of computing resources. 

Discovery

eTools and workflows

eTools and workflow tools make it easier for scientists to do their work, collaborate more effectively, share and reuse data, and take advantage of capabilities across CSIRO. The Research Data Service provides a catalogue of reusable research tools for our researchers that includes components, algorithms, models and processes.

Workspace tool

Our Workspace workflow platform tool allows users to construct workflows, user interfaces and complete applications quickly and easily. It has numerous built-in features, including visualisation capabilities for 2D plotting and 3D models, file input/output, networking and distributed execution. Users can also extend Workspace functionality due to its plugin architecture.

Advanced Visualisation Service

The Advanced Visualisation Service provides a number of high-end visualisation capabilities including:

• visualisation application support
• remote visualisation
• tiled displays
• stereoscopic display systems
• visualisation software.

Publication

In addition to the Data Access Portal, ePublish is the other key component of the publication capability.

ePublish is CSIRO's publications approval and reporting system. It provides an efficient way to report on the impact of our publications, for assisting science reviews and investment decisions.

Read more technical detail at CSIRO Advanced Scientific Computing [Wiki site].