SHARCNET is a consortium of universities in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, that aggregate funding to purchase supercomputer systems, which are shared among the members to perform research, rather than individually purchasing smaller systems at each university. It was formed to allow members access to larger, faster, and more modern computer resources than they would otherwise be able to afford, and to retain researchers at their organizations. SHARCNET is part of the larger

Compute Canada Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

umbrella. , the fastest computer at SHARCNET according to the

Top 500 The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non- distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these updates always coinc ...

list i
Graham
which entered the list as the 95th fastest computer in the world with a High Performance Linpack result of 1,228

TeraFLOPS In computing, floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate me ...

History

SHARCNET was originally founded in June, 2001 with seven institutions:

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood and Westdale, adjacent to the Royal Botanical ...

, the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thames Ri ...

University of Guelph , mottoeng = "to learn the reasons of realities" , established = May 8, 1964 ()As constituents: OAC: (1874) Macdonald Institute: (1903) OVC: (1922) , type = Public university , chancellor ...

University of Windsor , mottoeng = Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge , established = , academic_affiliations = CARL, COU, Universities Canada , former_names = Assumption College (1857-1956)Assumption University of Windsor (1956-1963) , type = Public univers ...

Wilfrid Laurier University Wilfrid Laurier University (commonly referred to as WLU or simply Laurier) is a public university in Ontario, Canada, with campuses in Waterloo, Brantford and Milton. The newer Brantford and Milton campuses are not considered satellite campus ...

Fanshawe College Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology, commonly shortened to Fanshawe College, is a public college in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. One of the largest colleges in Canada, it has campuses in London, Simcoe, St. Thomas and Woodstock ...

, and

Sheridan College Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning (formerly Sheridan College of Applied Arts and Technology) is a public polytechnic institute of technology located in the west- Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. Founded in ...

. Initial seed funding of C$42.1 million came from government, academic, and industry partners. The universities contributed a total of C$8.5 million, th
Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund
contributed C$8.4 million,

Canada Foundation for Innovation The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI; french: Fondation canadienne pour l'innovation, ''FCI'') is an independent not-for-profit organization that invests in research facilities and equipment in Canada's universities, colleges, research hospital ...

and Ontario Innovation Trust each contributed C$6.6 million, Compaq Canada contributed C$7 million, while Quadrics Supercomputing World,

Platform Computing Platform Computing was a privately held software company primarily known for its job scheduling product, Load Sharing Facility (LSF). It was founded in 1992 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and headquartered in Markham, Ontario with 11 branch offices ...

Nortel Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was foun ...

and

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in t ...

contributed a total of C$4 million. SHARCNET was expanded in June 2003 to include the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...

Brock University Brock University is a public research university in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It is the only university in Canada in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, at the centre of Canada's Niagara Peninsula on the Niagara Escarpment. The university bea ...

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,000 faculty and staf ...

, and the

University of Ontario Institute of Technology Ontario Tech University (OTU), also known as Ontario Tech, is a public research university located in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is located on approximately of land in northern Oshawa, while its secondary satellite cam ...

. In December 2005, the partnership grew again with the addition of

Trent University Trent University is a public liberal arts university in Peterborough, Ontario, with a satellite campus in Oshawa, which serves the Regional Municipality of Durham. Trent is known for its Oxbridge college system and small class sizes.

Laurentian University Laurentian University (french: Université Laurentienne), officially the Laurentian University of Sudbury, is a mid-sized Bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public university in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, incorporated on March 28, 1960. Lau ...

, and

Lakehead University Lakehead University is a public research university with campuses in Thunder Bay and Orillia, Ontario, Canada. Lakehead University, shortened to 'Lakehead U', is non-denominational and provincially supported. It has undergraduate programs, gradua ...

. In March 2006,

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI, Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The institute's founding and major benefactor is ...

and the

Ontario College of Art & Design Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within d ...

were added to the consortium.

Nipissing University , mottoeng = Spirit of Integrity , established = , former_names = Northeastern University (1960-1967), Nipissing College (1967-1992) , type = Public University , academic_affiliation = COU, CVU, Universities Canada , endowment ...

and

Conestoga College Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning is a public college located in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1967, Conestoga serves approximately 23,000 registered students through campuses and training centres in ...

joined in 2008 and 2014 respectively, for a total of 18 academic partners (14 universities, 3 colleges, and a research institute). The first system from SHARCNET reported on the

br>November, 2001 list
wa
GreatWhite
which was installed at the University of Western Ontario, and entered the list at the #183 spot with an Rmax of 185.3

GigaFLOPS In computing, floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate meas ...

. This system was notable because it was the fastest civilian system in Canada at the time of installation, and was the first running the

Quadrics In mathematics, a quadric or quadric surface (quadric hypersurface in higher dimensions), is a generalization of conic sections ( ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas). It is a hypersurface (of dimension ''D'') in a -dimensional space, and it is d ...

Elan network on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

References

{{reflist College and university associations and consortia in Canada Higher education in Canada