Large-scale projects and highly scalable parallel applications are characterised by large computing time requirements, not only for short time frames, but often for longer time periods. Projects are classified as "Large-Scale", if they require more than 2% of the potentially available core cycles for GCS in one year on a member centre's high-end system, i.e. * more than 36 Mill. core-hours at JSC (IBM Blue Gene/Q), * more than 20 Mill. core-hours at LRZ (IBM iDataPlex), * more than 16 Mill. core-hours at HLRS (HERMIT Step 1). For these large-scale projects a competitive review and resource allocation process is established by the GCS. Requests for resources below these limits will be accepted by the individual member centres. Requests above these limits will be handed over to GCS, handled according to the joint procedures, and will be reviewed in a national context. A "Call for Large-Scale Projects" is published by the Gauss Centre twice a year. Dates for closure of calls are usually at the end of winter and at the end of summer of each year. Eligible are applications from German universities and publicly funded German research institutions, e.g., Max-Planck Society, and Helmholtz Association. see also: Current call as PDF (http://www.gauss-centre.eu/datapool/page /71/GaussCall8.pdf) Deadline Large-scale projects (20 Mill. core hours or more for SuperMUC) are peer-reviewed by a committee of the GCS. The deadline for the next application is 31 August 2012, 17:00. Answering the Call Leading, ground-breaking projects should deal with complex, demanding, innovative simulations that would not be possible without the GCS infrastructure, and which can benefit from the exceptional resources provided by GCS. Application for a large-scale project should be performed by filling in the appropriate electronic application form that can be accessed from the GCS web page "Computing Time" (http://www.gauss-centre.eu/ computing-time) Note that the regular application forms of the GCS member centres can be reached from there, and users are required to choose a centre that provides the architecture and software most appropriate for their programs. The proposals for large-scale projects will be first reviewed with respect to their technical feasibility. Afterwards, they will be peer-reviewed for a comparative scientific evaluation. On the basis of this evaluation by a GCS committee the projects will be approved for a period of one year and given their allocations. A project with a running large-scale grant on one of the centres or targeting multiple GCS platforms must clearly indicate and justify this as part of the application. Criteria for decision Applications for compute resources are evaluated only according to their scientific excellence. * The proposed scientific tasks must be scientifically challenging, and their treatment must be of substantial interest. * Clear scientific goals and verifiable milestones on the way to reach these goals must be specified. * The implementation of the project must be technically feasible on the available computing systems, and must be in reasonable proportion to the performance characteristics of these systems. * The Principal Investigator must have a proven scientific record, and she/he must be able to successfully accomplish the proposed tasks. In particular, applicants must possess the necessary specialized know-how for the effective use of high-end computing systems. This has to be proven in the application for compute resources, e.g. by presenting work done on smaller computing system, scaling studies etc. * The specific features of the high-end computers should be optimally exploited by the program implementations. This will be checked regularly during the course of the project Application for Large-Scale Projects for the LRZ@GCS Supercomputer SuperMUC The GCS Large-Scale call is open for project leaders, whose affiliation is in Germany (or is a foreign office of a German institution). Interested researchers from abroad (within Europe) are invited to apply via http://www.prace-ri.eu/hpc-access. Project applications for SuperMUC may be submitted by any scientist qualified in his or her respective field of research. Computing resources are allocated on the basis of independent referees' reports. Apart from the scientific relevance of the project, an important criterion for the allocation of computing resources is that the project can make efficient use of the computer and use a large number of processors in parallel for the simulations. For technical information on SuperMUC, see http://www.lrz.de/services/ compute/supermuc/ Please, first prepare a detailed project description that you will have to upload to the electronic questionnaire as a pdf file. Follow the guidelines (https://www.gauss-centre.eu/computing-time/supermuc/ guidelines) about form, content and size of the project description. Take particular care that * the estimate of the applied computing time is verifiable by the reviewer, * a plot is supplied that shows the scalability of the program under realistic production conditions, and that * you provide information on computing projects and applications for computing time you have with other supercomputing centres. If you wish to add supplemental material to the project description (unpublished manuscripts etc.), please collect that in a second pdf-file. Also this file you will have to upload to the electronic questionnaire. Please fill in the electronic questionnnaire completely and attach the project description and - if necessary - the supplemental material as pdf files. * Electronic questionnaire (https://pound.zam.kfa-juelich.de/ lrz_projekt/) (open 23 July - 31 August 2012, 17:00) * Show, change, print electronic questionnaire (https:// pound.zam.kfa-juelich.de/lrz_prodis/) Please make sure that your data are complete and check them. Finally, please print the application form and send a signed paper copy to : GCS Large-Scale Projects c/o NIC Coordination office Juelich Supercomputing Centre Forschungszentrum Juelich 52425 Juelich Germany This information is also available on our web server http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/services/compute/supermuc/aktuell/ali4367/ Matthias Brehm