Argonne National Laboratory

To test cloud computing for scientific capability, DOE centers at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) will install similar mid-range computing hardware, but will offer different computing environments. The combined set of systems will create a cloud testbed that scientists can use for their computations while also testing the effectiveness of cloud computing for their particular research problems. Since the project is exploratory, it's been named Magellan in honor of the Portuguese explorer who led the first effort to sail around the globe and for whom the "clouds of Magellan" - two galaxies - were named.