PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe, invites researchers from academia and industry to test applications on prototypes of potential future HPC Petascale systems. PRACE partners have installed six systems of different architectures that are now available for assessment.

Applications can be sent all year around. In 2009, applications received by April 15, June 15 and September 15 will be decided upon on May 1, July 1 and October 1, respectively.

One of the main goals of the PRACE project is investigating petascale prototypes and carrying out research into scaling and optimising applications on petascaling machines. In order to access the PRACE prototypes, the applications will be reviewed using a number of criteria. Priority will be given to applications that are different from those already being investigated by PRACE.

Proposals from academia and industry are eligible, as long as the organisation of the project leader is homed in Europe (or a PRACE initiative country). Depending on the system vendor, researchers from some countries cannot be granted access due to export regulations.

The prototypes are intended for testing and not for production work. As a general rule application support (e.g. code development, optimisation, parallelisation, etc.) during prototype testing is limited. Prototype access is granted after a technical review by the PRACE partner hosting the prototype. The maximum test period is three months per application.

Applicants must agree to summarise the results in a report to be sent to the PRACE partner hosting the prototype not later than one month after completion of the work. Applicants must also agree that applicants’ names and affiliations, as well as a summary of the project purpose and the results achieved during prototype testing, may be made publicly available on the PRACE website and may be used in PRACE deliverables and other PRACE documents.