University of Houston High Performance Computing Center

The High Performance Computing Center at the University of Houston has provided invaluable support to the Homer Multitext project for several years.  If you have ever used one of our zoomable images, the stream of image data comes from amphoreus.hpcc.uh.edu, a machine dedicated to the Homer Multitext project's work.  In January when I visited the University of Houston, part of the warm hospitality included a tour of the astonishing facilities there.

amphoreus.hpcc.uh.edu is part of this massive rack

Later this spring, HPCC extended their support by creating a second, virtual machine where we can test software in development before moving better tested, stable versions to amphoreus.  One of our first experiences on the test machine has been to use Nexus, a repository management system, as a way to publish versioned packages of software, textual editions and other material created by the HMT project.

Left, Keith Crabb, director of HPCC;  right, Alan Pfeiffer-Traum, system managing magician; center, I attempt to impersonate a professor in a suit.

This support is allowing us to reorganize both the way we make our archival material available to others, and the way we automatically use our archival material internally within the HMT project.  We'll post more details here as new parts of our reorganized system are publicly released.  Meanwhile, once again, thanks to Keith Crabb, the manager of the High Performance Computing Center at UH, and to Alan Pfeiffer-Traum, the system administrator who keeps everything running around the clock.  Their support for the work of HMT editor Casey Dué, and for the HMT project as a whole, is dramatically changing the ways our material will reach the internet.