Welcome to the first instalment in a series of “Hints and Tips” from our expert research software engineer and research infrastructure engineers with the aim of making your research that little bit easier to do! In this article Ian Cottam looks at how to transfer your files between the various Research IT computational resources if you use Apple macOS or Linux.

Are you a user of the national HPC service ARCHER? If so you may have seen their announcement about a significant break in service provision to allow for the installation of their new system - ARCHER2.

Like several of the services offered by Research IT, mobile application development by our team of skilled Research Software Engineers (RSEs) should be costed into your grant application before it is submitted.

Researchers from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester have been helping local authorities across the UK plan their carbon emissions reduction strategies with a little help from Research IT.

There has been a lot of exciting news this month regarding our Condor Pool and its new cloud bursting functionality. The good news continues as the Condor Pool has recently hit a milestone of “5000 years” of compute.

The last UoM UK Biobank Community meeting of the academic year took place at the end of June. It featured updates from the UK Biobank conference as well as presentations on how to get started with UK Biobank (a great intro for new users and a good refresher for existing users!), best practice for bulk downloads and Translation Manchester.

If you are currently using Cloud resources but are having to use your own or an institutional credit card to pay for them – help is at hand!

Our Research IT function is a key partner for many of the University’s research community and has never been in such high demand. In fact the demand has increased by around 75% over the last two years!

Angus Hearmon, as our Head of Research IT, has also seen his remit grow. To continue to meet demand appropriately, it has been decided to split the responsibilities of the Head of Research IT in to two roles.

The Research IT Condor Pool has always been very popular with researchers from across The University and we are pleased to announce the latest upgrade to the service.

The Research IT Mobile Development Service (MDS) enjoyed a popular launch back in April 2019 with 6 requests for services received in the first month alone. One project was commissioned immediately, and we are proud to announce it as the first app from the new MDS to roll off the production line. Ahead of schedule, it officially moves into production for release through the Google Play store and the Apple App Store by the end of the month.

Thank you to everyone who came along to the last Research IT club of the current academic year. If you were unable to attend, all the presentations are now available at the links below. There are updates from Research IT as well as the presentations on improving code to improve probabilistic treatment planning for cancer and free of charge performance optimisation and productivity services for your academic and industrial code.

Got an issue with a piece of software or code? Want to speak to someone about using our new data viz lab or our new mobile app development service? Come along to the last drop-in sessions of the academic year and speak to members of the Research IT team face to face!