CSIRO supercomputer too hard to outsource

Both agencies believe software used in the jointly run High Performance Computing and Communications Centre would make the facility too complex for an independent outsourcing firm to manage.

A government spokesman said the federal Office of Asset Sales and IT Outsourcing (OASITO) had not yet completed its -scoping study" of outsourcing possilities for the supercomputer. He said OASITO was currently working with the scientific agencies to ascertain a beneficial outcome.

-Obviously they (CSIRO and BoM) have their concerns. But those concerns are being addressed. Nobody wants to create problems for them," he said.

Officials from the scientific agencies outlined some pitfalls of outsourcing the facility to a Senate hearing last week.

Bureau of Meteorology director John Zillman told ZDNet it would be -virtually impossible" to outsource the HPCCC's operations without slowing emergency response times and limiting the input of scientists.

-The software is entirely specialised," he said. -There is no counterpart expertise in the private sector."

Zillman said the software run by the centre enabled the country's weather bureau to communicate directly with around 30 other weather bureaux around the world. Outsourcing the HPCCC's operations would be -detrimental to Australia's ability to communicate with those bureaux," he said.

HPCCC deputy manager Dr Robert Bell said an outsourcing contract would automatically limit the range of the supercomputer's capability.

-The very act of defining it (by contract) limits what you can do," he said.

Zillman and Bell acknowledged that the computing centre could run more efficiently by outsourcing some basic cabling and desktop functions.

The HPCCC is said to process data at around 1000 times the speed of a Pentium III desktop and to have cost around the government around AU$50 million over six years.