The WFU DEAC Cluster facility was established in July 2002 to provide a centralized research computing environment for the entire University. As cluster-based computing began to see its phenomenal growth, the University administration anticipated the coming demand across multiple departments (mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, and biology) and, starting with an existing departmental user base, began a centralized effort on a standardized platform with dedicated staffing.

To that end, the WFU DEAC Cluster facility provides some important and unique benefits to the campus community:

Reliability: The computational platform is maintained by professional staff, dedicated to the facility.

Support: As high performance computing continues to grow into disciplines not traditionally accustomed to large computational environments, the dedicated staff provides training to new user groups.

Scalability: The cluster can meet the needs of small research groups with big research problems or large research groups with many small research problems.

Flexibility: The cluster and its staff support new technologies as they arise, such as thin client support for research computing or general purpose GPU computing.