SPECTRE (Special Computational Teaching and Research Environment) is a new computing service which will provide the University with a state-of-the-art interactive and batch Linux environment.  This includes various programming languages, application development tools and specialised software.

This new service is targeted at academics that need a Linux environment to provide computer based courses and training for undergraduates and postgraduates, and for those researchers who need to carry out processing and data analysis tasks primarily in an interactive, rather than batch, environment.

SPECTRE will be available well in advance of the next academic year to provide users with time to modify any existing teaching materials, migrate their data to the new service and to allow software to be reinstalled. The migration procedures that users will need to follow will be announced soon.

SPECTRE will replace the existing ULTRA service and will share the infrastructure that supports the ALICE high performance computing facility.  For a time, both the SPECTRE and ULTRA services will run in parallel, but the old ULTRA service will be closed in October 2011. At that time any data not migrated from ULTRA will be archived.

As with ULTRA, the new service is available to all students, staff and researchers and is accessible on- and off-campus.

More information on the new service will be available soon, in the meantime if you have any questions please contact ithelp@le.ac.uk, x2253