SCinet, SciNet and scinet are not the same

At first glance, SCinet, SciNet and scinet look almost identical. In reality, they represent completely different concepts – from high-performance networking for supercomputing conferences to a Canadian supercomputing center and my own studio scinet from Augsburg.

SCinet – the network of the Supercomputing Conference

SCinet is a temporary high-performance network built annually for the ACM/IEEE Supercomputing Conference in the United States. It exists for only one week but is prepared months in advance by hundreds of experts. Bandwidth reaches the terabit range, making it ideal for showcasing cutting-edge supercomputers and network technologies.

SciNet – Canada’s supercomputing center

SciNet is a permanent supercomputing center at the University of Toronto. It hosts Niagara, Canada’s largest academic supercomputer with more than 60,000 cores and over 3 petaflops of performance.

Comparison

The following table summarizes the differences:

SCinet: temporary high-speed network for conferences (USA)
SciNet: permanent research supercomputing center (Toronto, Canada)
scinet: web design, SEO and web development studio (Augsburg, Germany)

scinet – my studio

My studio scinet is independent from any supercomputing context. The name is a creative reference to “Skynet” from the Terminator universe and stands for technology, creativity and a touch of science fiction.

Conclusion

Identical names do not imply identical meanings. Looking closely makes all the difference.