Unity is Arts and Sciences' high-performance computing (HPC) service. But why would you use it?
In general, you might be interested in using HPC if you have some kind of calculation that runs for a long time, uses or produces lots of data, or has to be repeated many times. On Unity, the software tools you can use include a commercial package such as Matlab, a Python or R package that another researcher in your field has published, or a C or Fortran program that you've written and compiled yourself. The traditional ways to use an HPC cluster such as Unity are interactively at a command-line or by submitting batch jobs that Unity schedules to run when resources are available. More and more, however, our users interact through Open OnDemand, a suite of graphical interfaces that ease such tasks as job scheduling and file transfers as well as provide full Linux desktops and specific graphical applications such as Jupyter Notebook and Matlab.
Why not use Unity? Unity is a transactional system, so web sites and permanent databases are not feasible.Unity is a Linux-based system, so Windows programs can run only with some kind of emulator, which often isn't very functional.
Finally, why specifically Unity? We have other choices for HPC, such as the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) and national resources; our references page has links to these resources if you want more information about them. Unity can be a convenient place to "kick the tires" to see if your research problem is amenable to HPC. If it is, you might continue to use Unity or you might find you need the additional capabilities of OSC or a national lab. But Unity is a good place to start.
If you have research computing needs but Unity doesn't sound like a good fit, please let us know and we'll help you find a solution.