EDUCAUSE | High-Performance Computing and Cyberinfrastructure

Cyberinfrastructure: Changing a Cottage Industry

elilly — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:32:22 -0500

Drawn from a recent ECAR research study, this article addresses the importance of five CI technologies to various academic areas in research and in teaching and learning at present and how survey respondents think the importance of these technologies might change in the near future.

Making Research and Education Cyberinfrastructure Real

elilly — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:25:51 -0500

Providing an evolving foundation for 21st-century research and education, cyberinfrastructure is both a focus for invention and an accelerator of innovation, linked through a trajectory that begins with design and evolves to broad-based use.

Higher Education IT and Cyberinfrastructure: Integrating Technologies for Scholarship Roadmap

elilly — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:36:51 -0500

This ECAR roadmap synthesizes the important issues and recommended actions drawn from the 2008 study, Higher Education IT and Cyberinfrastructure: Integrating Technologies for Scholarship , by Mark C. Sheehan. The ECAR research study explores higher education’s involvement in five areas of research-related information technologies: high-performance computing resources, cyberinfrastructure applications and tools, data storage and management resources, advanced network infrastructure resources, and resources for collaboration within virtual communities. The report, which is based on results of a quantitative survey of 369 U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities and consultation with cyberinfrastructure experts and 12 university executives and technical staff members, discusses who uses, who provides, and who funds cyberinfrastructure resources as well as how important each technology is and will be to research and teaching.

Citation for this work: Pirani, Judith A. and Mark C. Sheehan, “Higher Education IT and Cyberinfrastructure: Integrating Technologies for Scholarship Roadmap” (Roadmap). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2005, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar .

Framing the Cyberinfrastructure Discussion on Your Campus

drupal — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:49:02 -0500

Cyberinfrastructure (CI) has joined the lexicon of broad technology terms university leaders must now understand as they enhance campus competitiveness, innovation, and economic development. This discussion session will cover the campus drivers of CI, why it needs to be part of your long-term investment and strategic planning, and ways to frame CI’s importance when discussing the needs of scholars and researchers. Bring your experiences and thoughts to this lively discussion.

Advanced Networking Services: Current Issues in Higher Education

gdobbin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:40:56 -0500

This research bulletin explores the advanced networking issues and investments that colleges and universities that aspire to support their faculty and students in leading edge research and education activities must face in the near future. It is drawn from the work of the Advanced Networking Services Work Group at the University of California, which was charged with evaluating the current state of UC’s networking infrastructure, identifying best practices in global networking activities, and making recommendations to position UC for competitive advantage. The author served as chair of the Work Group.

Citation for this work: McCredie, Jack. “Advanced Network Services: Current Issues in Higher Education” (Research Bulletin, Issue 9). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

Higher Education IT and Cyberinfrastructure: Integrating Technologies for Scholarship

elilly — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:24:44 -0500

This 2008 ECAR research study explores higher education’s involvement in five areas of research-related information technologies: high-performance computing resources, cyberinfrastructure applications and tools, data storage and management resources, advanced network infrastructure resources, and resources for collaboration within virtual communities. The report, which is based on results of a quantitative survey of 369 U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities and consultation with cyberinfrastructure experts and 12 university executives and technical staff members, discusses who uses, who provides, and who funds cyberinfrastructure resources as well as how important each technology is and will be to research and teaching.

Citation for this work: Sheehan, Mark C. Higher Education IT and Cyberinfrastructure: Integrating Technologies for Scholarship (Research Study, Volume 3). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

Developing and Extending a Cyberinfrastructure Model

gdobbin — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:34:45 -0600

This research bulletin explores how to develop, deploy, and extend cyberinfrastructure assets within higher education—both within and across institutions. As research becomes increasingly computational, data-intensive, and interdisciplinary, innovative approaches for functional cyberinfrastructure models become ever more important. This bulletin describes a model that was developed at one institution and then deployed across institutions, with the goal of addressing issues as diverse as the need for simulation systems rather than wet labs, insufficient computational research support to help an institution compete for top-notch faculty, and astronomical spikes in power and cooling demands.

Citation for this work: Alvarez, Rosio. “Developing and Extending a Cyberinfrastructure Model” (Research Bulletin, Issue 5). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

Cyberinfrastructure and Emerging Scientific Data and Knowledge Systems

drupal — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:38:31 -0600

Scientific progress and discovery increasingly hinge upon analysis of a wide variety of data sources. With these datasets growing ever larger and more complex, we are increasingly challenged in the areas of management, preservation, integration, and access to high-level services that facilitate inquiry and hypothesis testing. We are also seeing an increase in geographically distributed resources. For science to advance, we must develop new knowledge-based environments that allow researchers to easily query and analyze vast holdings of diverse, distributed data. NCAR has joined a number of collaborations aimed at addressing critical science and societal challenges, ranging from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Polar Year, regional climate modeling, solar-terrestrial science, digital preservation, and more. We will survey these areas, discuss some of the challenges we face in developing effective cyberinfrastructure, and briefly touch on the important migration towards "science gateways" and knowledge-based environments.

Final Report of the Indiana University Cyberinfrastructure Research Taskforce

ckeller — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:10:20 -0600

This report to the Indiana University Vice President for Research & Information Technology conveys 10 specific recommendations. It recognizes both current progress in cyberinfrastructure development while also proposing new directions for cyberinfrastructure needs and opportunities.

Final Report: A Workshop on Effective Approaches to Campus Research Computing Cyberinfrastructure

ckeller — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:05:58 -0600

Cyberinfrastructure has become a key enabler for scholarly research. Faculty and researchers are becoming increasingly reliant on a mix of high-performance computing and communications (HPCC) hardware, software, networking, virtual organizations, and key research computing support professionals. To help develop a greater understanding of the key campus challenges in cyberinfrastructure, NSF sponsored a workshop developed by Penn State, with assistance from Internet2, in April, 2006. This workshop brought together a combination of CIOs and high level campus technical representatives – CTOs and others with similarly broad responsibilities – to share approaches and common problems, and to strategize about ways in which they would be able to improve their respective institutions’ support for the demands of current and future research computing. Attended by almost 70 people, representing 40+ US research universities, NSF and Internet2, the workshop was well received and feedback to date indicates that it was highly valuable to the participants on several levels.

Cyberinfrastructure Resources and Practices: Survey Questionnaire

ckeller — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:37:25 -0600

This November 2007 survey is a critical component of the EDUCAUSE Center on Applied Research (ECAR) study of cyberinfrastructure in higher education. It seeks to understand the perspectives of information technology leaders and others currently working in universities and colleges. This study updates and expands our communities' understanding of how leading-edge information technology resources for research, scholarship, creative activity, and teaching and learning are utilized, provided, supported, and funded. This study is being conducted through the collaboration of many parties including the Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology (CAUDIT), the European University Information Systems organization (EUNIS), the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR), and the EDUCAUSE Net@EDU Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CCI) working group.

Citation for this work: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. "Cyberinfrastructure Resources and Practices: Survey Questionnaire" (Survey Instrument). Boulder, CO: ECAR, 2007, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

CyberInfrastructure: What, Why, How, and Who's Already Doing It

drupal — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:04:28 -0600

Modern cyberinfrastructure (CI) creates a “distributed computer” with resources dispersed in diverse geographic and administrative domains and the network providing the “backplane” for this computer. This session will present major players in research and education CI and will offer an overview of the CI Days program under way to assist campuses in planning and implementing CI.

The CI Days program is being developed in coordination with EDUCAUSE, Internet2, National LambdaRail (NLR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Energy (DOE). The NSF’s TeraGrid and the DOE’s Open Science Grid build on advanced networking to provide leading-edge collaborative computing infrastructure, Internet2 and NLR provide the enhanced network backplane infrastructure, and the NSF’s International Research Network Connections program offers international extensions. Internet2 also develops middleware tools to enable end users to reliably access CI resources, and EDUCAUSE addresses policy and funding issues involved with implementing and operating CI.

CyberBridges—An Authentic Learning Case Study

ckeller — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:53:12 -0500

CyberBridges trains graduate students how to use cyberinfrastructure (CI) -- a combination of computing systems, applications, and virtual organizations. Supported by NSF, CyberBridges hinges on the hypothesis that technical training of graduate students will not only lead to more rapid scientific discovery but will also trigger greater CI adoption in academic departments. Students are trained in networking and grid computing and then integrate what they have learned into their research to develop innovative tools or approaches. Due to the success of the initial program, CyberBridges has gone "global," involving students in China, Hong Kong, and Brazil.

Cyberinfrastructure-Enabled Learning Environments for Gen Z

drupal — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 10:00:05 -0500

Cyberinfrastructure is revolutionizing the scientific-research landscape and is positioned to similarly revolutionize learning. The challenge for educators is to find an innovative strategy that incorporates the best of traditional pedagogy with new paradigms that reflect our times. This presentation outlines how computation, visualization, storage, and high-speed networks can create novel learning environments.

Real-World Data Applications from Different Perspectives

drupal — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 09:19:10 -0600

In this session we will have the opportunity to listen to some "in the trenches" research efforts and the work being done with real-world data applications. Experiences from the TeraGrid, Open Science Grid, and work with the Earth System Grid will be covered.

Business Models for Sustainable Data Centers

drupal — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 09:47:18 -0600

How do you craft a sustainable business model that will encourage researchers to use the data center in a collaborative fashion while demonstrating to university administrators the investment was worth it? Presenters will share their experiences and initial recommendations from the Net@EDU Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working Group, as well as the consequences of not having a viable plan.

Making Research Cyberinfrastructure a Strategic Choice

drupal — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 10:17:09 -0600

Growing demands for research computing capabilities call for partnerships to build a centralized research cyberinfrastructure.

An Interview with Patrick Dreher

mpasiewicz — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:32:22 -0500

In this 18 minute recording, Bill Hogue sits down with MIT's Patrick Dreher for a discussion about research computing, cyberinfrastructure, and open content.

An Interview with Greg Jackson

mpasiewicz — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:03:08 -0500

This 27 minute recording provides coverage of an interview with the University of Chicago's CIO, Greg Jackson. Listen in as Marilu Goodyear hosts a discussion about patents, cyberinfrastructure and the propsects for a merger between Internet2 and NLR.

Key Needs and Requirements Driving Recent Data Center Implementations-Lessons Learned

drupal — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 10:16:41 -0500

Presented at the Campus Cyberinfrastucture (CCI) Workshop.Presentation provides a profile of how North Dakota State University set out to build a high performance computing (HPC) center, the pains the planners took to secure institutional leadership buy-in, setting up a HPC governance structure, related challenges and the lessons learned to date.

What Do Researchers Need? Higher Education IT from the Researcher’s Perspective

drupal — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 09:28:53 -0500

Research methods, research subjects, the composition of research teams, and collaborative practices have all been affected in ways that are important to those who manage research and information technology (IT) on campuses. The boundaries of any single institution's research computing infrastructure have expanded to include regional, national, and international as well as campus-specific resources. Researchers continue to need speed, flexibility, and affordability when it comes to networking, and IT is still learning how to most effectively support the work of collaborations undertaken at a distance. This occasional paper focuses on the national research agenda, research trends, and IT from the researcher's perspective.

Re-centering the Research Computing Enterprise

drupal — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 12:12:29 -0500

Research computing must remain centralized in order to best serve higher education institutions and the future advancement of research.

Cyberinfrastructure and the Future of Collaborative Work

drupal — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 13:52:35 -0500

Online sharing of data, computing power, and expensive equipment is transforming research and blazing the trail for widespread advances in cooperative efforts in all human endeavors.

E2005 Podcast: Centralize Research Computing

podcaster — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:10:12 -0600

This 48 minute recording provides coverage of the 2005 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Session entitled Centralize Research Computing to Drive Innovation, Really.

IT and the Changing Face of Research in Higher Education

drupal — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 09:35:41 -0600

This research bulletin provides policymakers with an introduction to the evolving national cyberinfrastructure, discusses the role that new networking and enabling technologies play in integrating institutional research capabilities, and describes the impact these technologies may have on today's higher education research and on campus IT planning.

An Interview with Purdue's Jim Bottum

mpasiewicz — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 14:50:00 -0600

In this 33 minute recording, we'll hear from Jim Bottum, Purdue's VP of Information Technology. We'll get his toughts on research computing, municipal networks, Purdue's new Cyber Center, their e-stadium activities and close with a few thoughts on BoilerCast.

This interview is provided courtesy of CNI and was recorded at their 2005 Fall Task Force Meeting. The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity. You can learn more about CNI at their web site, http://www.cni.org

An Interview with Rice's Charles Henry

mpasiewicz — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 17:12:00 -0600

In this 17 minute recording, I sit down with, Charles Henry, Vice Provost & University Librarian at Rice University. Among other things, we'll talk about SHOAH and the ACLS Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for Humanities and Social Sciences.

This interview is provided courtesy of CNI and was recorded at their 2005 Fall Task Force Meeting. The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity. You can learn more about CNI at their web site, http://www.cni.org

An Interview with Microsoft's Tony Hey

mpasiewicz — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 11:44:00 -0600

In this 21 minute recording, I sit down with Tony Hey, Microsoft's VP for Technical Computing.

Let's listen in as he compares e-science research in the US and UK, talks about the prospects of multicore computing, shares his thoughts on the NSF's cyberinfrastructure report, and sheds some light on the challenges of working with very large, high throughput datasets ... the raw materials of research.

He also briefly touches on the UK's Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute (OMII) and as well as their Digital Curation Centre ... an attempt to bring scientists, computer scientists and librarians together to to tackle issues involvingcuration and preservation of massive amounts of data.

More on Tony Hey
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/tonyhey/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/may05/05-17HeyPR.mspx
http://www.cni.org/tfms/2005b.fall/plenary.html

Sorry, I couldn't help but think of REM when Tony began to talk about multicore chips
It's the end of Moore's Law as we know it -- and I feel fine ... ;)

This interview is provided courtesy of CNI and was recorded at their 2005 Fall Task Force Meeting. The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity. You can learn more about CNI at their web site, http://www.cni.org

Centralize Research Computing to Drive Innovation, Really

drupal — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:34:31 -0600

Does the commoditization of computation and storage favor centralized or decentralized approaches to research computing? This presentation argues that the cyberinfrastructure for research is best provisioned as a leveraged central service. It addresses the political, financial, technical, and strategic requirements for developing a shared cyberinfrastructure to fuel innovation and growth.

Infrastructure and Practices to Facilitate Research Collaboration

drupal — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:49:36 -0500

Presentation at the Fourth Annual ECAR/HP Summer Symposium for Higher Education IT Executives, July 13-15, 2005, New Castle Island, New Hampshire. The potential for IT to take research to new levels depends on our ability to acquire, manipulate, store, render, visualize, archive, and transport unimaginable amounts of data. Realizing this potential also depends on human factors, especially the capacity of researchers from different disciplines to assemble virtually and face-to-face to interpret findings from a variety of perspectives. Ferri manages the new Synthesis Center at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and shares insights about how environments there are being organized to foster dialogue across disciplines.