IU and Purdue Co-host Inaugural Conference of Nation’s Most Advanced Computing Grid

INDIANAPOLIS – The TeraGrid conference officially opened today with a keynote speech by National Science Foundation (NSF) director Arden Bement. The TeraGrid is the NSF’s flagship effort to build a national cyberinfrastructure—a network of advanced computing and storage systems, advanced instruments and data sources, and visualization systems, to enable new scientific innovation and breakthroughs. Over 400 of the scientists who are creating and making use of the TeraGrid are in Indianapolis this week to discuss the ways it is already enabling new discoveries and future directions for scientific progress in the US.

Composed of nine institutions that provide cyberinfrastructure resources, as well as scientific programs and research groups, Indiana is one of only two states in the nation that can boast two institutions that participate in the TeraGrid as resource providers. IU and Purdue each contribute a percentage of their high-performance computing, networking and storage resources to advancing scientific discovery on a national level; and researchers from both universities are contributing to and elaborating on the development of TeraGrid software.

The TeraGrid was launched by the National Science Foundation in 2000 with a goal to create a distributed computing system dedicated to general scientific research in the U.S., a system at the leading edge in operations per second, disk-based storage capacity, and network bandwidth.

Purdue and IU both joined the TeraGrid as resource providers in 2003 as part of an extension to put additional instruments, massive data collections, computing and visualization resources within reach of the nation's research and education community. In addition, the IU School of Informatics, Pervasive Technology Labs at Indiana University, and researchers at Information Technology at Purdue, are contributing important applications to make use of the TeraGrid.

The TeraGrid is a feather in the state’s cap, says Scott McCaulay, conference program co-chair and TeraGrid site lead at Indiana University.

"With its two premier research institutions participating in the TeraGrid, as well as the I-Light network connecting the core campuses, the state of Indiana has truly become a center of high performance computing and networking, the kind of environment that attracts and retains top researchers," McCaulay said.

Sebastien Goasguen, senior research scientist with Information Technology at Purdue, is the conference programming co-chair.

"As all knowledge is taking a digital form,” says Goasguen, “information systems are key for science and learning. When you have more information, you need more networks to move that information around—from the universities and companies to the researchers’ desks and households.

“The TeraGrid is pioneering high bandwidth network technologies and software to link the resources together—what is known as grid technologies. IU and Purdue’s participation in the TeraGrid pushes us to learn and develop technologies that the state will need to remain prominent in the information age," Goasguen said.

TeraGrid ’06 will bring to Indianapolis scientists and researchers who have been enabled by the TeraGrid to perform so-called “big science;” that is, to ask the big questions regarding climate modeling, earthquake prediction, weather forecasting, medical visualization, and infectious disease modeling. Many of those attending this inaugural conference, co-sponsored by Purdue and IU and being held on the IUPUI campus, will present the results of their research.

The other institutions that comprise the TeraGrid are the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the Texas Advanced Computing Center, the University of Chicago-Argonne National Laboratory, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

More information about the research being conducted via the TeraGrid is available at the conference web site at http://www.teragrid.org/events/2006conference/index.html

ABOUT PERVASIVE TECHNOLOGY LABS AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY: Pervasive Technology Labs at Indiana University (pervasive.iu.edu), established in 1999 by a grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc., performs leading-edge research based on the ubiquity of information technology in today's world, creating new inventions, devices, and software that extend the capabilities of information technology in advanced research and everyday life. Fundamental to its mission are efforts to attract, encourage, educate, and retain Indiana 's workforce of tomorrow, and to accelerate economic growth in the State through the commercialization of new inventions and by forming and supporting new start-up companies. In carrying out its mission, Pervasive Technology Labs is helping Indiana University maintain its position of international leadership in information technology research and, as a result, is helping to enhance the prosperity of the entire State of Indiana .

ABOUT THE TERAGRID: The TeraGrid, sponsored by the National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure, is a partnership of people and comprehensive resources that enables discovery in U.S. science and engineering research. Through high-performance network connections, the TeraGrid integrates a distributed set of high-capability computational, data management and visualization resources to make U.S. research more productive. With Science Gateway collaborations and education and mentoring programs, the TeraGrid also connects and broadens scientific communities.

Sources:

Sebastien Goasguen, (765) 494-9782l sebgoa@purdue.edu
Scott McCaulay, (812) 855-4716; smccaula@indiana.edu

Media Contact:

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Indiana University
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