University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: November 11, 2005

By ELLEN GOLDBAUM
Contributing Editor

The university and several other educational institutions have been awarded $800,000 by the National Science Foundation to establish a Western New York Computational and Data Science Grid.

The grid will support research that requires high-end computational resources, education in computational science and engineering, and outreach in grid computing.

A computational grid is a state-of-the-art platform in which computers, storage devices and visualization systems from different institutions can be utilized transparently by researchers to solve computationally demanding problems, according to Russ Miller, principal investigator who is UB Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Miller also is director of UB's Center for Computational Research (CCR), the lead organization on the grant and a recognized leader in the emerging field of grid computing. CCR is part of UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.

Several years ago, under previous NSF funding, CCR established its Advanced Computational Data Center (ACDC) Grid, which has been used by faculty, students and staff at UB and other Western New York institutions. The grid is expanding continually and being used internationally while inter-operating with numerous other grids.

The new grant will allow UB, the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI), Niagara University and Geneseo State College to establish formally and expand the Western New York portion of the ACDC-Grid.

"At UB, these funds will allow us to design and deploy critical grid-based infrastructure that will allow for outreach and training to our sister organizations so that they can get up to speed on grid computing," Miller said. "Mark Green, the technical lead on our grid projects, already has been working with these organizations to get them onto the grid and to familiarize them with critical aspects of grid-based software."

"This will allow Hauptman-Woodward, Niagara University and SUNY Geneseo to reach out to resources on additional grids, such as TeraGrid, through the ACDC-Grid Portal or as independent grid nodes," he continued.

He explained that computational grids, which are a key part of "cyberinfrastructure," are critical to 21st-century discovery.

"The federal government recognizes that not only is cyberinfrastructure critical to discovery across a wide range of disciplines in our digital, data-driven society, but that academia must train students in these areas in order to compete in our knowledge-based economy."

In addition to drawing on computational power and resources at many institutions to work on specific scientific problems, the construction of a Western New York grid also will provide an unprecedented educational opportunity for the region, he added.

Many private companies and institutions now have their own computational grids, Miller explained, and universities throughout the country are building or enhancing their high-performance computing centers.

"By educating students about how to work with computational and data grids, UB, Niagara and SUNY Geneseo will be putting students in the strongest possible position in terms of their future employment," Miller said.

UB currently offers a high performance grid computing course at the graduate level.

The NSF grant will allow UB's partners to begin integrating grid computing into their educational programs as well.

Co-principal investigators on the grant are Mark L. Green, CCR grid computational scientist; Charles Weeks, senior research scientist at HWI; Mary McCourt, associate professor of chemistry at Niagara University; and Homma Farian, computer science lecturer at Geneseo.