From left to right: Anne Shelton, UAlbany; Jonathan Bednasz, UBuffalo; Eric Warnke, UAlbany; Mark Green, UBuffalo
Research IT Group Joins the New York State Computational Grid
June 24 was a very important day for the Research IT team: UAlbany became a member of the New York State Computational Grid (NYSGrid). The University joined a growing list of research institutions including SUNY Buffalo, Binghamton and Brockport; Niagara University, Columbia, NYU and RIT. This sounds impressive, but what does it actually mean?
The grid was formed by the University at Buffalo's Center for Computational Research (CCR), and consists of many supercomputers and computer clusters located across the state. The purpose of establishing the grid was to provide shared computational resources among colleges and universities. All participating schools are connected and have the ability to utilize the computing resources of any participating institution. Faculty at other schools can access UAlbany's equipment, and our research faculty have access to a wealth of resources housed at other institutions.
While Buffalo's CCR has lead the way in developing the NYSGrid, they realize significant benefits from the participation of other schools. Additional researchers, and computing resources serve to broaden the disciplines that the NYSGrid will be able to serve. Research IT will be working closely with Buffalo to maximize the benefits of this new partnership. RIT staff are already interviewing researchers to assist in the initial development of thier first NYSGrid application.
Many UAlbany faculty are already utilizing High Performance Computing (HPC) systems with the support of the Research IT team:
Professor Scott Tenenbaum, Bioinformatics: The genomics research group at the Ge*NY*Sis Center for Excellence in Cancer Biology focuses on using genomic-scale technologies to study Systems Biology questions with an emphasis on post-transcriptional gene regulation by RNA-binding proteins.
Professor Yongqiang Xue, Computational Nanoscience: The Computational Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (CNN) Group focuses on atomic-scale theory and modeling of nanostructured materials, devices and their applications in information technology and biotechnology.
Professor Alexander Shekhtman, NMR Structural Biology: This group focuses on using NMR spectroscopy to study regulatory protein-protein interactions involved in progression of signaling in the cells.
Professor Timothy Gage, Anthropology: The ongoing research into infant mortality is developing statistical models for fully implementing the approximate determinants model of infant mortality.
A technical overview of grid computing can be found at http://www.ccr.buffalo.edu/grid/content/overview.htm
