Acquisition of a Large Scale Cluster for Research in Computational Sciences and Engineering

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

This project, supporting various collaborative and integrated research projects in networking, bioinformatics, computational chemistry, wireless communication, molecular/cell biology, and molecular electronics, expands an existing 200-node cluster to an 800-node cluster at LASCA (VaTech Laboratory for Advanced Scientific Computing and Applications). The computational increase enables 8 projects: Advanced networking in massive parallel network emulation, Cell cycle modeling, Multidisciplinary design optimization, Microarray bioinformatics, Nanoscale molecular electronics, Quantum mechanical descriptions of molecular properties, Molecular modeling of proteins, Design and analysis of wideband wireless communication system. The cluster serves as the LASCA focal point for minority internship programs enabling team oriented multidisciplinary graduate education. Moreover, new courses in networking and high performance computing are under development.