Advanced Cyberinfrastructre - Research and Educational Facilitation: Campus-Based Computational Research Support

Clemson University, Clemson SC

Investigators

Abstract

The Advanced CyberInfrastructure - Research and Educational Facilitation: Campus-based Computational Research Support project develops and implements strategies that serve to advance our nation's research and scholarly achievements through the transformation of campus computational capabilities and enhanced coupling to the national cyberinfrastructure environment. Among the project's collaborating institutions are the University of Hawaii, the University of Southern California, the University of Utah, the University of Wisconsin, and Clemson and Harvard Universities. The project brings together education and research institutions that are committed to the vision of advancing scientific discovery through a national network of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (ACI) Research and Education Facilitators (ACI-REFs). Working together in a coordinated effort, the project is dedicated to the adoption of models and strategies to leverage the expertise and experiences of its members to maximize the impact of investment in research computing. Located on the campuses and fully embedded in their local environment, the mission of the ACI-REFs is to extend the reach and impact of campus and national research computing infrastructure on the science conducted by students and faculty. By building a cloud-like environment for advanced computing infrastructure and support, the project seeks to create a community that fosters seamless integration of cyberinfrastructure and domain researchers and expand the reach of researchers involved in the use of advanced cyberinfrastructure across campuses. The project also seeks to develop the expertise base across partner campuses to support information sharing and to facilitate the formation of extended local and national collaborations. The project explores the potential for the creation of a nationwide alliance of educators to empower local campus researchers to be more effective users of advanced cyberinfrastructure. In particular, the project seeks to work with the "long tail" of ACI users - those scholars and faculty members who traditionally have not benefitted from the power of massively scaled cluster computing but who recognize that their research requires access to more compute power than can be provided by their desktop machines.