CC*IIE Campus Design: Upgrading the Juniata Collaborative Science Infrastructure

Juniata College, Huntingdon PA

Investigators

Abstract

This project upgrades the campus network for Juniata College to 10Gbps and establishes a connection to Internet2 via 3ROX. Juniata College hosts a high capacity compute cluster for a consortium of undergraduate institutions working in genomics research. The Genome Consortium for Active Teaching, using high throughput Next Generating Sequencing (GCAT-SEEK), provides sequencing technologies and genomic analysis training to faculty and students to support on-going research projects at 132 partnering institutions. Campus networking improvements enable greater end-to-end performance and reliability for students and research users of the compute cluster, and improves network-based access to central resources for computational biology required for research projects involving analysis and comparison of whole genome data sets. The expanded network is an essential advancement as it allows teams of faculty and students to participate in cutting-edge genomics research projects and provide authentic research experiences to undergraduates at the partnering institutions. The increased network capacity enhances undergraduate classroom teaching, enabling students from multiple institutions to simultaneously access the software and computational resources of the compute cluster. The cyber infrastructure improvements include the expansion of the internal local area network (LAN), an increase in Internet2 connectivity, and connections to resources within larger frameworks at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. This strategy presents a financially-feasible model for increased Internet2 connectivity that may be adopted by other small institutions. Design, manuals and tutorials are made available to partnering institutions. GCAT-SEEK activities also include studies of the broader ethical, legal and social implications of advances in the field of genomics. Addressing these topics is critical for training the next generation of scientists, physicians and healthcare policy experts.