UGA joins regional research computing grid

Office of the Chief Information Officer Press Release
The University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

CONTACT: David Matthews-Morgan, dmm@uga.edu
Jerry Nesmith, nesmithj@uga.edu

SURAgrid (www.sura.org/suragrid) brings grid technology to researchers

ATHENS, Ga.— UGA has joined the SURAgrid as a contributing member. By joining this collaboration, UGA's researchers will have access to computing resources at twenty other universities through the grid computing infrastructure.

Grid computing is often referred to as a "virtual supercomputer," providing computing resources in a large, geographically dispersed network. The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA)grid is a consortium of organizations collaborating and combining resources to help bring grid technology to the level of seamless, shared infrastructure.

Thanks to a donation from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, the University of Georgia's Research Computing Center (RCC)has received a six-node, eight-way IBM p655 cluster which will be made available to UGA's researchers and the SURAgrid community this fall. UGA will share 20% of the computing capacity of this cluster with SURAgrid participants, and UGA researchers will have access to 20% of SURAgrid's computing capacity.

A list of SURAgrid resources is available from the "Resource Monitor" link on the SURAgrid portal page:

gridportal.sura.org/gridsphere/gridsphere

About the Research Computing Center (RCC)
The RCC is a collaborative effort of the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) and the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). RCC is administered by Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS) and the Office of Research Services (ORS). The mission of RCC is to provide and support world-class research computing and communications resources that enhance the productivity of researchers at UGA, enable UGA researchers to accelerate the rate of new scientific and artistic breakthroughs, enable collaborative research between UGA researchers and their peers at other research institutions, provide effective access to information sources throughout the world, and facilitate the efficient use of information technologies by providing training, outreach, and consulting in the use of hardware and software resources

About the Office of the CIO and EITS
The Office of the Chief Information Officer and Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS) are committed to the mission of UGA as a land-and-sea-grant institution where academics come first and the research extensive university community encourages research efforts at the undergraduate and graduate levels. To that end, under the direction of the University´s Chief Information Officer, EITS endeavors to provide a robust, reliable, and secure information technology infrastructure, maintain essential production services, and offer world-class support.

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