INDUSTRY

By Steve Fisher, Editor In Chief -- Here at SC2001 Supercomputing Online had the opportunity to speak with two gentlemen who although influential in the world of supercomputing, may not be so well known. The first is Indiana University’s director of academic research and computing, Craig Stewart. The second is Purdue University’s Jerry Sheehan, associate vice president, information technology. Unbeknownst to many, Indiana has become a hotbed of HPC-related activities of late and we wanted to know more.
Supercomputing: Please tell the readers about the Research@Indiana collaboration. What it is, what it's about, why it's important etc. STEWART: Research@Indiana is a collaboration among the leading research and education institutions in the State of Indiana: Indiana University, Purdue University, the University of Notre Dame, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The purpose is to jointly demonstrate the activities of each institution and collaborations among the institutions. In addition, we are showing the impact these institutions are having as a group on the state of the art in high performance computing, education of the next generation of information technology leaders, and the economy of Indiana. There has never been anything like the Research@Indiana collaboration at the IEEE/ACM Supercomputing conference, and I think this reflects well on the institutions involved and on the shared determination to make the State of Indiana a leader in advanced information technology. For more information, see the web site for Research@Indiana at http://www.research-indiana.org/. SHEEHAN: The collaboration among the institutions acknowledges the reality that by working together we can collectively accomplish more than any one institution could alone. Supercomputing: What will Purdue and IU be featuring from their own institutions as part of Research@Indiana? STEWART: Indiana University has had a very busy fall. One of the most significant events was the unveiling of three laboratories that are part of the Pervasive Technology Laboratories at Indiana University (http://www.pervasivetechnologylabs.iu.edu/). Some of the leading scientists from the Pervasive Technology Laboratories will be demonstrating their work in the Research@Indiana booth: Geoffrey Fox, Andrew Lumsdaine, Dennis Gannon, and Steven Wallace will demonstrate grid computing technology, HPC software developments, scientific portals, and high performance networking respectively. We’ll have other computer and application scientists such as Randall Bramley (grid computing), Beth Plale (middleware), and Steven Gottlieb (QCD and system architecture). We’ll also be demonstrating some new advanced visualization technology developed at IU. All in all we’ll have nine research teams represented in the Research@Indiana display, in disciplines ranging from those already mentioned to chemistry, biology, and informatics. SHEEHAN: Computing and Information Technology are undergoing dynamic transformations at Purdue University. From the recent creation of the Office of Vice President for Information Technology, the announcement of a new building for the Department of Computer Science, the continued evolution of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, and the development of the Computing Research Institute, great progress is being made in building on Purdue's traditional strengths in science and engineering. These efforts will be the foundation of the University's new Discover Research Park facilitating cutting-edge ideas moving ubiquitously from research laboratories to the private sector. Each effort fits into a comprehensive strategic planning process underway at Purdue adding over 300 new faculty members in core scientific disciplines. During SC2001, Purdue's Research Team will showcase a number of multi-disciplinary initiatives including: a parallelized climate model, portal environments for scientific research, a security incident response database, wireless resources and middleware, low-cost computing clusters, and secure outsourcing. Supercomputing: What news of particular importance is there from IU and Purdue in terms of supercomputing? STEWART: Well, the new Top500 list is out, and we’re very pleased to find IU’s Teraflop supercomputer – our IBM SP, the largest university-owned supercomputer in the US – listed in 50th place. This is also the first major meeting since the announcement of the NSF grant of $1.8M to create the AVIDD facility (management, Analysis, and Visualization of Instrument-Driven Data). We’re finding a lot of interest in how the Teraflop SP fits into plans for the Indiana Genomics Initiative (http://www.ingen.iu.edu/) and how the AVIDD facility will help us deal with the tremendous proliferation of scientific instruments that produce data at amazing rates. SHEEHAN: Purdue is planning a qualitative upgrade to the University's IBM SP as part of the SUR program. The upgrade will add two new "high" nodes with substantial memory (64GB). Available in the first quarter of 2002, the new capability will enable new research applications in areas such as climate modeling and molecular dynamics which do not traditionally scale well into distributed memory systems. In addition, Purdue and Indiana University are pleased to announce a new initiative supported by the State of Indiana to support scientific collaboration between research institutions in Indiana via a high-speed fiber connection. The project deploys an empowering infrastructure for scientific collaboration in the State, and via an Internet 2 connection, to the nation. Supercomputing: How's your show been? Please tell the readers a bit about what's been going on with you folks at SC2001 here in Denver. STEWART: It has been a tremendously exciting conference. It has been wonderful to be on the show floor again with our colleagues from Purdue, Notre Dame, and Rose-Hulman again after working so long to prepare this display. All told we have more than 50 people from the four institutions here to participate in the conference and put on this display, and it has been a tremendous experience. IU is well represented both in the Exhibition Hall and in the technical paper sessions. The venue is wonderful as well. Supercomputing: Is there anything else you'd like to add? STEWART: If you haven’t already visited our booth you should do so. We’re booth R1161 – just look for the Research@Indiana hanging sign. We’re near the SC Global booth. What’s exciting about Research@Indiana is that there is much more to this than the displays at SC2000 and SC200. Indiana, Purdue, Notre Dame, and Rose-Hulman are creating new technology that will change and advance scientific knowledge. The display represents just one of many aspects in which these institutions are collaborating to press back the boundaries of knowledge as we succeed in placing the State of Indiana in a leadership position in advanced information technology. ---------- Supercomputing Online wishes to thank both Craig Stewart and Jerry Sheehan for their time and insights. ----------