SCIENCE

Officials from the Ohio Supercomputer Center and R Systems announced a collaborative partnership that allows companies to gain easier access to both OSC's Blue Collar Computing programs and R Systems' computational resources and expertise.

OSC and R Systems will build off of each other's capabilities to assist industrial clients. Both will develop and submit proposals to funding agencies that assist industrial clients, as well as subcontract with each other if an end-user needs additional resources, such as OSC's GPGPU cluster and R Systems' Windows HPC Cluster expertise.

OSC deployed the "Csuri" Advanced GPU Environment in May 2010 to increase the Center's capabilities for advanced large-scale remote visualization and batch-rendering applications, as well as GPGPU applications. This environment provides robust visualization and computation capabilities to industry researchers in fields as diverse as finance, film animation, biomedicine and the electrosciences by helping to develop more complex visual effects and image processing.

R Systems offers access to high-end, customized research tools previously available only to elite researchers and Fortune 500 corporations. Through key hardware and software combinations, R Systems provides customizable services based on traditional Linux clusters as well as clusters that run on the Windows HPC Server 2008 operating system. By making Windows HPC Server available, R Systems increases productivity for its customers by using the best operating system for their particular research applications.

"Through our agreement with OSC, R Systems clients will receive a more robust modeling and simulation backbone, in addition to the quick and reliable service they already receive through us," said Brian Kucic, business principal. "By extending our research capabilities through OSC's offerings, we look forward to developing a strong working relationship that benefits new and existing customers."

Companies participating in OSC's Blue Collar Computing program gain access to the Center's advanced modeling, simulation and analysis tools, training, and expertise in order to create product prototypes at a much-reduced cost, examine more innovative approaches to products, and get new products to market faster. The program also uses industry-specific portals to give businesses without in-house expertise a secure interface through which they can easily access processing power and mass storage.

OSC has worked with more than 30 companies and with several technology membership organizations, such as Edison Welding Institute and PolymerOhio. Last month, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) awarded OSC and PolymerOhio $355 thousand to work with small- and medium-sized polymer manufacturers in Ohio and nationwide to implement advanced modeling and simulation into their production line. This Advanced Modeling and Simulation for Manufacturing Program will target polymer companies to help them overcome the technical barriers, costs and training necessary to effectively use these technologies.

"R Systems allows us to continue our mission as an economic driver, by reaching more companies with needed modeling and simulation resources and expertise," said Ashok Krishnamurthy, Ph.D., director of research at the Ohio Supercomputer Center. "Companies that work under this collaboration will realize more efficiencies and economy of scale."

Modeling, simulation and analysis help improve manufacturing processes so that products go to market quicker, reducing development time, cost and labor. In addition, better analysis and documentation of capabilities helps with efficiency. For example, improved factory and workflow layouts increase productivity. Many of these factors can dramatically improve a company's bottom line and increase its competitive edge in the global marketplace.