Jump Start Award Winners Focus on Enhancing UCF’s Research Cyberinfrastructure
We are excited to share that two of the 17 teams who were awarded the Jump Start Award from President Cartwright’s strategic investment program are focused on enhancing UCF’s research cyberinfrastructure.
Excerpt from UCF News by Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala below; full article available here.
Enabling Big Data and Computational Science via High-Throughput Networking
Lead: Dr. Shafaq Chaudhry, Assistant Director, Graduate and Research Information Technology
Contributors:
- Dr. Fahad Khan, Research Cyberinfrastructure Consultant
- Michael Scruggs, Associate VP, Deputy CIO & CTO
Award: $500,000, with $70,000 match
The funds will be invested in UCF’s cyberinfrastructure, building up three identified gaps in network support by a) increasing the overall campus network backbone to 100 Gbps; b) increasing our capacity for connection to the collaborative Internet2 research network to 100 Gbps; and c) allowing more labs to access the Advanced Research Computing Center (ARCC). These improvements are expected to enhance UCF’s capabilities across all forms of big-data research, providing the knowledge and connectivity necessary for us to forge our path as a leading public metropolitan research university. The Office of Research will provide a two-year $50,000 match in support of cloud connectivity, and a $20,000 annual match in support of data transfer functionality.
Enhancement to the Stokes High-Performance Computing Cluster, Supporting Cross-Campus General-Purpose Research Computing
Lead: Dr. Glenn Martin, research associate professor and lab director of Interactive Realities Laboratory, School of Modeling Simulation and Training
Award: $495,085, with $200,000 match
The money will be used to upgrade access to computational science research on campus. UCF has been using the Stokes high-performance computing cluster for the 15 years, which gives faculty and students capabilities to design, implement, and use mathematical models to analyze and solve a variety of scientific problems. The system needs updating to keep up with age and demand. The money will purchase modern equipment that will add 60 nodes to replace aging nodes used now. Stokes supports computational research across UCF with users coming from almost every college. In addition, computational research in various domains is increasing and provides a great opportunity for expanding research while requiring little additional space. Each month, multiple users from multiple lab groups across campus use Stokes for their research.