IBM Supercharges Computing Grid Through University Partnership

IBM (NYSE: IBM) UNIX-based systems are expected to double the current capacity of one of the nation’s most innovative grid initiatives, uniting resources from 27 institutions in fifteen states, to increase dramatically its research capabilities — from modeling coastal storm surges to advanced genome sequencing. The SURAgrid initiative is actively advancing collaborative work in grid computing to support research opportunities across the southeastern U.S.

Today’s announcement by IBM and the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) confirms in principle a three-year relationship under which IBM will offer SURAgrid member institutions hardware and software, collaborate on SURAgrid projects, and work closely with university researchers to exploit the large-scale computing capability of the SURAgrid. Initial deployments of IBM high performance computing systems acquired by Louisiana State University and Georgia State University are currently in process with an additional system planned for Texas A&M University in early Fall.

The addition of these high performance IBM machines will increase SURAgrid’s compute capacity to about 10 trillion calculations per second — an amount that would take one person with a calculator about eight million years to perform.
SURAgrid harnesses the power of heterogeneous computing systems located at multiple colleges and universities into a single, virtualized entity that enables researchers from participating institutions to run advanced scientific inquiries. The computing grid relies on grid middleware from Globus.org that allows disparate systems to work together, and is supported by high-speed network connections throughout the region, including the emerging National LambdaRail.

While the grid is used for multi-disciplinary research, one special focus will include study of coastal storm surges via the SURA Coastal Ocean Observing and Prediction program (SCOOP), funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

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