About
In the past, large scale research computing was provided to University researchers through a central facility, which housed mainframe services. The national computational environment has changed, however, causing campus-based mainframe computer facilities to become obsolete. With an increase in the computing power of small and relatively inexpensive machines, many University researchers built their own independent computing infrastructures, creating unnecessary duplication in some cases and creating an additional administrative burden for research staff.
More recently, University researchers have been able to pool resources and collaborate with each other. This provides the campus with the unique opportunity to support projects more effectively in terms of cost and collaboration. UW-Madison is also well-positioned to help researchers exchange large amounts of data with colleagues and to collaborate globally through our 10 GB/sec 21st Century Network. The Network allows researchers to effectively access and utilize regional, national and international research resources and collaborators participating in projects like the Open Science Grid, TeraGrid, high performance computing centers (e.g., National Center for Supercomputing Applications), and unique research instruments such as the Large Hadron Collider.
Several large-scale computing-intensive initiatives are already well-established at UW-Madison. Some of these are specific to individual research initiatives and others collaborate under the auspices of the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC), which assembles hardware, software and staff resources to meet the needs of researchers and scientists with computing-intensive applications, and the Grid Laboratory of Wisconsin (GLOW).
In 2006, a group of primarily DoIT staff formed to address specific research support needs. The group re-chartered itself in 2007 as the Research Support and Services Working Group (RSSWG), under the leadership of Ken Frazier, who was serving as the interim director of DoIT. RSSWG included members from across campus, and they began doing outreach to campus and hosting educational forums. In 2008, with the hiring of the first CIO and Vice Provost, Ron Kraemer, a Research Computing Executive Committees was formed to further build the campus research computing infrastructure.
Current Initiatives
The Executive Advisory Committee has recommended several initiatives to improve the campus research computing infrastructure, and work is actively taking place - primarily under the auspices of the Campus IT Strategic Plan - to implement them.
Build on the "Researcher View" in the My UW Portal
Three modules are available to access to research-oriented resources in My UW. They help researchers conduct the business of research (e.g., grant set-up, fund management, effort reporting) and collaborate with other researchers on campus. Further development is ongoing.
Build the Campus Research Community
The Research Computing initiative sponsors periodic events to bring together campus researchers, faculty and technical staff to exchange information and ideas, form new partnerships and share resources. Partnering with the Morgridge Institute for Research, Libraries, Graduate School, Laboratory of Optical and Computational Instrumentation, and other campus partners, events will include workshops (e.g., Math-Bio Symposium), the premiere Wisconsin Cyber Infrastructure Day, peer-to-peer brown bag sessions and possibly an annual symposium. Anyone on campus can join the "Research Computing at Madison" listserv to learn about and/or participate in these and other events and discussions.
Support High Performance and High Throughput Computing
The Research Computing initiative is working with campus researchers to identify the need for high throughput and high performance computing, grid resources, and high performance networking in support of research computing. A recent example of a department initiative being shared campus-wide is Euclid.
Evaluate and Invest in Research Productivity Tools
The initiative is assessing the current needs and future potential for expanded or new research productivity and collaboration tools (e.g., Hub Zero, Bamboo, custom laboratory work flow management software, laboratory content management systems). These tools can enhance the research process by providing visualization capabilities, research and laboratory work flow support, collaboration among research colleagues, and data management and curation.
Create and Expand "Boot Camps" for Graduate and Research Assistants
The IT strategic planning process revealed a shared need to create focussed training programs for graduate and research assistants. This "boot camp" model would teach many of the core skills and technologies that these assistants need to know in order to do their work. They would replace the need for researchers and their staff to re-teach the skills to each new cohort of graduate students each year. The boot camps would range from discipline/need-specific to cross-departmental sessions, and would be applicable not only for the sciences but for many humanities programs as well.
Deliver Core Research Resources
In addition to the strategies above, DoIT can help faculty and researchers set up their research programs with the help of these crucial research resources (learn more):
- High-Speed Network
- Server and Data Storage Hosting
- Collaboration Tools
- Grant Administration Tool
- Specialized Software Licensing Programs
- Collaboration with Research Colleagues
- WebSurvey@UW
- Data management and curation
- Local computer and server support
- Software development
- MINDS@UW (institutional data repository)