KSU Supercomputing Research Project

Faculty Director: Dr. Ken Hoganson
MSACS Thesis Student: Brian Brooks

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution press released describes SURAGrid and the IBM grant of equipment to support that research project. The grid concept is to build a "utility grid" that provides computing power that users can tap into, similarly to the way the electric power grid provides electrical power that users tap into.

KSU is part of SURAGrid through Dr. Hoganson's research efforts along with MS-ACS thesis student/graduate research assistant Mr. Brian Brooks.

KSU hardware committed to the project is our 20 processor high-performance blade cluster, which will be used by students in high-performance computing courses, and for other research projects. The system will eventually be made available to other KSU researchers on campus, after the teething period that is currently in process, in the areas of datamining, bioinformatics, biotechnology, high-performance computing, and other areas requiring supercomputing power.

The local cluster is a great resource by itself, but through the integration with the rest of the SURAGrid, we can tap into vast amounts of computing power. Very cool and state-of-the-art! As participants in SURAGrid, we can tap into ALL of the computer power at ANY participant's location! The computing power is now independent of the a particular location or university!

Besides providing a cluster of high-powered processors as a computing resource available on the grid, the KSU researchers are beta-testing/troubleshooting the connection/setup process and the system integration required to add a system to the computing grid, and are developing instructional materials for use in lectures and class projects available to all institutions that are part of this project.