Indiana U To Build NSF-Funded Cloud for Science and Engineering Research

Indiana University's Pervasive Technology Institute is building a new cloud environment that will provide on-demand computing and data analysis resources for science and engineering research. The project, called Jetstream, is funded by a $6.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The university is expected to receive a total of $11 million over the next five years to implement and operate Jetstream.

Jetstream

According to a university statement, "Jetstream will be a user-friendly cloud environment designed to give researchers and students access to computing and data analysis resources on demand — from their tablets, laptops or desktop computers. People will interact with the system through a menu of 'virtual machines' designed to support research in many disciplines including biology, atmospheric science, earth science, economics, network science, observational astronomy and social sciences. Jetstream will also allow creators of new research software to make those tools easily available to potential users, speeding their adoption."

As Brad Wheeler, IU vice president for IT and CIO, explained in a press release, "Jetstream is like an 'easy button' giving researchers simple access to supercomputing tools and data sets. They can work from handheld devices or even old PCs and have bundles of the most useful software tools for their research available via Jetstream. As research becomes more sophisticated with big data and computation, tools like Jetstream make it easy for faculty and students to make the best use of the tools they need from just about anywhere."

A multitude of organizations and experts will work with the Pervasive Technology Institute to create Jetstream: leaders from IU's School of Informatics and Computing and the IUPUI Department of Computer and Information Science; the University of Texas at Austin's Texas Advanced Computing Center; University of Chicago; University of Arizona; University of Texas, San Antonio; Johns Hopkins University; Pennsylvania State University; Cornell University; University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff; University of Hawaii; the National Snow and Ice Data Center; the Odum Institute at the University of North Carolina; and the National Center for Genome Analysis Support.

For more information, visit the Jetstream site.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

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