MRI: Acquisition of a Supercomputing Cluster for Data-Intensive Computational Research using the Open Science Grid (OSG) Cyberinfrastructure

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Bellarmine University will acquire a 64-node Supercomputing Cluster with approximately 22TB of RAID6 disk storage space to conduct grid-enabled computational research in High Energy Physics using the Open Science Grid (OSG) cyberinfrastructure. The collaborative research activities will be carried out in close partnership with University of Oklahoma, State University of New York at Albany, Purdue University at Calumet, Southwestern University, and a Historically Black Minority-Serving institution, Benedict College. Using the grid middleware resources, this partnership will essentially create a virtual organization that will link all the research participants by bringing together geographically and organizationally dispersed computational resources and people from the six institutions from six different states by developing a platform for shared systematic use of the supercomputing cluster and effective utilization of computational tools. We plan to search for the Higgs Boson and SUSY (Supersymmetric) particles in specific decay channels using the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) data. The physics studies will first be carried out and tested on detailed simulations of particles and their interactions with the detector using the GEANT monte-carlo package. This multi-institutional research team will focus on the development of evolutionary algorithms and computational code to carry out the complex data analyses tasks by studying the various detector parameters - focusing on data reduction and filtering methodologies and pattern recognition techniques for extracting ?discovery level signals? from petabyte-scale datasets. The availability of a supercomputing cluster will serve as a powerful stimulus for the recruitment of undergraduate students in the sciences, especially from the underrepresented groups. The computational research activities with OSG will not only have a significant and a broad societal impact on the educational training of undergraduate students of all races and ethnicity at Bellarmine University, but also has the potential to bring in a new era of grid-enabled scientific research capability at this institution via infusion of this new knowledge. The grid-enabled supercomputing cluster will create precisely the kind of exciting learning environment that will provide the next generation of students at all seven participating institutions with an accessible entry to research and education at the frontiers of computational science, information technology, and cluster/grid computing. These trained students will acquire a solid computational background with broad technical skills and expertise in high performance parallel cluster computing techniques and grid middleware technologies. Using this supercomputing facility, we plan to incorporate the grid-enabled research activities into the academic curriculum by developing an innovative interdisciplinary course in ?Computational Science using Grid Technology.? Additionally, we plan to host a hands-on OSG Summer Grid Workshop/School at Bellarmine University for the undergraduate students from the regional public, private, and minority-serving institutions in Kentucky.