Acquisition of a Scalable Storage Cluster for Data Intensive NIH Research

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DESCRIPTION: Scientists at UC Riverside work on a wide spectrum of research topics critical to human health including neuroscience, cancer research, environmental health, wound healing, degenerative and infectious diseases. Modern large-scale genomics and computational modeling approaches are routinely applied in this research, such as next generation sequencing (NGS) and numerous other high- throughput technologies. Because these technologies output extremely large data sets, disk-based data storage required to process these "Big Data" efficiently has become a major bottleneck to support the computational needs of NIH-funded biomedical research. UC Riverside's research compute infrastructure is provided by a central bioinformatics facility located in the Institute for Integrative Genome Biology (IIGB), which houses three additional technology cores (Genomics, Microscopy and Proteomics). However, due to the very high demand, the existing storage systems of the bioinformatics facility are operating at maximum capacity impacting its ability to support data intensive biomedical research. This data overflow results often in delays of processing new research data sets in a time- efficient manner, thus slowing down the discovery process of many projects. The objective of this application is to resolve this shortage of data storage resources by requesting funds for the acquisition of a highly scalable disk storage system dedicated to provide long-term support for data intensive NIH research at UC Riverside. Because our disk storage needs (currently ~150TB) increase by a factor of nearly two every year, a storage system with 750GB is required to support our current storage growth rates for the next three years. Funding for growth well beyond year three will be provided by a well- established recharging system. IIGB's bioinformatics facility operates across departments and is committed to serve a broad user base. Thus, the funding for the requested storage system will be a highly cost-effective investment and it will reach a maximum number of NIH investigators at UC Riverside. Moreover, it will benefit a rapidly growing number of new biomedical researchers moving to UC Riverside, as it will be the site of the first new medical school in California in decades. Combined with UC Riverside's diverse ethnicity and research mission, this investment will benefit a wide array of biomedical research directions at a campus that is a major economic driving force in the Inland Empire region of California.