MRI: Acquisition of a High-Performance Computing Cluster for Occidental College

该奖项授予西方学院购买高性能计算机集群，以支持教师跨科学学科的研究和教学。计算在几乎所有的学科中都扮演着越来越重要的角色，西方认识到它对现代研究的中心地位。这个集群将被教职员工和学生用来推进生物学、化学、计算机科学、物理学和经济学的研究。该集群将支持正在进行的研究项目，包括改进计算机使用大数据的方式，研究化学反应，以及了解流体中的热传递。数学、认知科学、社会学和媒体艺术方面的其他学院也将利用该集群进行数值模拟、数据分析和可视化以及数字人文和互动媒体新兴领域的跨学科研究。此外，该群组将为20多门课程的本科生未来的科学职业生涯做准备。凭借西方大学吸引才华横溢和多样化的学生群体的过往记录，该集群提供了一个让更多的人参与尖端科学研究的机会。该奖项将提供基础设施，以支持整个西方学院校园对计算资源的快速增长的使用和需求。为了适应共同绩效指标和合作者的广泛科学应用，拟议的456核集群将由一个主节点、一个存储节点和17个计算节点组成。对大量同时工作的重视支持了教师的研究，同时为本科生培训和课堂使用留下了可用的核心。其中一个计算节点还配备了两个GPU，用于许多研究应用程序所需的高效矩阵和向量运算。计算节点之间的RAM分布不均匀，每个节点从64 GB到512 GB不等，这使得内存密集型和计算密集型用户可以不同地使用节点。该集群还将包括297TB的存储，其中272TB位于专用存储节点上，用于托管生物、化学、认知科学、计算机科学、物理和经济学领域产生的大型数据集。除了实物设备，该提案还要求为研究软件许可证以及将部署、维护和管理仪器的管理员提供资金。管理员将提供技术支持，并创建维护文档和培训材料，加快教师和学生在自然科学和社会科学以及艺术和人文的所有领域对集群的使用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is made to Occidental College to purchase a high-performance computer cluster to support faculty research and teaching across the scientific disciplines. Computation has played an increasingly important role in almost all academic disciplines, and Occidental recognizes its centrality to modern research. This cluster will be used by faculty and students to advance research across biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, and economics. The cluster will support on-going research projects that include improving how computers use big data, studying chemical reactivity, and understanding heat transfer in fluids. Other faculty in math, cognitive science, sociology, and the media arts will also use the cluster for interdisciplinary research in numerical simulations and data analysis and visualization, as well as in emerging areas in the digital humanities and interactive media. Additionally, the cluster will prepare undergraduates in 20+ courses for future careers in the sciences. With Occidental's track record of attracting a gifted and diverse student body, the cluster provides an opportunity to engage a broader population in cutting-edge scientific research.This award will provide infrastructure to support the rapidly growing use and need for computational resources across the Occidental College campus. To accommodate the broad range of scientific applications of the co-PIs and the collaborators, the proposed 456-core cluster will consist of a master node, a storage node, and 17 compute nodes. The emphasis on a high number of simultaneous jobs supports the research of faculty while leaving available cores for undergraduate training and classroom use. One of the compute nodes is further equipped with two GPUs, for efficient matrix and vector operations required by many research applications. An uneven distribution of RAM across the compute nodes, ranging from 64GB to 512GB per node, allows differential use of the nodes between memory-intensive and computation-intensive users. The cluster will also include 297TB of storage, 272TB of which are located on dedicated storage nodes, to host the large datasets produced in biology, chemistry, cognitive science, computer science, physics, and economics. In addition to the physical equipment, this proposal requests funding for research software licenses as well as an administrator who will deploy, maintain, and manage the instrument. The administrator will provide technical support and create maintenance documentation and training materials, accelerating the use of the cluster by faculty and students in all areas of the natural and social sciences and the arts and humanities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.