Grant allows IU to process larger data

IU researchers will soon make full use of precise digital instruments that produce massive volumes of information, enabling more accurate pictures of the stars and important genome research with the potential to affect cancer research.\nThe National Science Foundation announced Tuesday it is providing IU with a $1.72 million grant to build a data capacitor, which will temporarily store massive amounts of data waiting to be analyzed by supercomputers, according to a release. \nThe storage apparatus, which will be built by IU technicians, is experimental and will be operational for the spring semester, said Craig Stewart, the IU associate vice president of research and academic computing and the IU chief operations officer of pervasive technology labs.\n"It's really a new idea," Stewart said. "To the best of my knowledge, there's nothing else like it. That's one of the reasons we got the grant. It's an interesting, new idea, and we have the ability to make it."\nCurrently, the size of data sets analyzed by IU's supercomputer depends on how much storage space the computer contains, according to the release. This limits data collected from devices such as telescopes, capable of producing up to one billion pixels. The capacitor will enable transfers of giant data chunks into a supercomputer, saving researchers time and enabling more information to be recorded, Stewart said. \n"The data capacitor will make a considerable impact on researchers in the life sciences, where data management challenges are particularly severe, but researchers of many disciplines will be better able to draw from their data the information and meaning it contains," Michael McRobbie, IU vice president for research, said in a release. "New insights are sure to result from the ability of scientists to better analyze larger data sets than can be feasibly manipulated today."\nHaixu Tang, adjunct professor of informatics and adjunct assistant of computer science, is one of more than a dozen IU researchers who will benefit from the stronger computer muscle. The capacitor will enable him to collaborate with biology professors to research the evolution behind duplicated sections of the human genome. \n"It's very important for our research because most of it relies on computer capacity," Tang said. \nThe astronomy department is also waiting for the data capacitor to be brought into action, according to the release.\n"Indiana University is a partner on the WIYN Telescope in Kitt Peak, Ariz. The observatory there is building a digital camera that will capture more than one billion pixels per image," astronomy professor Catherine Pilachowski said in a statement. "Formerly, processing and serving this kind of data wasn't plausible. The data capacitor is the perfect tool. It's what we needed. It puts us in the big league of institutions that are defining the future of science."\nThe data capacitor will also enable more IU participation in the TeraGrid, an NSF project attempting to create a nationwide cyber-infrastructure of supercomputers for scientific research, Stewart said.