Collaboration supports data management for research and economic development in South Africa
CHAPEL HILL, NC – The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has joined the iRODS Consortium, the membership-based organization that leads development and support of the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS).
CSIR is a research organization that advances technologies to accelerate socioeconomic prosperity in South Africa. Established through an Act of Parliament in 1945, CSIR supports public and private sectors through directed research in areas such as health, mobility, agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and chemistry.
The iRODS Consortium is a membership-based organization that guides development and support of iRODS as free open-source software for data discovery, workflow automation, secure collaboration, and data virtualization.
Efficient and effective handling of data is crucial to the research enterprise and supporting data management is an important part of CSIR’s function. CSIR provides high-performance computing capability, high-speed network capacity, and a national research data infrastructure to provide seamless access for the research and education communities of South Africa through its National Integrated Cyber Infrastructure System (NICIS) initiative. NICIS includes the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), which provides massive parallel processing capabilities and services; the South African National Research Network (SANReN), which provides high-speed connectivity and advanced networking services; and the Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA), which supports sound data management practices and efficient data-driven scientific and engineering discoveries.
“At DIRISA, we use iRODS to manage data stored in our infrastructure,” said Sthembiso Mkhwanazi, Senior Project Manager for DIRISA. “iRODS enables DIRISA to effectively manage users’ data.”
The iRODS Consortium provides a production-ready distribution and professional integration services, training, and support. The consortium is administered by founding member RENCI, a research institute for applications of cyberinfrastructure located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
“We have been working with CSIR for a few years and are excited they have joined the Consortium,” said Terrell Russell, executive director of the iRODS Consortium. “Their projects and collaborations are very important to the socioeconomic prosperity of South Africa and we are happy to be a part of that ongoing effort.”
In addition to CSIR, current iRODS Consortium members include Agriculture Victoria, Bayer, Bibiothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, CINES, CUBI at Berlin Institute of Health, DataDirect Networks, InfiniteTactics, KU Leuven, Maastricht University, Minnesota Supercomputing Institute at the University of Minnesota, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NetApp, Omnibond, OpenIO, RENCI, SoftIron, the SURF cooperative, Texas Advanced Computing Center, University College London, University of Colorado, Boulder, University of Groningen, Utrecht University, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Western Digital, and four organizations that wish to remain anonymous.
To learn more about iRODS and the iRODS Consortium, please visit irods.org.
To learn more about CSIR, please visit https://www.csir.co.za.
