Chameleon Cloud Computing Project enters new phase with $10M award

Published: October 18, 2017

Cloud computing lies behind many of today’s most popular technologies, from streaming video and music to email and chat services to storing and sharing family photos. Since 2015, the Chameleon testbed has helped researchers push the potential of cloud computing even further, finding novel scientific applications and improving security and privacy.

A new grant from the National Science Foundation will extend Chameleon’s mission for another three years, allowing the project led by University of Chicago with partners at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), and Northwestern University to enter its next phase of cloud computing innovation. Upgrades to hardware and services as well as new features will help scientists rigorously test new cloud computing platforms and networking protocols. 

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SILS student awarded Thomas M. Carsey Scholarship in Data Science

Published: October 17, 2017

Xueli Fan, a graduate student in the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at UNC-Chapel Hill, was recently named 2017-2018 recipient of the Thomas M. Carsey Scholarship in Data Science.

The scholarship program gives talented UNC-Chapel Hill students the chance to work on real data science problems and domain science problems that use data and data science techniques in the discovery process. Launched by RENCI, Carsey scholars are paid for up to 20 hours per week to work with RENCI research teams and collaborators. Read more

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Data Fellows project aims to make storm surge predictions faster and more accurate

Published: August 31, 2017

By Nelson Tull

Note: Nelson Tull is a graduate student in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. His faculty advisor, Casey Dietrich, is an NCDS Data Fellow conducting research to improve hurricane and storm surge guidance to emergency managers in North Carolina’s coastal counties. Dietrich’s Data Fellows research builds on previous work supported by the North Carolina Sea Grant program. Other collaborators are Rick Luettich, head of the Institute of Marine Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, Brian Blanton, a senior research scientist and oceanographer at RENCI, and Jason Fleming of Seahorse Coastal Consulting. To learn more about this research, tune into the September 2017 NCDS DataBytes webinar.

When lives are on the line, minutes count but so does accuracy
Storm surge model forecasts are a critical tool used by coastal emergency managers to plan and make decisions. These models must be both accurate and fast to give reliable information in a timely manner as a storm moves toward the coast. The forecast guidance must also be visualized in a way that is meaningful to those who need this vital information. Read more

BRAIN-I project uses RENCI cyberinfrastructure called HeLx to manage brain microscopy images

Published: August 2, 2017
Updated: May 10, 2019

Sharing massive image files just became easier

Today’s advanced microscopes have revolutionized biology by giving scientists the ability to view 3D biological structures at the cellular and molecular level. However, that ability has created another problem: How to share and manage massive image files that can each be as large as 1 terabyte (TB), with possibly more than 50 TBs of data for the entire research project.  (A terabyte equals 1 trillion bytes of data, or about 150 hours of HD quality recording).

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iRODS Consortium welcomes OCF as newest member

Published: July 5, 2017

UK-based technical support provider will now have a role in future iRODS development

CHAPEL HILL, NC – OCF, an organization that specializes in supporting the data challenges of private and public organizations in the UK, is the latest organization to join the iRODS Consortium, the membership-based foundation that leads development and support of the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS).

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RENCI to lead $3 million project aimed at enabling safe and secure data sharing

Published: June 7, 2017

CHAPEL HILL, NC – RENCI and partners at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, Indiana University and the city of Durham, NC, will work together on a project that aims to allow scientists to share and analyze data across institutional boundaries while keeping that data safe and in compliance with regulations that control data location, availability, movement and access. Read more

Presentations at upcoming meeting highlight worldwide uses of iRODS

Published: June 2, 2017

Go to irods.org to register for the 2017 User Group Meeting at Utrecht University

UTRECHT, The Netherlands – Users will take the spotlight during the annual iRODS User Group Meeting, which will feature at least 20 user presentations highlighting the many industries, government agencies, and research institutes who depend on iRODS to manage their data.

iRODS—the integrated Rule Oriented Data System—is free open source software for data management and discovery, workflow automation, secure collaboration, and data virtualization. iRODS software is developed and maintained through the support of the iRODS Consortium, a membership organization with industry and academic members worldwide. Read more

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A sneak peek at iRODS User Group Meeting technology previews

Published: May 23, 2017

New plugins to be highlighted; register now at irods.org

Above: Terrell Russell speaks at last year’s iRODS User Group Meeting.

The worldwide iRODS community will gather June 13 – 15 for the first User Group Meeting to be held at Utrecht University in The Netherlands.

Along with use cases and presentations by iRODS users from at least seven countries, the meeting will offer a glimpse at new technologies that will soon be available alongside iRODS 4.2. Read more

RENCI teams with Clemson and WSU on $2.95 million project to improve and simplify large-scale data analysis

Published: March 30, 2017

CHAPEL HILL, NC – RENCI researchers will work with scientists from Clemson University and Washington State University on a project funded by the National Science Foundation to develop cyberinfrastructure aimed at providing researchers around the nation and world with a more fluid and flexible system of analyzing large-scale data.

The NSF awarded $2.95 million for a collaborative project that will unite biologists, hydrologists, computer engineers and computer scientists to design a system called Scientific Data Analysis at Scale (SciDAS). Read more

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Registration now open for June iRODS User Group Meeting

Published: March 30, 2017

Users of the integrated Rule Oriented Data System (iRODS) from around the globe will gather in Utrecht, The Netherlands to discuss iRODS-enabled applications and discoveries, technologies powered by iRODS, and the future of iRODS and the iRODS Consortium.

Thousands of businesses, research centers, and government agencies located in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and Africa use iRODS for flexible, policy-based data management that provides long-term preservation and federation.

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