 |
|
DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
|
Applications:
BOISE STATE BENEFITS FROM NEWLY-DEPLOYED CAMPUS GRID
After hearing about the benefits and possibilities of Grid computing, Boise
State University (Idaho) professor Elisa Barney Smith decided that BSU could
use its own Grid network.
The Grid consists of almost 100 computers on the BSU campus and uses a program
called Condor to harness their combined power. Barney Smith uses the Grid,
which came a result of a collaboration with Micron Technology, to compute
complicated research equations.
Micron, a Boise-based provider of semiconductor solutions, uses its own
several thousand-node Grid to run memory chip design programs and quality
control procedures. The company helped spark the idea of a Grid network at
BSU, and its researchers aided in getting the BSU Grid off the ground.
Another BSU staff member, Daryl Macomb, assistant professor of physics, plans
to use the Grid for his own work on pulsars. Although the school has a new
$400,000 supercomputer, Macomb is opting for the Grid, which cost only $10,000
to implement, citing the Grid's ease of use, ease of programming and time
benefits.
As for Barney Smith, her goal with the Grid is to get optical character
recognition systems to to read faded or blurred copies and facsimiles, thus
easing the conversion of of printed materials to digital form. Computing time
for her project has been cut from about 200 hours per round to just a few
hours.
As more professors become aware of the Grid, demand will undoubtedly increase
and, as a result, hundreds more computers should be added. Although the Grid
will most likely be used by those in the science fields, its scope could be
unlimited -- researchers at various universities have begun using Grids for
work in the humanities, among other fields.
|