Parallel Computing at UVI
Abstract
The University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) is an HCBU and the only institution of higher learning in the US Virgin Islands. Currently, UVI has almost 2,000 students, most attend the St Thomas campus, while a significant minority attend the St Croix campus. Scientists from the various fields of research are involved in computational research at UVI: physics/astronomy, computer science, chemistry, biology, and mathematics. UVI s current computing cluster has 10 nodes and 120 cores, but is now more than 8 years old and therefore past the end of its expected life. It is also insufficient for the current research demands. Furthermore, we expect the demand for high-performance computing (HPC) resources at UVI to grow further in the future. We therefore request funds to À purchase a new and more powerful 20 nodes, 320 core cluster (16 cores per node), to replace UVI s current, ageing Bucc cluster. À purchase a new 100 TB disk storage/backup server to store data from the cluster as well as data obtained or produced elsewhere. Students are actively involved in research at UVI, either indirectly (by working with faculty using the cluster) or directly (by running cluster jobs themselves) in research involving the cluster. Each summer, many of UVI s students participate in UVI s Emerging Caribbean Scientists program (a six weeks research project performed with an advisor at UVI). During the semester, many students also work on research projects for credits. The cluster is therefore crucial in order to attract students to do research in high performance computing (HPC). One of the primary on-going HPC projects involving the cluster is a computational astrophysics project on simulating outflows from protostars. Recently, the physics program at UVI has been awarded a NASA-Minority University Research and Education Program Institutional Research Opportunity grant to start a concentration in engineering-physics. We therefore anticipate that some of these physics and engineering students will be attracted to the field of HPC, and that the demand for the cluster resources will increase with more students using it. The computer science department at UVI has recently started a new minor program in data science. We therefore also expect an increased demand for both data storage and compute power to analyze data by both students and faculty doing data science research. UVI s Etelman Observatory (EO) located on St Thomas has now been in operation for more than a year after approximately 18 months of recovery work following the hurricanes in 2017. New astrophysics research grants at EO have led to a dramatic increase in research data being collected at EO, which will also be stored on the new disk server. The main research focus of the observatory is follow-up observations of gamma-ray bursts and gravitational wave sources. UVI students are also actively participating in research projects at the observatory.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 25, 2021
- Source ID
- W911NF2110186
Entities
People
- Jan Staff
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Office of the Secretary of Defense
- University of the Virgin Islands