Date:07/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/07/stories/2007080766090100.htm

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Varsity to set up computational node

Staff Reporter

Network with major institutions on the cards
Speedy access to resources, data

TIRUCHI: Bharathidasan University will shortly establish a computational node on its premises as part of ‘Garuda,’ the National Grid Computing Initiative of Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).

Under the initiative, the C-DAC has networked 45 institutions in 17 cities, including Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. The project to network more institutions is in progress, informed V. Sundararajan, Group Coordinator, Scientific and Engineering Computing Group, C-DAC.

Funded by the Department of Information Technology, the initiative to collaborate science researchers and experimenters on a nationwide grid of computational nodes, mass storage and scientific instruments is expected to convert research investments into tangible economic benefits.

The university was moving in the direction of networking with major institutions, the Vice-Chancellor, M. Ponnavaiko, said. Grid-networking helped speedy access to resources and data since Internet connectivity for a supercomputer was not a certainty at all times, he said, inaugurating a four-day workshop on ‘High Performance Computing.’

The Vice-Chancellor informed that a bio-cluster grid would also be established in the university for access to over 20 leading life science application software packages, said S. Parthasarathy, Reader and Head, Department of Bioinformatics, Bharathidasan University.