Cyberinfrastructure in New York State - Grid Computing: Infrastructure, Service, and Applications - page 30

2.4 New York State Cyberinfrastructure Initiative .......................... 47
2.4.1 Timeline ................................................................................. 47
2.4.2 NYS Grid, Miller's Cyberinfrastructure Laboratory, and
the Grassroots NYS Cyberinfrastructure Initiative ........ 48
2.5 Final Remarks ................................................................................. 51
Acknowledgments ................................................................................ 52
References .............................................................................................. 52

2.1
Cyberinfrastructure sits at the core of modern simulation and modeling,
providing entirely new methods of investigation that allow scholars to
address previously unsolvable problems. Specii cally, the development of
software, algorithms, portals, and interfaces that will enable research and
scholarship by freeing end-users from dealing with the complexity of
various computing environments is critical to extending the reach of
high-end computing, storage, networking, visualization, and sophisti-
cated instrumentation to the general user community.
The grid currently serves as a critical infrastructure for most activities
in cyberinfrastructure. The grid is a rapidly emerging and expanding
technology that allows geographically distributed and independently
operated resources to be linked together in a transparent fashion (www.
gridcomputing.com; www.globus.org; Berman et al., 2003; Foster and
Kesselmann, 1999). These resources include CPU cycles, data storage sys-
tems, sensors, visualization devices, and a wide variety of Internet-ready
instruments. The power of both computational grids (i.e., seamlessly
connecting computer systems and their local storage) and data grids (i.e.,
seamlessly connecting large storage systems) lie not only in the aggregate
computing power, data storage, and network bandwidth that can readily
be brought to bear on a particular problem, but also on its ease of use.
Numerous reports state that grid computing is a key to twenty-i rst
century discovery by providing seamless access to the high-end computa-
tional infrastructure that is required for revolutionary advances in con-
temporary science and engineering. Numerous grid projects have been
initiated, including GriPhyN,* PPDG, † EGEE, ‡ EU DataGrid, § NASA's
Information Power Grid (IPG), ¶ TeraGrid, ** and Open Science Grid †† to

Introduction

* www.griphyn.org/.
† www.ppdg.net/.
‡ www.eu-egee.org/.
§ eu-datagrid.web.cern.ch/eu-datagrid/.
¶ www.gloriad.org/gloriad/projects/project000053.html.
** www.teragrid.org/.
††

www.opensciencegrid.org/.