The "CC*IIE Networking Infrastructure: Accelerating Science, Translational Research, and Collaboration at the University of Pittsburgh Through the Implementation of Network Upgrades" project adds new capacity and capabilities to the University's cyberinfrastructure enabling research and e-science using high performance computing (HPC) and big-data resources. This project upgrades the campus network connection to the regional gateway, increases network capacity to the University data center, and provides improved utility to collaborators engaged in local, regional, and international science projects. The foundation provided by this new capacity enables enhancement of Pitt's cyberinfrastructure to meet rapidly expanding needs in collaborative and multi-disciplinary data-driven research. Using the ScienceDMZ design pattern improves the movement of scientific data flows and allows new modes of sharing and collaboration. Research projects benefiting from this include scalable approaches for use of extremely large-scale genomics data sets for research in personalized medicine, interdisciplinary collaborations expanding the state-of-the-art in high-fidelity predictions of turbulent reacting flows, and contributions to the ATLAS project involving discoveries in high-energy particle physics.
Improving researchers' ability to exploit capacity and knowledge brings broader impacts within and beyond domain science areas such as high energy physics. Numerous sponsored projects benefit from the improved capacity to local, regional and international scientific resources. New network capacity and capabilities spur new collaboration and education opportunities for undergraduate research, teaching, training, and sharing of data with a larger community of research scientists and network engineers. Project communications include on-campus workshops, meetings, presentations and regular e-based communications to communities of faculty, students, and researchers.
