at the University of Arkansas

Home Computing Resources Research Optical Networking Middleware Education Contacts User Information   The University of Arkansas supports high performance computing on its campus, within the state of Arkansas, and between regional states and institutions. Areas of emphasis and activity include: High performance computing resources, read more ... Research, read more ... Leadership in statewide and regional access to high-speed optical networking, read more ... Regional middleware and grid computing initiatives, read more ... Education, read more ... High throughput distributed computing with Condor, read more ... Funding is provided from the National Science Foundation, Educause in partnership with Internet2, MidNet, the state of Arkansas, and the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority. Corporate sponsors include Acxiom Corporation, Wal-Mart, Oracle, and others. NSF Awards Computing Cluster The University of Arkansas is home to "Red Diamond," a supercomputer that will help to solve some of the most challenging science and engineering problems in the world today. Problems in storing and retrieving massively large amounts of data using both conventional computer technology and the DNA structure of biological material, calculating the molecular formulas for new drugs, and predicting the behavior of tornados and volcanoes are only some of the problems that Red Diamond will help to solve. Funding for Red Diamond is supplied through a Major Research Instrumentation Grant ( #0421099) from the National Science Foundation and additional support from the University of Arkansas. Red Diamond is a cluster of 128 dual-processor computers using the new 64-bit Intel® Xeon™ processor. Computers are interconnected with an InfiniBand high-speed network, supplied by Topspin, which provides data throughput at over 800 megabytes each second and latency between computers of less than six microseconds. Dell™ is partnering with the University of Arkansas as the supplier and integrator of Red Diamond. Red Diamond is the first supercomputer in Arkansas and will place the University of Arkansas among research institutions that cooperate to solve problems by interconnecting supercomputers to form a global computing Grid. Its more than ten trillion characters of external storage and its processing capability will allow research results from the University of Arkansas to be accessible to researchers and to be calculated by researchers on the Internet worldwide. The name "Red Diamond" is chosen as a symbol of the first supercomputer and unparalleled resource in the state of Arkansas for new discoveries in science and engineering. Arkansas is the home of the world's only public diamond mine and the eighth largest diamond repository in the world. The largest diamond ever found in the United States, originally weighing 40.23 carats, was found in Arkansas. The color red comes from the school colors of the University of Arkansas and from the colors of the Arkansas state flag, which boasts a diamond on a red field to remember the state as a place where diamonds are discovered and mined.