Welcome to The Cyber Center at Discovery Park
Vision
The creation of a center of national preeminence in computational methods
for discovery and learning.
Narrative
Cyberinfrastructure (CI) is infrastructure based upon distributed computer,
information, and communication technology. According to the Report of
the National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure,
“a vast opportunity exists for creating new research environments
based upon CI,” but this enormous and complex opportunity must be
“approached in a long-term, comprehensive way.”
The Purdue Cyber Center (CC) has been created to give Purdue a competitive
advantage in creating, disseminating, and preserving scientific and engineering
knowledge. Building on the strengths of its key partner, Information Technology
at Purdue (ITaP), PCI will:
• Develop and deploy new CI technology
• Allow communities across campus to use CI in their discovery,
learning and engagement activities
• Provide powerful drivers for start-ups, new jobs, and economic
development for Indiana by creating a living laboratory enabling the deployment
of technologies for use by real-world applications and researchers
Application Areas
Cyberinfrastructure is a nationally important initiative that describes
new opportunities to develop the underlying infrastructure necessary to
support and accelerate the changing nature of scientific exploration.
The Purdue Cyber Center (CC) will take advantage of 2 important outcomes
impacting discovery and learning; the increasingly interdisciplinary nature
of discovery and the application of information technology to the discovery
process. Whole disciplines and research methodologies are changing because
powerful integrated IT tools are being applied to the discovery process.
The Center is an effort to bring to bear the explosion of information
technology-related discoveries and apply them in a focused manner to the
discovery and learning processes. In addition, the Cyber Center will provide
a venue for all IT-related research, hardware, software, and staffing
to come together in a single venue allowing new discoveries that can have
immediate impact on discovery, learning, and engagement. The Cyber Center
will place Purdue in a competitive advantage by accelerating discovery
which will lead to new avenues of research both in IT and in disciplines
that have not yet realized the full potential for cyber infrastructure
supported research. The Center will institutionalize an integrated cyber
infrastructure that will benefit basic research across the campus. The
co-location and shared research objectives will be powerful drivers in
the development new technology, new discoveries, and new businesses. This
will result in start-up businesses, new jobs, and economic development
for the State of Indiana.
The Cyber Center will build upon current strengths in cyberinfrastructure
at Purdue including the NSF funded TeraGrid, the NSF funded National Middleware
Initiative, the Department of Energy (DOE) and NSF funded CMS physics
grid, the congressionally funded DOE Northwest Indiana Computational Grid
(NWICG), and the Homeland Security Measured Response project. While Purdue
has great capabilities in many areas, there is a lack of strategic focus
and organization structure to unify these components into a whole supporting
the deep integration necessary to give Purdue a competitive edge.
This Center will also include the coordination of many centers and initiatives
under a single umbrella effort that can gainfully contribute to a university
wide cyber infrastructure (CERIAS, CRI, CWSA, Teragrid, Tier 2 CMS, NMI
middleware, NCN, ITaP, NWICG, PHSI, etc.). Establishing a federated organization
to coordinate cyber infrastructure activities would meet the growing needs
of the community, become a force multiplier for existing and new Discovery
Park Centers, substantially help progress in existing initiatives, and
enable Purdue to achieve pre-eminence in this critical area.
The co-location of the Center in Discovery Park will accelerate the creation,
distillation, dissemination, and utilization of new science, technologies,
processes, systems, algorithms, and protocols for all Discovery Park initiatives.
The Cyber Center will engage in fundamental research in computational
science and engineering, develop applications from the results of the
fundamental research, and deploy the applications through ITaP to the
research community at large, to students, and externally to business and
industry.
What is Cyberinfrastructure?
The application of and innovations in new hardware, software, brainpower,
services, personnel, and organizations that support knowledge environments
for discovery, learning, and engagement.
Cyberinfrastructure at Purdue: Why now?
• Access to substantial funding that is being supported by major
federal agencies.
• Relieve researchers and educators from creating cyberinfrastructure
environments themselves allowing them to broaden the breadth of their
intellectual efforts.
• Leverage opportunities to generate more “bang for the buck”
from individual investments made by the University.
Cyber Center Vision
• Focusing on cyberinfrastructure research in support of specific
high impact areas.
• Leading and collaborating with Purdue Centers and Institutes on
large-scale CI Projects.
• Acting as a force multiplier to attract major initiatives to Purdue.
• Facilitating and coordinating external communications of Purdue
CI
Cyber Center Impact
Innovation and Quality:
• Create a unique cyberinfrastructure environment not found anywhere
else in the country
• Leverage cyberinfrastructure advances from rapidly developing
fields into those that are not developing as rapidly
• Advance DP participants in their quest to be integrated into the
emerging national cyberinfrastructure
Leverage and Interdisciplinary Cooperation
• Establish a federated organization for cyberinfrastructure activities
• Foster innovation and accelerate progress for the cyberinfrastructure
enterprise within entities such as ITAP, CERIAS, NCN, ICDS, CRI, and others
• Establish a unified funding strategy
Economic Development
• Powerful drivers for start-ups, new jobs, and economic development
for the State of Indiana
• Being a center of excellence, Purdue will be acting to reverse
Indiana’s “brain drain”
• Create a pre-competitive environment that will increase the ability
to identify potential commercial products.
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