"Although we have a large outsourcing business that includes HPC service and our own HPC servers, the collaborative relationship with Rutgers allows us to scale up our HPC computing resources on demand by provisioning from its cloud," says Gnansambandam. "The partnership also allows us to work three or four years with students at Rutgers on high-performance computing projects. Many of these students are at the graduate level, and we have the chance to see their research and work. It gives us easy access to good talent that we ultimately hire."
Michael J. Pazzani, VP for economic development and professor of computer science at Rutgers, adds, "We wanted to create a high-performance computing resource with expert support for industry in New Jersey and the surrounding region. Part of this effort was to improve our HPC education program where students actually have the opportunity to work on real problems that are faced by companies. The other goal of the program is to actively partner with companies in our region on HPC, including smaller organizations that can't afford HPC on their own but still need it in their data centers."
So what makes high-performance computing tick?
"Rapid parallel processing is what sets HPC apart from other forms of computing," says Manish Parashar, who teaches high-performance computing at Rutgers. "Work is collectively done by multiple processors on a given problem, and an HPC application can process different parts of the data in parallel and then piece these various nuggets of data into a final composite. At the university, we use HPC most often in the social and biological sciences. Being able to develop algorithms that answer unique questions and solve unique problems is now an essential skill set in these disciplines."
Gnansambandam said he sees the same thing with outside enterprise clients. "There is a great deal of learning that is simply ongoing," he said. "We begin the process by sitting down with a client in what we call 'dreaming' sessions. In these sessions, we discuss what needs to be accomplished over a five-year period for the business and what the tough problems are. It is our Innovation Group that actually focuses on enterprise problems that seem to have no answers. From here, this group develops new algorithms and also patents. The algorithms are designed to mine data. Sometimes, we will put together a prototype in the lab to show clients how the algorithm works, and what it can bring toward solving a particular business problem."
The research collaboration between Rutgers and private enterprises like Xerox works just like other research collaborations. "Private enterprises and the state of New Jersey provide funding for research and we dedicate post-graduate students and computing resources for the development of solutions for problems that are difficult for enterprises to solve with their existing IT infrastructures," says Pazzani. "The partnership works because high-performance computing demands a different approach to problem solving that many enterprises aren't familiar with, and we bring students who are educated in these skill sets."
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