High Performance Computing and Cyberinfrastructure Research Lab

The Purdue Computer and Information Technology High Performance Computer and Cyberinfrastructure Laboratory (HPC-CRL) is a focal point for education, research, and collaboration in the development, deployment, and use of supercomputing, grid computing, and cyberinfrastructure. The HPC-CRL is the first Purdue Polytechnic Institute Exploration Center, which is designed to support and enhance teaching, research, and collaboration among faculty, students, and industrial partners. The lab consists of three areas: research, collaboration, and education. The first area is the Research space, which is the High Performance Computing Data Center. This space is designed to house the most dense high performance computing equipment available today, and can support 25 KW of power and cooling per rack across six racks. This space features a large A/C unit, provision for supplemental cooling systems, and provides 800 Amps of power. The power and cooling systems in this room are instrumented to support research in “green” power efficient data centers, and will allow us to measure the power and cooling footprint of systems and applications. What is especially unique about this space is that it is designed to be open for students, faculty, and industry partners for course work, research, and discovery. The second area is the collaboration area, which is a flexible reconfigurable space designed to support the needs of students, researchers, vendor partners, and faculty. The equipment is this area is on wheels, to allow quick reconfiguration of the space for many different uses. The space is configured today to support five different activity areas: i) meeting and collaboration; ii) whiteboarding; ii) student project space for two classes; iv) graduate student offices; and v) seminars and lectures. The third area is the education/sharing space, which is a small space that can be used for meetings, courses, and seminars.