HUBzero workshop this spring

News of an upcoming workshop for HUBzero users came in over the email transom last week — what’s HUBzero you ask?

HUBzero, a platform which makes using clusters and grid computing easy, is the YouTube of simulation tools–sort of a Swiss Army Knife for deploying and accessing computational research codes, and visualizing and analyzing results, all through a familiar Web browser interface. Built-in social networking features akin to Facebook create communities of researchers and educators in science, engineering, medicine, almost any field or subject matter and facilitate online collaborations. An open source version will be released at the workshop.

The workshop is for existing users (are you one of them? drop in a comment and let us know what you are using it for) and those curious to learn more.

Breakout sessions at the event will explain how HUBzero enables a wide spectrum of projects in science and engineering, health care research, social science and education while satisfying NSF and other grant funder cyberinfrastructure requirements in the bargain. The sessions will include hands-on tutorials covering:

* Setting up your own hub using HUBzero’s new open source software.
* Creating and publishing computational research tools on your hub, along with connecting your tools to supercomputing clusters and other grid resources while largely avoiding the complexities of grid computing.
* Adding new capabilities to the platform with PHP/Web programming.

The workshop is planned for April 13-14 in Indianapolis, Indiana (USA). For more information and to register, go to hubzero.org/hubbub2010. According to the release, HUBzero was originally developed as the underlying technology at nanoHUB.org, a nanotechnology site that now has more than 100,000 users.

…Other hubs link researchers transforming laboratory discoveries into new medical treatments; working to revolutionize cancer prevention, detection, treatment and care delivery; promoting assistive technologies innovation to better serve those with disabilities; improving pharmaceutical manufacturing; and engineering earthquake-resistant buildings, bridges and related structures. A hub will be at the center of the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES), a $105 Million NSF program announced in 2009.