RENCI Named Partner in NSF Institute’s $15M ‘Imageomics’ Effort

Sept. 29, 2021 — RENCI,  the Renaissance Computing Institute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has been named as a partner in a new effort to use images of living organisms as the basis for understanding biological processes of life. The project, to be led by faculty from The Ohio State University’s Translational […]

UNC, RENCI Part of NSF Grant for Cloud Testbed

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and its Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) are part of a research team that has secured a $10 million grant to extend the cloud computing testbed project called Chameleon. The four-year grant, funded by the National Science Foundation, will enable the multi-institutional initiative to “broaden in scope.” Among the new features: reproducibility, […]

SUSE joins iRODS Consortium

The SUSE announced that it has joined the iRODS Consortium, the foundation that leads development and support of the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) data management software. “SUSE has a rich history of Linux distribution and open source support, and partnering with them will allow iRODS to make even deeper connections throughout the open source community,” said Jason Coposky, Executive Director, iRODS Consortium. “SUSE Enterprise Storage integrated with iRODS’ data management capabilities creates a compelling and comprehensive solution stack.”

xDCI Infrastructure Manages 3D Brain Microscopy Images at RENCI

Researchers at RENCI are using xDCI Data CyberInfrastructure to manage brain microscopy images that were overwhelming the storage capacity at individual workstations. “BRAIN-I is a computational infrastructure for handling these huge images combined with a discovery environment where scientists can run applications and do their analysis,” explained Mike Conway, a senior data science researcher at RENCI. “BRAIN-I deals with big data and computation in a user-friendly way so scientists can concentrate on their science.”

iRODS Consortium Plans Busy Week at SC16

Attendees of SC16 who are interested in open source data management will have plenty of opportunities to learn about the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) and the new iRODS 4.2, which will be released just in time for the conference.

Dell Powers RENCI Supercomputer Tracking Hurricane Matthew

RENCI’s Dell-powered supercomputer is working overtime to model the storm surge that Hurricane Matthew could bring to communities along the Eastern Seaboard. Named Hatteras, the 150-node M610 Dell cluster runs the ADCIRC storm surge model every six hours when a hurricane is active. “We are working on doing storm surge predictions the same way that meteorologists develop predictions for rain and wind speeds.”

Astronomers Using iRODS to Wrangle Massive Survey Data

Astronomers are using iRODs data technology to study the evolution of galaxies and the nature of dark matter. “By partnering with data specialists at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) who develop the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) researchers and students now have online databases for two large astronomical data sets: the REsolved Spectroscopy of a Local VolumE (RESOLVE) survey and the Environmental COntext (ECO) catalog.”