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Indiana University

Indiana Initiative for Economic Development

Proposal Guidelines for working with IU

Purpose

Indiana has a strong foundation for developing advanced science and technology, through investments in the Indiana Genomics Initiative, the Lilly Endowment investment in the IU METACyt Initiative, the IU Strategic Plan for the Life Sciences, IU’s participation in the TeraGrid program, and statewide focus on the life sciences. Access to state-of-the-art computing technology is critical in order for Indiana to maintain its leadership position and continue to attract and retain top talent in industries such as healthcare and life sciences.

The Indiana Initiative for Economic Development (IIED) is a partnership involving the IBM Corporation, Indiana University, Purdue University, and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC). The purpose of the Initiative is to foster technology development and job growth in the state of Indiana, by making advanced computing technology and expertise available to private industry.

Program Guidelines
  1. Potential Industrial Partners for the Indiana University e1350 Cluster resources under this Initiative are required to be either:
    • An enterprise or business, located fully or substantially within Indiana, and registered or incorporated in the state.
    • A researcher at Indiana University, doing translational research. This is defined as work based on documented previous basic research, and aimed at developing commercially viable technology within two years.
  2. Potential Industrial Partners will submit a proposal describing the intended use of the e1350 Cluster and the estimated economic impact of the project. Resources are available to assist in submitting the proposal. Please see the “Requirements” section below.
  3. The Potential Industrial Partner — organization or individual — will be the end user of the e1350 Cluster resources (computer and support). Proposed work may not contain re-sale of e1350 Cluster resources to third parties.
  4. Development and production work will be done by the Potential Industrial Partner; Indiana University will provide machine time, software support, and operational support at no cost.
    1. IU will identify the value of the compute resources provided. This cost will be waived with thanks to the IBM and IEDC partnership.
    2. When Industrial Partners are allocated resources they will need to develop their own applications. IU will provide assistance in using the system at no cost. If partners need IU’s assistance in development or consulting, IU will charge standard consulting rates.
  5. Allocation of the e1350 Cluster resources will be made by a committee appointed by the IEDC that the proposed work could bring to the state of Indiana. Creating Indiana jobs and fostering high-tech economic growth in the state are measures of this potential.
  6. The Potential Industrial Partner will file semi-annual reports (short projects need a single final report) outlining results as measured against project objectives. Those whose proposals are accepted will outline project objectives and attach them to the e1350 Blade Center’s User Agreement that is part of the proposal package.
General Requirements

Your proposal for using the e1350 Cluster should contribute to the growth and competitiveness of Indiana industry, foster the creation of high-technology jobs in Indiana, and hold the promise of yielding important new technologies. The computer offered under this program, the IBM e1350 Blade Center Cluster, is a high-end machine, best suited for large-scale computing. Please show that your proposed work will benefit specifically from the use of such a computer.

  1. Describe the project for which you wish to use the e1350 Cluster. Please limit your summary to no more than 100 words, and attach supporting documents to the proposal if you wish.
  2. Describe why the computational resources and services offered under this program are a good match for your proposed work. Consider the following:
    • Have you run similar calculations on other cluster machines?
    • Is your computation parallel in nature, but you lack multi-processor capacity?
    • Does your computation contain innovative algorithms that hold the promise of good performance on cluster machines?
  3. How will your proposed project foster job growth in Indiana? For example:
    • Do you have, or anticipate opening, a facility in Indiana?
    • Do you anticipate hiring new personnel for this project? Will it lead directly to new hires in other areas in your company? How many new openings do you anticipate?
    • Will you be able to attract or serve more customers as a result of using the e1350 Cluster? Please explain.
    • Do you anticipate significant revenue growth as a result? Please explain.
  4. How will your proposed project contribute to technology development in Indiana? For example:
    1. Do you anticipate attracting technology investment as a result? Please explain.
    2. Do you anticipate generating significant new intellectual property as a result?
    3. Do you anticipate spinning off a startup company?
Technical Requirements

Unless you are already familiar with the IBM Blade Center and JS21 architecture, it may not be obvious how to translate your requirements to the e1350 Cluster. Please contact IU’s liaison, Danko Antolovic at dantolo [at] us [dot] ibm [dot] com, or dantolov [at] indiana [dot] edu for initial assistance. IU technical staff will be available to help you evaluate your requirements, if necessary.

  1. How much processing time will you need? You can express it as, say, wall-clock time during which you have full attention of the machine.
    • Is your computation primarily:
      • CPU intensive
      • Storage intensive (disk access)
      • Communication intensive (network traffic)
  2. In which areas will you need technical help from Indiana University IT staff:
    • Problem analysis
    • Code development
    • Code porting
    • Performance optimization
  3. How much disk storage will you need:
    • Permanent, for the duration of the project
    • Temporary (scratch); kept how long, on average?
  4. How much networking capacity will you need?
  5. Do you have special security requirements for your data?
    • Confidentiality and cybersecurity: for example, protection of highly valuable intellectual property
    • Disaster recovery: for example, critical need for rapid recovery of lost data.