$32.7 million IU Data Center to be unveiled; anchor for growing technology park

Posted on Nov 3, 2009 in Records Management News

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/12409.html

$32.7 mil­lion IU Data Cen­ter to be unveiled; anchor for grow­ing tech­nol­ogy park

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Nov. 2, 2009

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity Data Cen­ter, a $32.7 mil­lion facil­ity designed to ensure the safety and secu­rity of IU’s most prized net­work­ing, com­puter pro­cess­ing and data stor­age equip­ment, will be for­mally ded­i­cated on Thurs­day, Nov. 5, with a cer­e­mony that will include remarks by IU Pres­i­dent Michael McRob­bie. Data Cen­ter image

IU’s new $32.7 mil­lion Data Cen­ter will house super­com­put­ers Big Red and Quarry while also being able to with­stand a F5 tor­nado. The cen­ter ded­i­ca­tion is set for Nov. 5.

Hun­dreds of guests are expected to gather on the Bloom­ing­ton cam­pus to cel­e­brate and tour this new facil­ity that will sup­port teach­ing, research and admin­is­tra­tion on all Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity cam­puses while also increas­ing IU’s com­pet­i­tive­ness for research grants.

The pub­lic event will take place at 3:30 p.m. at the Data Cen­ter, located at 2737 E. 10th St. in Bloom­ing­ton. A recep­tion and tours will imme­di­ately fol­low the ceremony.

Encom­pass­ing 82,700 gross square feet, includ­ing three 11,000-square-foot com­puter equip­ment rooms, the IU Data Cen­ter houses crit­i­cal com­put­ing, net­work­ing and stor­age equip­ment that serve all Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity cam­puses via I-Light, Indiana’s high-speed fiber optic net­work. The new facil­ity is the largest data cen­ter among higher edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions in the state of Indi­ana, and among the largest regionally.

“Indi­ana University’s core infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy infra­struc­ture plays an absolutely essen­tial part in the university’s edu­ca­tion and research mis­sion,” McRob­bie said. “It is almost impos­si­ble in this day and age for a great uni­ver­sity like IU not to have first rate IT facil­i­ties and infrastructure.”

“At the same time, the qual­ity and excel­lence of this infra­struc­ture and facil­i­ties have for over a decade con­sis­tently pro­vided the base for large grants for new IT research facil­i­ties cul­mi­nat­ing in the recent $10 mil­lion grant from the National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion for Future Grid,” he added. “Hence the Data Cen­ter will pro­vide a state of the art envi­ron­ment for this core infra­struc­ture which will allow it to grow in response to ever more increas­ing needs for IT in edu­ca­tion and research and attract even more major grants, while being pro­tected from all but the most severe dis­as­ters. This facil­ity, com­bined with a smaller one in the Infor­mat­ics and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Tech­nol­ogy Build­ing on the IUPUI cam­pus to which is con­nected through mul­ti­ple paths using the I-Light opti­cal fiber net­work, will help ensure con­ti­nu­ity of essen­tial and crit­i­cal IT ser­vices for the uni­ver­sity com­mu­nity in all but the most calami­tous circumstances.”

Indi­ana University’s dig­i­tal and tech­no­log­i­cal assets, includ­ing the super­com­put­ers Big Red and Quarry and the Bloom­ing­ton hub of Indiana’s statewide I-Light net­work, will be secured in the Data Cen­ter. The Data Center’s sup­port for all IU cam­puses means that other cam­puses do not need to build such facilities.

“The new Data Cen­ter in Bloom­ing­ton is a resource that will ben­e­fit every one of our stu­dents and fac­ulty on the Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity North­west cam­pus,” said IU North­west Chan­cel­lor Bruce W. Berg­land. “The new Data Center’s com­put­ing power and stor­age capa­bil­ity, along with the greater con­nec­tiv­ity to Indiana’s aca­d­e­mic com­mu­nity that we enjoy through I-Light, guar­an­tee that our IU North­west stu­dents and researchers, along with those at each of IU’s five other regional cam­puses, have the same tech­no­log­i­cal resources as their coun­ter­parts in Bloom­ing­ton and Indianapolis.”

In addi­tion to IU North­west, cam­puses at IU East in Rich­mond, IU Kokomo, IU South Bend, IU South­east in New Albany and Indi­ana University-Purdue Uni­ver­sity Fort Wayne will each ben­e­fit from assets at the Data Center.

The Data Cen­ter is crit­i­cal for Indi­ana University’s fac­ulty, stu­dents and research staff to con­duct ground­break­ing research that cre­ates new knowl­edge and inno­va­tion. The $15-million Future­Grid project, pri­mar­ily funded by the National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion, is already prov­ing the value of the facility.

Pro­fes­sor Geof­frey C. Fox, direc­tor of the IU Per­va­sive Tech­nol­ogy Institute’s Dig­i­tal Sci­ence Cen­ter and a pro­fes­sor in the IU School of Infor­mat­ics and Com­put­ing at Bloom­ing­ton, is lead­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion with aca­d­e­mic and indus­try part­ners through­out the U.S. and in Europe that could rev­o­lu­tion­ize super­com­put­ing. New super­com­put­ers will be housed in the Data Cen­ter for Future­Grid research.

The Data Cen­ter also pro­tects mission-critical infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy sys­tems such as sys­tems for teach­ing and learn­ing that sup­port more than 115,000 fac­ulty, staff and stu­dents across the state. Crit­i­cal admin­is­tra­tive sys­tems that main­tain course records, degrees and finan­cial infor­ma­tion will now be much safer in the new facility.

With a bunkered, con­crete struc­ture designed to with­stand flood­ing, power out­ages or an F5 tor­nado, the Data Cen­ter will pro­tect com­put­ers, servers and data stor­age units hold­ing more than 2.8 petabytes of information.

“Research and edu­ca­tion are increas­ingly a dig­i­tal endeavor even for res­i­den­tial courses and research teams,” noted Brad Wheeler, IU vice pres­i­dent for infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy. “IU has been at the fore­front of the IT move­ment within the higher edu­ca­tion com­mu­nity for over a decade now, and the new Data Cen­ter is a huge leap for­ward in the capac­ity to con­tinue that innovation.”

The state of Indi­ana will also see direct ben­e­fits from the new Data Cen­ter through an agree­ment between the Indi­ana Office of Tech­nol­ogy and IU that pro­vides the state with backup data space and net­work con­nec­tiv­ity. The part­ner­ship takes advan­tage of IU’s infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy staff and its IT infra­struc­ture, includ­ing I-Light and the Data Center’s 24/7 oper­a­tions cen­ter, that will pro­vide crit­i­cal redun­dancy and cost sav­ings to the state.

The IU Data Cen­ter, with the adja­cent IU Inno­va­tion Cen­ter and the recently-funded, 118,000-square-foot planned Cyber­in­fra­struc­ture Build­ing, form the foun­da­tion of a new IU Bloom­ing­ton tech­nol­ogy park being designed to expand north to the IU Cyclotron Facility.

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/12409.html

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