ACEnet and inSORS partnership will lead to
greater research collaboration
(May 9, 2007 - St. John’s, Newfoundland) The Atlantic Computational Excellence Network (ACEnet) and inSORS Communications have joined forces to promote the use of advanced collaborative technology which will help build the newly formed ACEnet Institutes.
ACEnet Institutes are geographically dispersed research teams whose members come from the 9 partner universities that make up the ACEnet consortium. Through ACEnet’s network of five remote collaboration rooms, the consortium has delivered training, seminars and has conducted planning meetings to support the growth of research in Atlantic Canada by using inSORS technology. Under this partnership, the three ACEnet Institutes, Computational Chemistry, Advanced Computing and Materials Physics will all equip their leadership teams with personal inSORS licenses allowing for easy access from any location. ACEnet and inSORS will also provide virtual rooms to allow the institutes’ members to meet. ACEnet has also agreed to provide a National Collaborative Environment which can be used by other Canadian HPC consortia for meetings and discussions.
ACEnet has had great success in building its team in part due to the inSORS IG2 technology. ACEnet team members meet regularly “on the grid” to discuss both technical and operational issues. The meetings make use of the IG2’s form factor flexibility with some members meeting from their desktop systems while others make use of the room based endpoints that have been standardized throughout the project’s multiple locations. The partnership has been paying off by making any time, any place, immersive communications between project members a reality. The goal of the partnership is to extend this success and encourage other Canadian educational and research projects to standardize on the inSORS Access Grid technology through the aid of the recently announced National Platform Fund or NPF. inSORS has provided ACEnet with the ability to create trial software licenses for those distributed project members that may want test the features and capabilities of the technology without an initial purchase. ACEnet’s Unified Collaboration Server (UCS) which was provided by inSORS will be the central engine for this operation.
For information on obtaining the free trial software, contact Greg Lukeman at glukeman@stfx.ca
About ACEnet:
Over the last five years, universities across Canada have been organizing themselves into regional groups to acquire and operate large-scale high performance computing (HPC) facilities for research. Several of these "HPC Consortia" now exist and each has received tens of millions of dollars in funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), provincial matching funds, and corporate partners.
ACEnet ("Atlantic Computational Excellence Network") is Atlantic Canada's entry into this national fabric of HPC facilities. It is a partnership of seven institutions, including Memorial University of Newfoundland, University of New Brunswick, Mount Allison University, Dalhousie University, St. Francis Xavier University, St. Mary's University and the University of Prince Edward Island.
ACEnet was awarded $9.9M by the CFI in March 2004. When provincial and private sector contributions are finalized, the project will be worth nearly $28M, including $3M from the CFI Infrastructure Operating Fund. ACEnet also expects to secure funding to support students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty to augment the scientific capacity of the institutions hosting significant ACEnet resources. Contact Greg Lukeman for further information on ACEnet or visit their website at www.ace-net.ca.
About inSORS:
inSORS, a global company based in Chicago, IL develops, markets, and supports comprehensive group collaboration solutions that bring enterprises and communities together whenever and wherever required making advanced collaboration easy. inSORS software optimizes each participant’s collaboration experience, including integration of standards based voice, video, and data tools. For more information on inSORS, please contact Brian Gleason at bgleason@insors.com or visit our website at www.insors.com.
See below for some various inSORS offerings.
