Mac Power More Compelling

Profiles in Success: University of Lausanne

“First we thought how we could use unused processing power on campus, but then we started to think how we could change the whole pace of cancer research if we could use say a million computers connected to the Internet across the world”, says Julien Goumaz. “It would also mean that people have a real personal stake in advancing research”.

Hussain-Khan and Goumaz took their idea to the University’s Director. The University of Lausanne supported it, and helped fund creation of a non-profit making Foundation called Cluster VS Cancer to coordinate the project. The Foundation includes the leading cancer research institutes in the region, and a range of eminent scientists.

“Mac has always been my first choice for research and presentation requirements. It’s a technology that just works. No maintenance is needed. I have no problem with security. I wanted the same kind of reliability and ease of use for the grid computing project.”

Dr Hamid Hussain-Khan, Technical Director of the Cluster VS Cancer Foundation

Hussain-Khan has become Technical Director of the Foundation, responsible for developing the grid computing infrastructure. Goumaz was appointed Director responsible for PR and Marketing, reflecting the importance of communicating the project’s aims across the world.

Hussain-Khan has been an enthusiastic Mac user for many years, and wanted the infrastructure to have an Apple platform.

“Mac has always been my first choice for research and presentation requirements, whenever possible”, he says. “It’s a technology that just works. I don’t need to reinstall my Mac every three months — it is there for years. No maintenance is needed. I have no problem with security. I wanted the same kind of reliability and ease of use for the grid computing project”.

It was important for the project’s technical strategy that it could interconnect with other big science grid computing projects across the world. The ‘middleware’ that enables that interconnection, had to be compatible.

“We looked at several technologies, but I was delighted when Apple offered us a four processing nodes cluster”, says Dr Hamid Hussain-Khan. “It was so easy to configure with the middleware, and just worked brilliantly right out of the box”.

The project was then awarded an ARTS Laureate, which provides up to US$30,000 of Apple equipment, qualifies the project for discounts on future product purchases, and gives access to Apple’s systems engineers on a dedicated network for expert advice on technology problems.

“We have chosen Mac Pro computers to use in the grid to build up central resources”, says Hussain-Khan. “We will soon have most of the spare computing power on campus in the grid, which will be about 4,000 CPUs. When the infrastructure is mature, we will be able to ask for support from anyone in the world with an Internet connected computer”.

Next Page: Platform Flexibility