Russ Miller
UB Distinguished Professor

Dept of Computer Science & Engineering
State University of New York at Buffalo

2004 Media Coverage

1. Dr. Russ Miller was Director of CCR during this period.
2. Dr. Russ Miller co-Founded the New York State/Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics (and Life Sciences) in 2001.

• November 6: CCR's role in a consortium of supercomputing centers and universities sharing data over high-capacity networks is described in the Buffalo News article "Buffalo seen as possible link with supercompter network". Dr. Larry Smarr from the University of California at San Diego and Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology was an invited speaker of Dr. Russ Miller. Dr. Smarr is considered one of the world leaders in high-performance computing and discussed is OptiPuter network and the potential for Russ Miller and CCR to participate in this effort.

• Sept 9: CCR's participation in the Open Science Grid Consortium is mentioned in the article "U.S. Scientific Computing Enters New Era with Grid3"

• June 24: Russ Miller delivers the keynote address at the Annual General Meeting of The Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network (SHARCNET)
• June 18: Available this month on TechRepublic is a webcast (Making IT Work: What are the benefits of grid computing?) with Russ Miller and Bob Artner, Vice President - TechRepublic. The slideshow only is available here.

• May 24: Russ Miller is quoted in the Buffalo News article "Who ya gonna call when bad boys filch a computer?  Laptop cops" about laptop security
• May 24: GridToday mentions CCR's collaboration with HP in their article "GRID: A work in progress with $4B potential." The article mentions the relationship between HP and CCR in terms of placing a large SAN at CCR and personnel to complement Miller's Grid Computing Research Group. The SAN is expected to seamlessly integrate with the heterogeneous grid that Miller, with funds from the NSF, is building.
• May 1: The Cyberinfrastructure Lab makes a significant contribution to the Grid3 grid deployment success.

• April 15: CCR director Russ Miller will be a panelist at GT'04 (Grid Today '04 Conference) in Philadelphia May 24-26. 

• March 25: "Blades for Buffalo" published on the Next-Gen Data Center Forum webpage describes UB as one of the world's leading supercomputing sites. 
• March 25: In an article about a new research cluster at UB, internetnews.com mentions CCR's storage area network (SAN) acquisition from HP.
• March 1: GridToday carries news of the HP-CCR SAN. This article is nearly identical to some of the articles discussed below concerning the relationship between CCR and HP in terms of CCR acquiring a 75 TByte SAN, as well as personnel support from HP to support Miller's research group in Grid Computing.

• February 13: The Spectrum , UB's undergraduate newspaper, runs the article "UB bioinformatics spreads to local high schools" to show students another side of CCR's work. In the article, they state that despite the impressive aura of the CCR computer cluster, UB students are bringing the mysterious science it unlocks to 27 high-school students through a recently developed high school curriculum that introduces the emerging field of bioinformatics to local secondary schools. The article states that the goal of the program is to introduce bioinformatics to high-school teachers and students and that this program grew out of the annual high-school summer program that CCR has been offerring since its inception. The article notes that about 15 students from Kenmore's Mount St. Mary Academy, Buffalo's City Honors School and Orchard Park High School have joined the course, which is led by three UB undergraduate students involved in the bioinformatics program. In fact, the course introduces a new angle in computer application to students whose computer use is often limited to word processing or basic programming, said Furlani. According to Dawn Riggie, principal at Mount St. Mary Academy, bioinformatics works to harness the immense problem-solving capabilities of computers, then apply those capabilities to problems in life sciences that would take the human mind significantly longer to solve. "Bioinformatics is a mixture of mathematics and computational science used to solve problems in a scientific discipline," Riggie said. Mount St. Mary senior Jaclyn Shaw said the group has learned how to write computer programs that allow them to work with proteins and DNA structures. Darcy Brown, another Mount St. Mary senior, said she had leaned toward pursuing an English degree in college next fall, but the program changed her mind. "(The program) made science practical," said Brown. "They absolutely love it," Riggie said. "It has opened a whole new world to them." The new world especially important to Riggie and her all-female student body is one that breaks down stereotypes of women's inability to successfully implement the fields of mathematics and science.
• February 10: WNED TV runs a story highlighting William Greiner's history while president of UB.  The hour long show entitled "Making a Difference" contains clips of CCR staff at work.
• February 9: Buffalo's edition of the Business First journal contains the front page story, "UB brings bioinformatics to a new generation" about the program Next Generation Scientists: Training for Students and Teachers, a joint venture by CCR and Verizon.
• February 6: WBFO Radio broadcasts a story about the high school bioinformatics program at CCR.  The story, "High school students learning about bioinformatics" contains an audio file of the broadcast.
• February 6: The Buffalo News covers the story, "An early look at bioinformatics", about three local high schools participating with CCR staff to learn to build HPC clusters for bioinformatics research.
• February 6: WNY Catholic School News reports about their school's participation in the CCR & Verizon high school program in the story "Bioinformatics comes to Mt. St. Mary's High School".
• February 6:  HP's 75 terabyte SAN collaboration project with CCR makes HPCWire's Vendor Spotlight this week.  The article stated that HP announced it has joined forces with the Center for Computational Research to deploy a 75 terabytes Storage Area Network (SAN) and academic resources that will power the university's world-class center. HP Services will help design and deploy the system and will provide on-going onsite support services for UB. In addition, HP is providing funds for a two-year post-doctoral fellowship aimed at implementing a computational and data grid in western New York. Dr. Russ Miller stated that "HP technology will foster protein-structure determination research that UB scientists are conducting with colleagues at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute by supporting a large data warehouse that we generate and then mine in order to optimize our program in molecular structure determination." The new HP StorageWorks SAN will link to Miller's grid, giving researchers more efficient access to vital data and a stable, flexible platform that enables the university to adapt to future infrastructure requirements and processes. In addition, Miller stated that "Together UB and HP are setting a precedent for advancing computational research that will lead to breakthrough science." HP is also providing funds to support a post-doctoral student in Miller's Grid Computing Research Group who will focus on critical aspects of grid computing. This student also will serve as a liaison between the research center and key scientists and engineers at HP. This post-doctoral student will join Dr. Miller's research team, which was the recipient of a $2 million National Science Foundation award, to implement a computational and data grid in western New York that ties together facilities in a variety of organizations. This grid is currently operational in beta form and is using the Shake-and-Bake algorithm of molecular structure determination as its test vehicle. "HP has a longstanding history of providing technologies that meet the most demanding computational challenges," said Michael Humke, director of Higher Education, HP. "Our work with UB exemplifies how we can build a foundation for an environment that adapts to the campus' evolving needs and helps the university chart new ground in life sciences and bioinformatics."
• February 5: "CCR and Verizon bring bioinformatics to high schools" reported by UB News Services describes CCR's participation with local high school students in teaching high performance computing and bioinformatics.  Local television station, WIVB broadcasts the story from Mount St. Mary's high school.

• January 30: The Buffalo News' story "UB builds digital warehouse" describes how the SAN will support the increasing data storage requirements of CCR users. Dr. Russ Miller discusses data-intensive computing, some of the experimental projects underway at the Hauptman-Woodward Medial Research Institute, and the acquisition of a large Storage Area Network from HP that will help support such efforts. Supercomputers at the University at Buffalo crunch a lot of numbers, but they don't have a lot of space to keep them in. The article states that a 75 trillion byte capacity digital warehouse is being built by HP to store the mountains of data that are produced in projects supported by the Center for Computational Research. Dr. Russ Miller is quoted as saying that "data is actually growing faster than processor speed and storage space" and that one protein-mapping experiment at Hauptman-Woodward generates images that take up 7 trillion bytes of storage a year. The article also states that the system and related products would normally cost $18 million, according to an HP spokesman, but UB is paying a discounted price. HP is also providing an expert to help run the system initially, and funding a post-doctoral researcher to work on sharing storage capacity between different locations. Miller went on to state that this storage network will be incorporated into a grid that links processors plus network connections to the medical campus and will make it easier for scientists to do computationally-intensive research. "The bottom line is, scientists can do science, not technology," Miller said.
• January 30: Dr. Russ Miller is quoted in HP's white paper on High-performance technical computing in life and materials sciences, where he states that "HP technology will foster protein-structure determination research that University at Buffalo scientists are conducting with colleagues at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute by supporting a large data warehouse that we generate and then mine in order to optimize our program in molecular structure determination." In addition, the piece quotes Miller as saying "Together the University of Buffalo and HP are setting a precedent for advancing computational research that will lead to breakthrough science." The piece also describes some details of the 75 TB SAN.
• January 30: Supercomputing Online carries the CCR SAN installation in the story, "HP Collaborates with University at Buffalo to Advance Computational Research".  HPCWire also covers this announcement.  The article states that HP has announced that it has joined forces with the Center for Computational Research to deploy infrastructure technology and critical academic resources. Specifically, HP and CCR are building an open storage area network (SAN) with a capacity of 75 terabytes. HP Services will help design and deploy the system and will provide on-going onsite support services. In addition, HP is providing funds for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship aimed at implementing a computational and data grid in western New York. The article goes on to quote Dr. Russ Miller, "HP technology will foster protein-structure determination research that UB scientists are conducting with colleagues at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute by supporting a large data warehouse that we generate and then mine in order to optimize our program in molecular structure determination." CCR's new HP StorageWorks SAN links to a heterogeneous grid being developed by Miller and his research team, giving researchers more efficient access to vital data and a stable, flexible platform that enables the university to adapt to future infrastructure requirements and processes. HP is providing funds to support a post-doctoral student who will focus on critical aspects of grid computing. This student also will serve as a liaison between the research center and key scientists and engineers at HP. This post-doctoral student will join Dr. Miller's research team, which was the recipient of a $2 million National Science Foundation award, to implement a computational and data grid in western New York that ties together facilities in a variety of organizations. This grid is currently operational in beta form and is using the Shake-and-Bake algorithm of molecular structure determination as its test vehicle.
• January 29:  "SUNY Buffalo Takes To the Grid With HP" found on StoragePipeline.com describes how the 75 terabyte SAN will participate in the Grid work being done at CCR. 
• January 29: ZDNet covers the SAN announcement in the story "HP storage packs a protein punch".  BuffLink covers this story locally and many others carry it worldwide, including: News.com, C/Net, HP World, Wi-Fi Technology News, HPC Wire, ZD Net, BioExchange, Primeur Monthly,  and SearchStorage.com These articles state that HP and CCR aanounced that they are building a storage area network (SAN) with a capacity of 75 terabytes. They define SANs are networks that enable more efficient use and easier management of data storage devices. HP said its services unit will help design and install the system and will continue to provide on-site technical assistance for a minimum of two years. In addition, HP said it is providing funds for a one-year postdoctoral fellowship aimed at implementing a computational and data grid in western New York. Dr. Russ Miller states that "HP technology will foster protein-structure determination research that UB scientists are conducting with colleagues at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute by supporting a large data warehouse that we generate and then mine."
• January 29: Hewlett-Packard and the University at Buffalo announce their collaboration to build a storage area network for support of bioinformatics and life sciences research.
• January 24: The Buffalo News reports that Tata, India's largest information technology firm, is collaborating with UB on several research projects.  In the article, "Tata to open technology development center here", one of the projects mentioned is the testing of DNA research software on CCR's supercomputers. 
• January 21: CCR has deployed a portable Access Grid node that can be situated throughout UB.