As the ERN has evolved, it has executed a series of collaborative projects. We started with proofs of concept that tested our ability to work together, then graduated to more ambitious and longer-lived efforts.
With support from the National Science Foundation, ERN is hosting a series of virtual workshops in six different areas that are important to realizing the ERN vision of lowering barriers to collaboration between researchers and educators on different campuses.
The ERN perfSONAR mesh is a tool for identifying and diagnosing network throughput and delay issues between research and educational institutions in the Northeast. The mesh currently includes more than 25 perfSONAR nodes spanning nine states.
ERN Members are collaborating on two programs that aim to improve access to research computing resources for small and mid-sized institutions by building a regional pool of Research Computing Facilitators that can be shared across institutional boundaries. Research Computing Facilitators combine their knowledge of computing and domain science to help researchers and educators make efficient use of available research computing resources.
The ERN Resource Sharing Proof of Concept implemented a user-friendly method for launching high performance computing jobs across federated clusters at nine cooperating campuses plus the Google Cloud. The proof of concept contributed ideas and experience that have informed the virtual workshops noted above. It was retired in 2020.
This NSF supported pilot project seeks to facilitate multi-institutional collaboration through the development and design of an easy to use, web-based portal at the interface of computing and structural biology, scientific instruments.