Jetstream

Jetstream, the first National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded production cloud for science and engineering, began in 2014 with an $11 million grant, and since then, it has enabled research in fields from bioinformatics to political science. Jetstream’s on-demand capabilities give researchers access to advanced cyberinfrastructure from their tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. In 2020, Jetstream had a greater than 99% up-time for the fourth year in a row, and IU gave it a hardware update that expanded its capacity, allowing it to support even more projects.

External Funding

External funding for projects like Jetstream allows RT to extend its reach beyond IU, offering resources to national research communities. That external funding also helps attract talented, technically adept staff to Indiana, filtering those funds back into the state economy.

Use case: Social science research in real time

Jetstream connects social scientists at the University of California, Berkeley working across informatic research disciplines to map how marketing language used by charter schools may further race- and class-based U.S. educational segregation.

“The stability, scalability, and user friendliness of Jetstream have allowed me to smoothly incorporate new team members on an ongoing basis, and to easily shift resources between tasks as each aspect of the project unfolds.”

Jaren Haber
Graduate student in Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

Jetstream2

In June 2020, the NSF awarded IU $10 million to deploy Jetstream2, a distributed cloud computing system intended to support on-demand research, artificial intelligence, and enhanced large-scale data analyses. The NSF’s newest supercomputing resource, Jetstream2 is designed especially for researchers who have limited experience with high performance computing and software resources, which allows points of access for small, under-resourced academic communities.

“We intend Jetstream2 to be a democratizing force within the NSF ecosystem, allowing researchers and educators access to cutting-edge resources regardless of project scale.”

David Y. Hancock
Principal Investigator, Jetstream and Jetstream2 

Use case: A gateway to atmospheric and geological research

Jetstream’s virtual machines power a collaborative initiative between the Unidata Program Center at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and the NSF, for the benefit of the geoscientific community. With these Jetstream resources, Unidata provides a variety of geoscience data to university faculty, researchers, and students. Alongside those short-term archive and near real-time data holdings, Unidata also provides visualization and analysis tools.

“Science students and professionals spend too much time distracted by software that is difficult to access, install, and use. Cloud computing accelerates scientific discoveries and collaborations by reducing research and data friction. We aim to improve ‘time to science’ for atmospheric science researchers and students with the NSF-funded XSEDE Jetstream cloud.”

Julien Chastang
Software Engineer, Unidata 

Jetstream in (and out) of the classroom

One of Jetstream’s goals is to increase access to cloud computing resources for researchers in the long tail of science, including social science and humanities research. Jetstream extends this mission through its Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program and its many education allocations, giving students early access to advanced cyberinfrastructure—invaluable experience for future members of the 21st century workforce.

Use case: A computational biology classroom in the cloud

Through Jetstream’s open access for educators and researchers, computational biology and chemistry students at Doane University in Crete, Nebraska have access to supercomputing resources that illuminate the scope of bioinformatics.

“It’s important for computational biologists to have some basic coding skills. I can create a virtual machine, and everyone logs into the web browser on their laptops. Jetstream makes it so much easier to get students up and running.”

Erin Doyle
Professor of Biology, Doane University

Use case: Jetstream REU

Each summer, Jetstream—the NSF’s first production cloud computing system—lets undergraduate students from all over the country loose in the cloud. Its REU program involves students in projects that capitalize on IU’s leadership in fields like bioinformatics, data visualization, and advanced media.

“Incorporating undergraduate students in large-scale NSF projects is not only rewarding for the students and their mentors, but it also has the practical benefit of helping the Jetstream team refine documentation and teaching practices that make the system more accessible to others. The diversity of the students, and recruiting in non-traditional disciplines, has further enhanced those benefits.”

David Y. Hancock
Principal Investigator, Jetstream and Jetstream2

The National Center for Genome Analysis Support

The National Center for Genome Analysis Support (NCGAS) provides resources for the U.S. biological research community to analyze, understand, and use the vast amount of genomic information now available. A collaborative project between IU and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center at Carnegie Mellon University, NCGAS focuses on transcriptome- and genome-level assembly, phylogenetics, metagenomics, transcriptomics, and community genomics. With consulting services for NSF-funded researchers and education and outreach programs on genome assembly and analysis, NCGAS also maintains software on several nationally accessible high performance clusters.

Use case: Will a popular angling fish survive a changing climate?

JingWei Song, who attended the de novo transcriptome workshop held by NCGAS in spring 2019, studies the effects of temperature change on sea trout metabolism as part of his research on climate resilience at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

“The de novo transcriptome assembly workshop greatly reduced the learning curve for my analyses. I couldn’t have gotten my preliminary results in time to present at the American Fisheries Society Meeting without the computing resources provided by NCGAS.”

JingWei Song
Graduate student of Biology, Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Use case: Researchers mine genetic data for microbe clues

Undergraduate women researchers have been behind some of the latest discoveries within the Sequence Read Archives (SRA) hosted by the National Center for Biotechnology Information team. Researchers’ data mining into the genetic dispositions of microbes was recognized by the American Society for Microbiology Microbe Conferences in 2019 and 2020. Their research is the result of collaboration between NCGAS, the Center of Excellence for Women & Technology, and the Jetstream Research Experience for Undergraduates.

“The SRA is a great resource, but searching these data is challenging because the database is increasing exponentially. These young researchers are improving access to data by learning data mining, in addition to participating in microbiology research.”

Bhavya Papudesh
Bioinformatics Analyst, NCGAS