Powerful Data Analysis Platform Launched in Texas

Wrangler system will specialize in data-intensive HPC applications.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), Indiana University, and the University of Chicago have announced that the Wrangler system is now operational and ready for business. TACC describes Wrangler as “a groundbreaking data analysis and management system.” Wrangler is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), including $6 million for deployment plus additional operations funding.

Wrangler is an HPC system focused on data-intensive applications. According to Hans Hofmann, Director for the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatices at the University of Texas Austin, the problem with employing conventional HPC systems often is “… not one of computation; it’s that you always need to refer back to a database that’s populated with sequencing data specific to your scientific question. Wrangler is really built for these kinds of specialized applications.”

The Wrangler system offers “massive, replicated, secure high performance data storage” (10PB each at Indiana and TAAC) and large-scale flash storage for analytics. To obtain an allocation for Wrangler, see the Allocations page at the XSEDE website.