Science in the Triangle

North Carolina’s Research Triangle area has emerged as a cloud computing hot spot in the six years since MCNC in Research Triangle Park dismantled its supercomputer to network the state.

N.C. State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, SAS Institute in Cary and IBM in RTP are working on affordable ways to scale up the ability to store and crunch increasing amounts of data.

Interest in cloud computing, which taps existing computing capacity like utilities tap electricity from a grid according to demand, is particularly keen among researchers and organizations working in the public health arena.

The push by the Obama Administration to switch to electronic medical records rests on cloud computing, so do efforts to monitor for possible biological threats and to improve public health in Asia and Africa, according to computing and health care experts who gathered Thursday at the N.C. Biotechnology Center.

The more than 30 experts were brought together by the Triangle Global Health Consortium. The consortium, a brandnew organization founded by Duke University, UNC-CH, NCSU, RTI International, Family Health International and IntraHealth International, is also planning a day-long workshop in mid-November to further collaboration.

Amazon.com and Google Health already offer services based on cloud computing and the Internet. But as with any new technology, problems still have to be solved before massive amounts of sensitive patient data can be stored in virtual repositories and shared across borders. Challenges include questions concerning data security, a lack of international data collection standards and a need for policies that guide data sharing.

The research and expertise in the RTP area will play a large role in solving some of the problems, said Sam Averitt, director of NCSU’s Center for the Virtual Computing Lab. (Photo at right)

“We not only develop and create the [cloud computing] tools, but we also have the people who know how to use the tools,” said Averitt, whom the consortium invited to speak, answer questions and monitor the discussion at the gathering.

For example, NCSU is the market leader in the development of open-source private clouds, which provide more data security than public clouds because access to the computer servers is limited. Last year, IBM decided to invest $360 million to build its most sophisticated cloud computing center in RTP.

Analyzing the massive amounts of data is the new frontier in computing technology, said Charles Coleman, a SAS executive. The discipline is evolving in the RTP area, which is expected to lead to the formation of new companies and jobs.