IT Infrastructure
Improving system performance to support critical research
Argonne National Laboratory’s management needed to find a more cost-effective and efficient way to deliver IT services, centred around the need for standardisation, as David Salbego, Department Head, Infrastructure & Operations, explains.
Argonne National Laboratory, in Argonne, Ill., is operated by the University of Chicago and is one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest research centers and one of the world’s most comprehensive scientific institutes. Recognized for excellence in connecting basic research to innovative technology, Argonne brings together many areas of science, engineering, and technology. Since 1990, Argonne has worked with more than 600 companies and numerous federal agencies, as well as other organizations. Its more than 200 research projects annually range from studies of the atomic nucleus to research on global climate change.
Argonne relies on computing power to run its high-profile research projects as well as its core business systems that keep the laboratory moving forward. Like most private and public research facilities, Argonne must maintain a wide range of business applications for users working locally and remotely. With its wealth of scientific expertise, Argonne must also support a variety of internal and external Web portals that deliver back-office, administrative, and communications services to Argonne’s
subject-matter
experts.Despite enabling its research staff to quickly develop and customize myriad specialized applications,
decentralization had limited the ability of Argonne’s IT management to exercise control over the complexity — and cost — of its core infrastructure. To make matters even more challenging, an assortment of server platforms and operating systems required specialists for each technology. This meant that Argonne’s central IT division had to be versed in a broad spectrum of computer hardware, software, operating systems, and applications to support business system users.
With the drive to maximize taxpayer investment in research, Argonne’s management needed to find a more cost-effective and efficient way to deliver IT services. After careful consideration, Argonne standardized its core business systems infrastructure with the help of Oracle’s Sun servers and Oracle Solaris 10.
It also relies on Oracle Database as the foundation for core business systems and upgraded from Oracle’s MySQL Database to MySQL Enterprise Database and used
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components of Oracle’s Sun Java Enterprise System suite to deploy a centralized, single sign-on Web portal for access to critical business communications and back-office applications.
Increase Efficiency and Performance in Datacenter To conduct its 200-plus research projects, Argonne National Laboratory employs multiple data centers, many of which rely on Argonne’s core IT infrastructure for critical business applications. Over the past several years,
Argonne’s IT division for Computing and Information Systems has pushed to standardize the core infrastructure to increase overall efficiencies of its business systems.
“We were spending a lot of time dealing with disparate hardware and seemingly random operating system choices. We wanted to standardize as much as possible to focus on what scientists need and the business applications that need to be supported,” said David Salbego, department head, infrastructure and operations, Argonne National Laboratory.
Winter 2010
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