On a Cyberinfrastructure Platform for Multidisciplinary, Data-intensive Scientific Research

Development of a cyberinfrastructure (CI) was envisioned to support a large research team geographically spread across the state of Nevada and elsewhere to conduct truly multidisciplinary research in the areas of solar energy, water and environment as well as many related social and economic activities. Although constrained by financial and human resources available, this cyberinfrastructure, named as Southern Nevada Research Cloud (SNRC), features an advanced, sustainable end-to-end data acquisition and processing system that encompasses remote data sensors and research sites, high speed computer networks, and big data processing capabilities. Built upon the integration and fine-tuning of off-the-shelf hardware and many open source software packages, SNRC is currently being tested by the researchers and other stakeholders in support of their research and educational missions.