National Center for HPC Joins the iRODS Consortium

The National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC), a national research infrastructure organization supporting HPC, AI, large-scale data services, and scientific research across Taiwan, has become the newest member of the iRODS Consortium, the membership-based organization that leads development and support of the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS).The NCHC works to strengthen national HPC technology, provide world-class supercomputing and academic research network infrastructure, and lay the foundation for the development of technology in Taiwan. In the spirit of “driving transformation for a better future with HPC”, the organization is dedicated to promoting HPC technology and applications development, leading digital transformation in industries and smart living. With the emergence of applications such as AI, big data, and digital twins, the demand for and the importance of HPC are increasing by the day. NCHC continues to build a new generation of HPC platforms, create robust academic research networks, conduct research on information security and data encryption, and develop advanced HPC methods, quantum computing, and big data analysis.

iRODS is an open-source software that is used by research, commercial and government organizations around the world. The iRODS software allows you to store, manage and share large amounts of data, including their metadata, between different organizations and platforms and provides a mechanism for defining rules for their storage, processing and distribution. iRODS is designed to support collaboration, interoperability and scalability of data infrastructures.

NCHC has developed a proprietary Trusted-Cloud Platform designed to align with the Trusted Research Environment (TRE) framework. Central to this architecture is the “Five Safes” model. While the cloud platform’s native security mechanisms address Safe People, Safe Projects, and Safe Outputs, the integration of iRODS is pivotal in achieving Safe Settings and Safe Data. By leveraging iRODS, NCHC can register existing files into the system without the need for extra replicas and support heterogeneous storage filesystems simultaneously. This allows for the seamless integration of legacy storage facilities and the secure, streamlined authorization of data for researchers.

Chang-Wei Yeh, Principle Engineer and the Lead of the Sensitive Data Authorization System at NCHC, emphasized the strategic importance of this partnership, “Managing infrastructure for sensitive data carries significant responsibility. Joining the iRODS Consortium grants us a direct line of communication with the development team and provides access to the latest features and expert support. This ensures our system integrations and configurations remain perfectly aligned with our evolving security requirements.”

“We are very excited to continue our collaboration with NCHC and welcome them to the Consortium,” says Terrell Russell, executive director, iRODS Consortium. “As an HPC center with numerous scientific requirements, we expect the programmability of the iRODS ecosystem to shine in their capable hands.”

The iRODS software has been deployed at thousands of locations worldwide for long-term management of data in various industries such as the oil and gas industry, biosciences, physical sciences, archives, and media and entertainment. The development team of the iRODS Consortium is based at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), which is affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.