About RCC

History

The Research Computing Center (RCC) was established in late 2003 as a partnership between the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR). The RCC is governed by a Memorandum of Agreement between the two offices, with guidance from a faculty advisory committee and day-to-day leadership from two co-directors.

The RCC was founded, in large part, because it was apparent that the time and technical expertise required to manage high-performance computing and database platforms, software, storage, physical security, cyber security and telecommunications can be very significant. This is even more true as the scale of information technology infrastructure increases in response to trends in research methods and instrumentation.

Frequently, failure to use best practices in system administration, security and documentation of operating procedures are exacerbated by relatively high turnover rates of staff and post-docs in research labs and result in unacceptable risks for the loss of data, unacceptable risk of security compromises and other inefficiencies in support of lab operations. The RCC overcomes these issues by maintaining a professional, career-minded staff of technical experts whose sole goal is to support the information technology needs of research labs.