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Computer InfrastructureThe AMNH currently maintains more than 60 servers that support museum administrative, research and educational facilities; each is backed up weekly on tape. One of these servers is dedicated to the Division of Invertebrate Zoology, which has employed a staff member for its maintenance and weekly data back up. The AMNH has a diverse network comprising multi-mode fiber optic cables and category 5e cabling connecting a combination of switches, hubs and routers. Attached to the network is a compliment of ca. 1500 personal computers, roughly one-third Apple Macintosh and the remainder PCs, as well as ca. 400 networked printers. The PI’s office and laboratory is equipped with a Power Macintosh G4 and three Pentium IV PCs (all connected to the internet), a flatbed scanner, slide scanner, network laserjet printer and other peripherals. Software in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology is updated regularly and site-licenses are available for many programs. Further information is available at: http://museum.amnh.org/it/.
Parallel Virtual Supercomputer ClusterIn 1999, the AMNH installed a 256-processor (500 Mhz Pentium III) commodity cluster (http:// research.amnh.org/scicomp/), designed especially for phylogenetic analysis of genomic data, and in 2001 upgraded this to 560-processors (432 Gflop peak performance; through the addition of 1 Ghz Pentium III and 1Gig RAM per node). Built with ‘off-the-shelf’ components, it is the fastest parallel computing cluster installed in an evolutionary biology laboratory and one of the fastest in a non-defense environment. Its size is presently being doubled and its capacity tripled. An AMNH staff member was recently hired for the upkeep of the cluster, technical assistance and training of users.
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