A team of engineers from the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Magnify, Inc. are demonstrating super-cluster computing and data mining at SC'97 this week. Cluster computing involves linking workstations to a high performance network to create a system with the power of a supercomputer. The Internet also provides a means for linking distributed clusters, but does not provide sufficient bandwidth for many applications including data mining. At SC'97, the vBNS is used to link clusters located in Philadelphia, Chicago, College Park, MD, and San Jose to a computer on the show floor.
Data mining is the automatic discovery of patterns, associations and changes in large data sets.
And data mining often reveals unexpected patterns in data. In contrast, statistics validate already recognized patterns in data sets. At SC'97, NSCP is executing a proof of concept demonstration using data records from the University Health Consortium. Records from over sixty-eight university hospitals are distributed between the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Maryland, and a database on the show floor. Data mining on this scale is not remotely possible on the Internet.