The alliance wil create a repository and rough out the client interfaces. Furthermore, this summer will be used to set up support for US national users. The alliance will be extended to mid-level centres and will work as a virtual team. Early big users will be recruited amongst the current Pittsburgh and Cornell users. To support all the activities, NCSA has created a new I-Tech Division.
Technology is needed for instance to manage data and to capture, archive, access and update data.
Collaborative administration and development tools must be made available. But, as Towns explained, NCSA is also already working on new proposals for the coming year. A 6400 x 4800 pixel display for interactive VR will be powered by an SGI Reality Monster with 64 r10000 processors and 8 Infinite Reality Graphics Engines and 32 Gbytes of Main memory. The SGI will be connected through 8 HiPPI and ATM channels to 1.12.