At IU, what is the Research Database Complex?

• Introduction
• Databases
• Hardware configuration
• Networking
• Storage
• More information

Introduction

The Research Database Complex (RDC), part of the Libra cluster, is dedicated to research-related databases and data-intensive applications that require a database. Currently, only Oracle databases are supported and the default database size is 15MB. The RDC also provides an environment for database-driven web applications with a research focus. This system is known as rdcweb.uits.iu.edu and runs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. User home directories reside on the IBM N5500 NAS storage device, with disk quotas of 10GB per user. This quota is shared by your Big Red and Quarry accounts, if you have accounts on those systems.

The RDC currently supports several important research projects:

• Centralized Life Sciences Data
• Collaborative Initiative on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
• Indiana Spatial Data Service
• National Gene Vector Laboratories

Databases

The RDC offers Oracle 10g (version 10.2.0.3) database accounts. Plans are underway to offer MySQL accounts in the latter half of 2008.

The RDC supports a full suite of Oracle components:

Components that support content

• Oracle interMedia: This feature enables the Oracle database to store, manage, and retrieve images, audio, video, or other heterogeneous media data in an integrated fashion with other enterprise information. Oracle interMedia extends Oracle database reliability, availability, and data management to multimedia content in traditional, Internet, electronic commerce, and media-rich applications.
  
  
• Oracle Text: This component indexes any document or textual content to add fast, accurate retrieval of information to Internet content management applications, e-business catalogs, news services, and job postings. It can index content stored in file systems, databases, or on the web.
  
  
• Ultra Search: This component provides uniform search-and-locate capabilities over multiple repositories, such as Oracle databases, other ODBC compliant databases, IMAP mail servers, HTML documents served up by a web server, files on disk, and more.
  
  
• Large objects (LOBs): These datatypes enable you to store and manipulate large blocks of unstructured data (such as text, graphic images, video clips, and sound waveforms) in binary or character format.
  
  
• Oracle XML Database:: This treats XML as a native datatype in the database.
  
  
• Oracle XDK: This component contains the basic building blocks for reading, manipulating, transforming, and viewing XML documents, whether on a file system or stored in a database.

Components that support analysis

• Oracle Data Mining: This option provides a way to get at the information buried in the data by creating models to find hidden patterns in large, complex collections of data. Oracle Data Mining embeds data mining within the Oracle database. Algorithms operate natively on relational tables or views, eliminating the need to extract and transfer data into other tools, applications, or servers.
  
  
• Oracle Expression Filter: This feature allows storage, indexing, and evaluation of conditional expressions in columns of a relational table. It matches incoming data with expressions stored in a column to identify rows of interest. Applications involving information distribution, demand analysis, and task assignment can benefit from Expression Filter.
  
  
• Oracle Rules Manager: This feature allows you to create and maintain data and application rules in the Oracle database. Such rules are often embedded in code modules or a special-purpose, memory-based rules repository, making maintenance of them challenging. In the database, rules are easily changed with SQL and are not hard-coded in your application. These rules can trigger actions in Oracle Database, in your application, or both.

Components that support Java

• JServer Java Virtual Machine: This is a Java Virtual Machine (Java VM) that runs within the Oracle database server's address space.
  
  
• Oracle Database Java Packages: These are classes for relational database management system (RDBMS) features.

Hardware configuration

• Database environment:
  • 2 IBM p575 nodes
  • 8 1.9GHz Power5 processors
  • 2 146GB SAS disks
  • 64GB of memory
  • User home directories on IBM N5500 NAS
  
  
• Web environment:
  • Dell 2950
  • 1.6 GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon processor
  • 8GB of memory
  • User home directories on IBM N5500 NAS

Networking

The symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) p575 nodes each have their own dedicated gigabit-Ethernet connection to a Force10 switch.

Storage

The default database size is 15MB per user. If you find that you need additional space for your research database, email the High Performance Systems group .

Your home directory is on the Libra cluster and resides on the IBM N5500 NAS storage device. You have a 10GB disk quota. Your quota is shared with Big Red and Quarry, if you have accounts on those systems. If you need additional disk space, email the High Performance Systems group.

More information

For more about the RDC, see Getting started on the IU Research Database Complex.

For more about Libra, see the Libra home page.

For more about web services, see Web Services on the IU Research Database Complex.

For more information about storage services, see At IU, what is the Massive Data Storage Service (MDSS)?

Also see:

• What statistical and mathematical software packages are available on IU's supercomputers?
• Where can I get help using IU's supercomputers?
• What are the usage policies for IU's Research Database Complex?
• How do I access my database on the IU Research Database Complex using the Oracle client for Windows?
• How do I access my Oracle database on the IU Research Database complex using Aqua Data Studio?
• In Windows, how do I set up an ODBC source to access my database on the IU Research Database Complex?