Ohio Supercomputer Center

Ohio Supercomputer Center
1224 Kinnear Road
Columbus, Ohio 43212
Phone: (614) 292-9248
Fax: (614) 292-7168
E-Mail: webmaster@osc.edu

"Whereas, the State of Ohio has established an Ohio Supercomputer Center as a statewide resource designated to place Ohio's research universities and private industry in the forefront of computational research..." And so began the Ohio Supercomputer Center. The Ohio Board of Regents' 1987 resolution was modeled after centers created by the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 1987, OSC's founding members submitted an unsolicited proposal to NSF for a graphics development center. The result: the Center's state funding as a shared resource for Ohio's higher education. Today, OSC is a fully-scalable center with mid-range machines to match those found at the NSF centers and national labs.

In the same year, OSC's networking initiative, OARnet (Ohio Academic Resources Network), provided the first network access to OSC's first Cray supercomputer. At the time, network access was available only within Columbus boundaries. OARnet now provides Internet access to 88 Ohio higher education institutions and two million Ohioans. Since its founding, OARnet backbone usage has grown more than 100 percent per year.

During its first ten years, OSC focused primarily on providing high quality computing and networking services to its users. In the last few years, OSC has expanded its role to provide services to national high performance computing and networking groups in the areas of training, scientific computing, and network research.

But OSC's real history -- and future -- is its users. As a leader in computing and networking, OSC is a resource for Ohio's scientists and engineers. The Statewide Users Group (SUG), composed of faculty members from colleges and universities across Ohio, guides OSC's user-related and technical operations. OARnet's Steering Committee, OSTEER, provides support from participating Ohio universities to ensure that its policies and financial structure are consistent with member needs.

Past or present, computing or networking, OSC is an innovator and leader for tomorrow's technology-based world. OSC's research and development initiatives also put the Center in a position to help Ohio become the education and technology state of the future.