NCSA and the Alliance
The National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance) is one of two recipients of the National Science Foundation's Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program. The Alliance is a partnership of individuals and institutions joined together to prototype an Advanced Computational Infrastructure, also known as the National Technology Grid. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign is the leading-edge site for the Alliance.The National Technology Grid refers to the national-scale prototype of twenty-first century computational and information infrastructure, which will be built by the Alliance. The Grid will serve as an early model for what will become a full-scale advanced computational infrastructure, which will be built by the computer, communications, and software industries. The Grid derives its name from the electrical power grid that transformed the world during the past century. The Alliance believes a similar transformation will occur as the Internet and the Web are refashioned into an information infrastructure that brings powerful metacomputing systems and tools to the desktop.
The international point of access to the National Technology Grid is STAR TAP (Science, Technology And Research Transit Access Point). STAR TAP is a persistent infrastructure, funded by the National Science Foundation CISE Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure division, to facilitate the long-term interconnection and interoperability of advanced international networking in support of applications, performance measuring, and technology evaluations. The STAR TAP anchors the international vBNS connections program.
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/alliance/
http://www.startap.net/