By MC3 Michael Ehrlich

The co-authors of a proposal dubbed Data Analytics of Real Time Streams (DARTS) are pictured in Glasgow Hall, Feb 11. The near $1 million DARTS proposal is slated to fund upgrades to the Hamming Supercomputer, which will give the computer, among other things, the ability to crunch "big data."

"This proposal is going to be applied towards operational needs that coincide with the research that is ongoing here at NPS right now," said ITACS Director of Research Computing Dr. Jeff Haferman. "It will [allow us to] generate information instantaneously, just like a Google search, but from real time data as it is being gathered."

The Department of Defense's High Performance Computing (HPC) and Modernization Program Dedicated HPC Project Investment program approved DARTS. The goal is to develop the hardware and software necessary to quickly sift through large volumes of data and thereby enable data-driven decision-making in real time.

"The equipment to be procured for the DARTS program will compliment Hamming very nicely," said NPS Chief Information Officer (CIO) and ITACS Executive Director Joe LoPiccolo. "While Hamming excels at computationally-intensive problems, 'number-crunching,' it is not well suited to sifting through huge amounts of data."

If all goes well, DARTS will increase Hamming's operating power and aid NPS researchers, especially those work in the growing field of big data.

Pictured, from left, are Computer Science Professor Michael McCarrin, Computer Science Professor Mathias Kolsch, Haferman, Operations Research Professor Ron Fricker and Operations Research Professor Sam Buttrey.