The National Science Foundation has awarded the University of Hawaiʻi’s Hawaiʻi Data Science Institute ( HI-DSI ) $1 million for the development of a web-based programming interface called Tapis, in partnership with the Texas Advanced Computing Center ( TACC ) and the University of Texas at Austin. The development of Tapis will provide scientists with important tools to gather data and conduct computationally intensive research.

The framework, which will serve a diverse group of users, can help automate and streamline large workflows or pipelines of software applications and allow scientists easier, user-friendly access to computational resources.

“Tapis powers research,” said Co-Principal Investigator Gwen Jacobs, director of HI-DSI and cyberinfrastructure. “This open-source platform creates a digital lab that allows scientists to access all of the tools they need—storage, computational resources and applications—all in one place. Tapis simplifies transferring and saving data and running computational resources across multiple platforms. This framework also creates automation and reproducibility by saving workflows that can be run again and again.”

The collaboration brings together expertise from TACC in high-performance computing and building distributed software systems and UH ’s contribution of development, design and architecture of the Tapis system led by Co-Principal Investigator Sean Cleveland. In addition, UH brings access to important domain research related to climate, ocean, coral reefs, microbiome and population studies around health disparities that are unique to Hawaiʻi.

Read more at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.