LONI is creating a "brain database" that will provide appropriate statistical power and visualization capabilities to examine an individual or group of people to better understand the brain's structure, deformations and atrophy. The system will support hundreds of scientists worldwide as they combine information from more than 10,000 images, leveraging LONI's series of algorithms and mathematical computations to study brain development, Alzheimer's disease, drug treatments for conditions such as schizophrenia, and the effect of AIDS on the brain. Prior to the implementation of the Grid, these computations were extremely complex, expensive and time-intensive.

"The new technology is really kind of a wonderful way to leapfrog what had been a very serious impediment to asking fundamental questions about the brain. Prior to the Grid, people were unable to move forward on specific research because they did not know how to do it or because the data would take weeks to process", stated Dr. Arthur W. Toga, Laboratory Director, LONI. "Our powerful Grid, based on the Solaris 10 OS, AMD Opteron processor-based Sun Fire x64 servers and Sun StorEdge L8500, is web-interfaced so our neuroscientists who aren't mathematical by nature can easily gain access to the information. And the price/performance is outstanding - at a budget-friendly price point the speed allows us to more quickly analyse data and realize conclusions in hours rather than weeks."

LONI chose Sun technologies and services after an extensive evaluation process. In addition to beating competitors on price and performance, Sun's reputation, commercial stability and HPC engineering expertise also served as critical decision-making factors for LONI.