Harvard Medical School (HMS), a medical university and research facility, received an InfoWorld 100 Award for deploying one of top 100 information technology (IT) projects in 2009, as determined by InfoWorld editors.

Each year, International Data Group's InfoWorld 100 Awards recognize the 100 most innovative IT initiatives used to further an organization's business goals and acknowledge the achievements of top IT projects that exemplify inventive, forward-thinking technology use that meets both business and technical objectives.

To ensure that computing resources are always available to researchers and faculty, HMS built an internal cloud based on Platform products, IBM hardware, Isilon and EMC storage solutions, along with various biomedical software solutions such as MatLab and SAS.

Harvard Medical School's move from a centralized IT services organization to a highly-scalable, cost-effective, self-service solution required a cultural shift among research lab directors to overcome the initial skepticism around resource assurance and allocation on a shared infrastructure.

"High performance computing is the heart of scientific discovery, which is why we needed a cutting-edge internal compute cloud to ensure resources are always available for our researchers around the world," said Marcos Athanasoulis, Director of IT, HMS. "The internal grid allows our researchers to collaborate more easily than ever before and focus their attention on medical research instead of IT management."

"This year's recipients of InfoWorld's highest honor are shining examples of IT projects undertaken by tech leaders committed to pushing their organizations forward," said Jason Snyder, Features Editor, InfoWorld.