Supporting Transformative Research Through Regional Cyberinfrastructure (CI)

1
Supporting Transformative Research Through
Regional Cyberinfrastructure (CI)

• Dr. Dali Wang,
• Grid Infrastructure Specialist

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SURA Mission

• SURA is a 501(c)3 university association with 63
  member institutions whose mission is to
• Foster excellence in scientific research
• Strengthen the scientific and technical
  capabilities of the nation and the Southeast
• Provide outstanding training opportunities for
  the next generation of scientists and engineers

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SURA Programs
Jefferson Lab DOE Office of Science to probe
nucleus of atom and study quark structure of
matter
CR/SCOOP of Naval Research/NOAA to provide IT
glue to integrate coastal research components
Information Technology - to build
cyberinfrastructure foundation (the integration
of high performance computing and networking) to
support SURAs scientific and research programs
Relations to formulate and sustain internal
and external relations strategy and support for
SURAs scientific and research programs
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SURA Region Challenge

• 33 of the US population
• 10 EPSCoR states
• 92 of the nations Historically Black Colleges
  and Universities (HBCUs)
• 22 of the nations Hispanic Serving Institutions
  (HSIs)
• 11.5 of the total NSF computing center
  allocations

On a per capita basis, researchers from non-SURA
states are allocated over three times as many
service units on NSF funded HPC systems as
researchers from the SURA region. The disparity
in 2006 is larger than in 2005, suggesting a
potentially disturbing trend toward a
concentration of access to and use of national CI
resources by an increasingly smaller portion of
the nations research community.
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About SURAgrid
SURAgrid

• 31 participating institutions
• Shared accessible grid computing environment
• Access to group negotiated discounted HPC systems
• Enabling CI supported research education
• On-Ramp to National CI

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SURAgrid Goals

• To develop scalable infrastructure that leverages
  local institutional identity and authorization
  while managing access to shared resources
• To promote the use of this infrastructure for the
  broad research and education community
• To provide a forum for participants to share
  experience with advanced technologies, and
  participate in collaborative project development

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Major Areas of Activity

• Grid-Building
• Access/Resource Management
• Applications Deployment Scientific Discoveries
  
• Corporate Partnerships
• Outreach Community

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CI-Enabled Coastal Research
SURA Coastal Ocean Observing and Prediction

• UNC Storm Surge Modeling with ADCIRC
• LSU Wave Watch 3 for SCOOP
• UFL CH3D Storm Surge Monitoring System with Grid
  Appliance

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CI-Enabled Bioinformatics Biomedical Research

• GSU Multiple Genome Alignment on the Grid
• GSU Virtual Screening for Computational Chemistry
• ODU Biosim Bio-electric Simulator for Whole Body
  Tissue
• UAB Dynamic Blast
• VCU Virtual Parasite

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On-Ramp to National CI

• NCSU Simulation-Optimization for Threat
  Management in Urban Water Systems

• SURAgrid provides compute resource heterogeneity,
  low overhead to participate
• Staging on SURAgrid, uncovers programming and
  workflow problems prior to porting to TeraGRID

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SURA Corporate Partnerships

• IBM p575 1 and 2 TF configurations
• IBM e1350 Linux 1 rack 3 TF and 2 rack 6 TF
  configurations
• Dell PowerEdge 1950 Single rack 2TF
  configuration
• Significant product discounts
• Owned and operated by SURAgrid participants
• Integrated into SURAgrid with 20 of capacity
  available to SURAgrid pool
• ATT dark fiber access

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Q A

• Dali Wang, Grid Infrastructure Specialist,
  dwang_at_sura.org
• Linda Akli, IT Applications Outreach
  Specialist, akli_at_sura.org