Introducing the Alliance

1
Introducing the Alliance

• Talk to the Assistant Director of the NSF CISE
  Directorate on his visit to NCSA
• September 18, 1997

2
The Alliance National Technology Grid
3
The Alliance is Prototyping the National
Technology Grid

• Leading Edge Centers
• Supernodes of the Grid
• Enabling Technology Teams
• Architects of the Grid
• Applications Technologies Teams
• Specifications for the Grid
• Education, Outreach, and Training Teams
• Access to the Grid
• Partners for Advanced Computational Services
• Support for the Grid
• Industrial Partners and Strategic Vendors
• Technology Transfer for the Grid

4
Alliance Executive Committee

• Larry Smarr, Chair
• Phil Smith, External Chair
• Charlie Bender, OSC
• Bob Berdine, Caterpillar
• David Ceperley, UIUC
• John Connolly, Kentucky
• Tom DeFanti, UIC
• Roscoe Giles, Boston U

• John Hennessy, Stanford
• Ken Kennedy, Rice
• Greg McRae, MIT
• Jeremiah Ostriker, Princeton
• Dan Reed, UIUC
• Rick Stevens, Argonne
• Mary Vernon, Wisconsin
• Paul Woodward, Minnesota

5
Alliance Enabling Technologies Teams - Faculty
Leads

• Parallel Computing (16)
• Ken Kennedy, Rice U
• Greg McRae, MIT
• Distributed Computing (15)
• Rick Stevens, Argonne
• Paul Woodward, U Minnesota
• Data and Collaboration (14)
• Dan Reed, UIUC
• Roscoe Giles, Boston U

6
Alliance Applications Technologies Teams -
Faculty Leads and UIUC (NCSA) Anchors

• Cosmology (5)
• Jeremiah Ostriker, Princeton U
• Mike Norman, UIUC (NCSA)
• Environment Hydrology (11)
• John Anderson, U Wisconsin
• Robert Wilhelmson, UIUC (NCSA)
• V.C. Patel, U Iowa
• Doug Johnston, UIUC (NCSA)
• Chemical Engineering (7)
• Greg McRae, MIT
• Richard Braatz, UIUC (NCSA)

7
Alliance Applications Technologies Teams -
Faculty Leads and UIUC (NCSA) Anchors

• Bioinformatics (9)
• Santae Kim, U Wisconsin
• Shankar Subramaniam, UIUC (NCSA)
• Nanomaterials (11)
• John Wilkins, OSU
• David Ceperley, UIUC (NCSA)
• Robert Dutton, Stanford U
• Karl Hess, UIUC (NCSA)
• Scientific Instruments (8)
• David Agard, UCSF
• Clint Potter, UIUC (NCSA)
• Paul Vanden Bout, NRAO
• Richard Crutcher, UIUC (NCSA)

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Education, Outreach, and TrainingAlliance Focus
Areas

• Education
• K-12
• Undergraduate
• Graduate
• Lifetime Learning
• Underrepresented Participants
• Women
• Minorities
• People with Disabilities
• Government
• Local (CCnet)
• State (Albany)
• Federal (FedCon, DoD Mod)

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Education, Outreach, and TrainingFY98 Projects
National Education Community
Chickscope Biology Workbench WW2010 Chemistry
Visualization
EOT-PACI Project Activities
Molecular Biology Cosmology Scientific Instruments
Applications Technologies
Digital Libraries Collaboration Tech. Distance
Learning VR/Simulations
Enabling Technologies
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How Application Teams Drive the Grid

• Cosmology
• Metacomputing
• Environmental Hydrology
• Immersive Collaboration
• Chemical Engineering
• Virtual Prototyping
• Bioinformatics
• Distributed Data
• Nanomaterials
• Remote Microengineering
• Scientific Instruments
• Virtual Observatories

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Alliance Bioinformatics Team
12
BIMA Distributed Observatory, Digital Library,
and Collaboratory
http//bima-server.ncsa.uiuc.edu/imagelib/VRMLHigh
lights.html
BIMA, Courtesy Richard Crutcher, UIUC
13
Replacement of Shared Memory Vector
Supercomputers by Microprocessor SMPs
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NCSA Combines Shared Memory With Massive
Parallelism
75 Annual DSM Growth Rate
SN2 (1024)
SN1 (1024)
Origin (1024)
Power Challenge (158)
24 Annual Vector Growth Rate
Actual PCA Monthly Usage
Y-MP
X-MP/48
Cray-2
X-MP/24
Future Upgrade Under Negotiation with NSF
15
Simulation of Liquid Helium - Path Integral
Monte Carlo Particle Code
Single Processor Performance
101 MF
Code Parallelizes Linearly with Number of Nodes
David Ceperley, Nanomaterials AT Team - NCSA, UIUC
16
Frontier Problems in Computational Science and
Engineering

• Multidiscipline Domains
• Multiscale Interactions
• Complex Geometries
• Full-up Virtual Prototyping
• Large System Optimizations

17
Building the Visual Supercomputer

• Rotating Turbulent Gas Ball Model of the Sun
• Nine Day Run on NCSA Origin (128-processors)
• Generated 2 Terabytes of Data, LCSE Visualized
  in 3 Days

Dave Porter, Paul Woodward, et al., LCSE, Univ of
Minnesota, June 1997
18
Computing on the University of Wisconsin Condor
Pool
Condor Cycles
CondorView, Courtesy of Miron Livny, Todd
Tannenbaum(UWisc)
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Regional Partners toPartners for Advanced
Computational Services

• PACS Focus Area
• Regional Access to Workshops
• Distributed Training and User Services
• Mid-Level Computational Resources
• Specialized Technology Development Sites
• PACS Members
• 4 Mid-Level Centers
• BU (Origin), OSC (Triton, T3E), Kentucky (HP
  SPP), Maui (SP-2)
• 6 Tech Development Sites
• Minn, Wisc, Rice, ANL, Wash, UVa
• 3 Outreach Consortia (CIC, SURA, EPSCoR)

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NCSA - HP Relationship

• Started 1990 with Convex Computer
• Goals
• Focus on Industrial Third Party Applications
• Integration of Technical and Data Computing
• NT / UNIX Interoperability
• HP- Intel Create Merced Processor in FY99-00
• full binary compatibility with both
• HP PA-RISC and
• Intel processor families
• NCSA / UIUC has Microsoft / Intel / HP Testbed
• NCSA SPP-2000 to -3000 Upgrade Path

21
Allstate Pioneering an NT Intranet

• Standard Software Environment
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Outlook / Exchange
• Internet Explorer
• Windows NT Desktop / Server for Intel Platforms
• Oracle Database Technology
• CA Unicenter (TNG)
• TCP/IP Network
• T3 Backbone
• Sonet Ring Technology
• Partnering with NCSA as Microsoft / HP Testbed
• Partnering with NCSA and Computer Associates

22
Building Blocks of a Computational Grid
From Ian Foster, Argonne Nat. Lab.
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MREN - Americas First Operational Gigapop -
Chicago Area Sites
Ameritech NAP houses STAR-TAP and MREN Hub
Northwestern
Ameritech
Fermi Natl Lab
MCI
EVL/UI Chicago
U Chicago
Argonne Natl Lab
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MREN - Americas First Operational Gigapop -
Midwest Sites
Minnesota/LCSE
Wisconsin
MREN and STAR-TAP
Purdue
Indiana Hub
NCSA
Indiana Univ
Planned
25
NSF vBNS and PACI - Mutually Interdependent
NCSA Alliance
NPACI
Both NCSA Alliance and NPACI
Other High Performance Connection sites
Current vBNS Backbone sites
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EPSCoR and the State Participation Problem
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International Connections Through STAR TAP
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National Technology GridWorkshop and Training
Facilities
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Integrating Scalable Computing WithVirtual
Environments and Large Data Sets
Formation of Large Scale Structure in the Universe
Bryan and Norman, NCSA, GC3 Team
http//zeus.ncsa.uiuc.edu8080/chdm_script.html
30
Working DoD Modernization Collaborative Virtual
Enviornment

• Environmental Modeling in Shared VR-space
• Chesapeake Bay Simulations and Databases

DREN
SGI Onyx (CEWES)
vBNS
SGI Onyx (NCSA)
SGI Onyx (U. Wisc)
ImmersaDesks
SGI Onyx (Old Dominion)
Integrated M-Bone Videoteleconferencing
Data courtesy Old Dominion University Images
produced by John Shalf, NCSA
31
Using Intranet Technologies to Form Alliance
Electronic Communities

• CAVE and ImmersaDesk Systems
• Hypernews Forums
• User Lists
• Application Galleries
• Shared Programs

http//www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Indices/Spotlight/ Featur
es/feature_CAVERNUS.html
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Caterpillars Distributed Virtual Reality
Data courtesy of Valerie Lehner, NCSA, 1996
33
Sears Virtual Store Prototype
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Early Alliance Success Stories

• Application Technology Teams
• BIMA Observations of Hale-Bopp
• Lyman Alpha Forest in Cosmology Explained
• Biology Workbench Acceptance
• Kansas Couples Habanero to Chem Eng
• Enabling Technologies Team
• Princeton May Become NCSA Symbio Testbed
• Chesapeake Bay I-Desk to I-Desk Demo
• MREN Hooks up to ANL, EVL, NCSA
• STAR TAP Funded for International vBNS
• LCSE Deploys Power Wall at NCSA

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Launching the Alliance - What We Will Do This
Fall

• Infrastructure Foundations
• Build the Alliance Intranet Framework
• Create the Origin Repository
• Rough Out Intranet Interfaces
• Set up the High Performance Networks
• Link the CAVE Devices
• Define the Alliance Work Plan
• Timelines and Deliverables for First Year
• Interweaving of ET/AT/EOT/RP and NCSA
• Identifiy Early Success Goals
• Define Alliance Software Set for AT/EOT
• Review Alliance Collaborative Software Plans
• Requires Strong ET/AT/EOT Brainstorming