ACADEMIA

Digipede Technologies announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is deploying the Digipede Network to speed modeling of storms in order to better understand the potential damage from storm-driven waves. By reducing the time it takes to simulate a variety of scenarios on a daily basis, it allows the USACE to gain results sooner, which in turn makes it possible to find new ways to keep coastal communities safer from the damaging effects of storms, including hurricanes. "In order to better understand the root causes of the damage caused by storm-driven waves, we are running simulations that show the impact of storm surge and wave action under a variety of different historical storms. We are using the Digipede Network to spread the heavy computing load across servers and workstations in our Vicksburg, Mississippi facility to expand the number of scenarios examined each day," said Jarrell Smith, research hydraulic engineer at the Corps’ Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). "For example, ERDC researchers recently used the Digipede Network in simulations of waves for 40 historical storms in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska to evaluate the feasibility and design of a navigation channel. These simulations were completed overnight instead of over a couple of days, as would have been the case if the simulations were run on a single desktop PC. We see additional applications for this grid computing tool in improving our understanding of a variety of hydrological effects." ERDC researchers also plan to use the Digipede software in future hurricane impact studies. "The software will allow us to look at more hurricane scenarios in less time. We can then predict potential storm damage from waves and beach erosion, which could assist field engineers in protecting coastal communities from storms like Hurricane Katrina." Digipede Technologies CEO John Powers adds, "Digipede is delighted to be part of this important effort; those who doubt the increasing impact of distributed computing need to look no further than this application. As the Army Corps of Engineers improves its ability to model storm damage accurately, the Digipede Network is providing a significant boost to their analysis throughput, helping to keep coastal communities safer. We were particularly pleased to see that the Corps got their secure and scalable grid up and running in production on such complex applications within just a few days." The U.S Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is made up of approximately 34,600 civilian and 650 military members. Its military and civilian engineers, and diverse workforce of scientists, biologists, geologists, hydrologists, natural resource managers and other specialists and professionals collaborate to provide engineering services to meet national security and emergency response requirements. Its mission is to provide quality, responsive engineering services to the nation in five distinct areas: water resources, environment, infrastructure, homeland security, and warfighting. USACE manages billions of dollars annually to keep the nation’s infrastructure secure. The Digipede Network is an affordable distributed computing solution built entirely on Microsoft .NET that dramatically improves the speed and performance of demanding real-world business applications. It is radically easier to buy, install and use than other grid-computing solutions. Using the Digipede Network, developers can easily write .NET-based applications that will take advantage of thousands of computers, bringing the power of grid computing to the Windows platform. The Digipede Network is available in two editions: the Digipede Network Team Edition meets the needs of small departments and labs that may only have up to 20 computers, while the Digipede Network Professional Edition supports large departments and enterprises with hundreds or thousands of desktops, servers, and cluster nodes across a network. Both editions include the Digipede Workbench, which is designed to shorten the learning curve so that users can become productive immediately. Through a familiar Windows user interface, users can run distributed computing jobs with ease. Wizards assist users with learning and using the system quickly, and powerful designers provide access to greater system functionality. No complex scripting is required.