SCIENCE
Apply for computational time on TeraGrid by October 15, 2010
National Science Foundation begins transition to eXtreme Digital generation of cyberinfrastructure
Scientists, engineers and other U.S. researchers have until October 15, 2010 (12:00 midnight submitter’s local time) to apply for the next quarterly review of requests for free allocations of high-performance computer time, advanced user support, and storage resources that are available through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Cyberinfrastructure’s (OCI) TeraGrid. To apply for an allocation of any size, please visit TeraGrid’s online submission system: https://pops-submit.teragrid.org/.
Each quarter, a peer-review panel of computational experts known as the TeraGrid Resource Allocations Committee (TRAC) evaluates requests primarily on the appropriateness and technical aspects of using TeraGrid resources. Applications received by the October 15 deadline will be considered at the December 2010 TRAC meeting and awarded resources will be available January 1, 2011.
TeraGrid allocates more than 1.5 billion CPU hours to meritorious requests each year. Resources currently exceed two petaflops of combined computing capability and approximately 50 petabytes of online and archival data storage from 11 resource provider sites across the nation. The largest number of requests in TeraGrid’s history were reviewed at the August 2010 TRAC meeting—390 million processor hours and 1/3 petabytes of data storage were awarded to 151 research teams.
For the next round of awards, researchers can request time on 24 systems, including TeraGrid’s two largest, Ranger at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), and Kraken at the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS), plus the first systems to be awarded under the eXtreme Digital, or XD phase of NSF-supported cyberinfrastructure, the Nautilus (NICS) and Longhorn (TACC) remote visualization and data analysis systems. Purdue offers TeraGrid users a production cloud environment called Wispy—a cluster running KVM and Nimbus cloud software. Users can submit disk images to run a virtual machine with up to four CPUs and 16 gigabytes of memory. This month, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) will deploy a new shared memory supercomputer called Ember. With a peak performance of 16 teraflops, Ember doubles the performance of its predecessor, Cobalt. Several new resources will be added in January 2011 as well. The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) will offer a new 324-node/100 teraflops system with 38 terabytes of flash memory called Trestles. The system will work with, and span the deployments of, SDSC’s recently introduced Dash system and its larger Gordon data-intensive system, which will be operational in mid-2011. The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) will introduce Black Light, a new Altix UV system, featuring 512 Nehalem 2.226 gigahertz eight-core processors—4,096 cores total, featuring two partitions, each of which supports 16 terabytes of coherent shared memory (the largest coherent shared-memory systems in the world). NICS will increase the capacity of Kraken, TeraGrid’s largest resource, by 144 teraflops with an additional 1,152 nodes. TACC will upgrade Lonestar February 1, 2011. This 302 teraflop/s Dell PowerEdge computer consists of 1888 nodes of dual socket, 3.3 gigahertz, six-core Westmere processors. The upgraded Lonestar will be allocated separately from the existing Abe/QueenBee/Steel/Lonestar Dell PowerEdge Clusters. For the most current information about TeraGrid resources, visit the resource catalog: www.teragrid.org/web/user-support/resources.
TeraGrid’s Transition to XD—The Future is Now!
The NSF has already begun to introduce elements of the next phase of their investment in high-end computing: the eXtreme Digital, or XD, program, which will supplant the TeraGrid program. In 2010, the remote visualization and data analysis systems known as Longhorn and Nautilus, and two new services, Technology Audit Service (TAS) and Technology Insertion Service (TIS), were announced. TAS, managed by the Center for Computational Research at the University at Buffalo, State Universities of New York (SUNY), will have systemic tools in place to benchmark user satisfaction and resource utilization across the board. The TAS program was awarded to NCSA, PSC, NICS, and TACC and will feature a means by which to identify the most promising technologies to meet evolving demands. These services will allow XD management to be better stewards of resources and optimize their use by an increasing number of users and new fields of research. A competition for the management of XD is ongoing and a new administrative model will begin April 1, 2011. For more information about XD, visit the NSF/OCI web site: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503282.
For the most up-to-date information, including an XD transition schedule and answers to frequently asked questions, visit: http://www.teragrid.org/XDTransition. Contact TeraGrid with specific questions by email: XDQuestions@teragrid.org, via the TeraGrid User Portal web form (select the consulting tab), or by calling 1-866-907-2383.
Each quarter, a peer-review panel of computational experts known as the TeraGrid Resource Allocations Committee (TRAC) evaluates requests primarily on the appropriateness and technical aspects of using TeraGrid resources. Applications received by the October 15 deadline will be considered at the December 2010 TRAC meeting and awarded resources will be available January 1, 2011.
TeraGrid allocates more than 1.5 billion CPU hours to meritorious requests each year. Resources currently exceed two petaflops of combined computing capability and approximately 50 petabytes of online and archival data storage from 11 resource provider sites across the nation. The largest number of requests in TeraGrid’s history were reviewed at the August 2010 TRAC meeting—390 million processor hours and 1/3 petabytes of data storage were awarded to 151 research teams.
For the next round of awards, researchers can request time on 24 systems, including TeraGrid’s two largest, Ranger at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), and Kraken at the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS), plus the first systems to be awarded under the eXtreme Digital, or XD phase of NSF-supported cyberinfrastructure, the Nautilus (NICS) and Longhorn (TACC) remote visualization and data analysis systems. Purdue offers TeraGrid users a production cloud environment called Wispy—a cluster running KVM and Nimbus cloud software. Users can submit disk images to run a virtual machine with up to four CPUs and 16 gigabytes of memory. This month, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) will deploy a new shared memory supercomputer called Ember. With a peak performance of 16 teraflops, Ember doubles the performance of its predecessor, Cobalt. Several new resources will be added in January 2011 as well. The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) will offer a new 324-node/100 teraflops system with 38 terabytes of flash memory called Trestles. The system will work with, and span the deployments of, SDSC’s recently introduced Dash system and its larger Gordon data-intensive system, which will be operational in mid-2011. The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) will introduce Black Light, a new Altix UV system, featuring 512 Nehalem 2.226 gigahertz eight-core processors—4,096 cores total, featuring two partitions, each of which supports 16 terabytes of coherent shared memory (the largest coherent shared-memory systems in the world). NICS will increase the capacity of Kraken, TeraGrid’s largest resource, by 144 teraflops with an additional 1,152 nodes. TACC will upgrade Lonestar February 1, 2011. This 302 teraflop/s Dell PowerEdge computer consists of 1888 nodes of dual socket, 3.3 gigahertz, six-core Westmere processors. The upgraded Lonestar will be allocated separately from the existing Abe/QueenBee/Steel/Lonestar Dell PowerEdge Clusters. For the most current information about TeraGrid resources, visit the resource catalog: www.teragrid.org/web/user-support/resources.
TeraGrid’s Transition to XD—The Future is Now!
The NSF has already begun to introduce elements of the next phase of their investment in high-end computing: the eXtreme Digital, or XD, program, which will supplant the TeraGrid program. In 2010, the remote visualization and data analysis systems known as Longhorn and Nautilus, and two new services, Technology Audit Service (TAS) and Technology Insertion Service (TIS), were announced. TAS, managed by the Center for Computational Research at the University at Buffalo, State Universities of New York (SUNY), will have systemic tools in place to benchmark user satisfaction and resource utilization across the board. The TAS program was awarded to NCSA, PSC, NICS, and TACC and will feature a means by which to identify the most promising technologies to meet evolving demands. These services will allow XD management to be better stewards of resources and optimize their use by an increasing number of users and new fields of research. A competition for the management of XD is ongoing and a new administrative model will begin April 1, 2011. For more information about XD, visit the NSF/OCI web site: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503282.
For the most up-to-date information, including an XD transition schedule and answers to frequently asked questions, visit: http://www.teragrid.org/XDTransition. Contact TeraGrid with specific questions by email: XDQuestions@teragrid.org, via the TeraGrid User Portal web form (select the consulting tab), or by calling 1-866-907-2383.