|
$150 million Teragrid award heralds new era for scientific computingInter-operable cyber-infrastructure now accessible to entire science and engineering community. Energy research is but one of many fields that can benefit from this turbo-charged, next-generation Internet. Adapted for Pure Energy Systems News by Sterling
D. Allan
The Internet was birthed by such a collaborative and decentralized concept, and now its next generation is coming into being. It is called the Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF), also known as the "Teragrid". Imagine what this added resource will do for research in all areas, from coming up with viable energy alternatives, to improving health modalities, to developing more peaceful and vibrant economic models. The big news today is that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced that they have made a five-year, $150 million award to operate and enhance the Extensible Terascale Facility. Researchers and educators around the U.S. can now access a range of computing resources that will accelerate advances in science and engineering. At first, this will be available in to academic institutions, but will be expanded over time so that its robust features will become accessible to most everyone -- like the Internet -- according to Debbie Crawford, Director of the Office of cyber-infrastructure at the NSF. She compares it to the shared network of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligences), whose member computers' resources are made available for network computations while the owners are not using them. This "community computing" model is being used in a number of fields. The Teragrid uses this model, but employs super computers and has access to beefy databases. "One system grants access to another in exchange for access to their own resources," explained Crawford. "It is a sort of quid pro quo system." Presently there are nine partner sites, with many other institutions inquiring about joining in the network. Someone who wishes to access a certain amount of computational capacity submits an application to a committee. Likewise, if someone wishes to access a certain restricted database, similar steps are followed to obtain the necessary permissions. While these member sites form the core of the network, access even to the "periphery" will benefit many. It will not be long before TeraGrid becomes as ubiquitous as the Internet is now, Crawford opines. "Many new users from a range of scientific communities will now have access to sophisticated IT applications and computational tools. Over time, these applications will be customized to the needs of the individual or community," said NSF Director, Arden L. Bement, Jr. TeraGrid--built over the past 4 years--is the world's largest, most comprehensive, distributed cyber-infrastructure for open scientific research. Through high-performance network connections, TeraGrid integrates high-performance computers, data resources and tools, and high-end experimental facilities around the country. "TeraGrid unites the science and engineering community so that larger, more complex scientific questions can be answered. Solving these larger challenges will, in turn, motivate the development of the next generation of cyber-infrastructure. This is a win-win situation, consistent with NSF's mission to keep science and engineering at the frontier," continued Bement. The scientists and engineers responsible for TeraGrid operations will work closely with researchers whose science requires powerful computing resources. For example, researchers using TeraGrid are exploring functions of decoded genomes, how the brain works, the constitution of the universe, disease diagnosis, and real-time weather forecasting to predict the exact locations of tornado and storm threats. Realistic simulations of new designs on TeraGrid will also help engineers design better aircraft. The new TeraGrid award includes $48 million to provide overall architecture,
software integration, operations and coordination of user support. The
University of Chicago will lead this effort under the guidance of Charlie
Catlett, director of the TeraGrid project and former chair of Global Grid Forum.
An additional $100 million will provide for operation, management, and user
support of TeraGrid resources at eight resource-provider sites. "In the past several years, the community has learned that reliable, sustainable cyber-infrastructure requires both close collaboration among organizations making their resources available to scientists and engineers through grid technologies, and a critical mass of people responsible for the overall enterprise," said Catlett. "A focused coordination team ensures that users experience a coherent system and provides a way to organize a large number of resource providers." Such access will enable researchers to analyze terabytes--trillions of bytes--of data collected by scientific instruments, telescopes, satellites and remote sensors. TeraGrid will allow researchers to manipulate enormous data sets in novel ways to gain new insights into research questions and societal problems. George Karniadakis, a professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University,
has long been a leader in applying NSF computing resources to a variety of
fluid-dynamics problems. Karniadakis now uses computational resources at four
different TeraGrid sites simultaneously. "The TeraGrid is a distributed
supercomputer, a system with potentially unlimited capability for us. For the
first time, we can simulate cardiovascular processes in the entire arterial
tree," he said.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
CONTACTS: See also
Page composed by Sterling
D. Allan Aug. 17, 2005 |
|
|
Feed