CactusTIKSLKDIPortal Synch Day

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Cactus/TIKSL/KDI/Portal Synch Day
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Agenda

• Main Goals
• Overview of Cactus, TIKSL, KDI, and Portal
  efforts
• present plans for each project
• make sure everyone knows what is going on
• coordinate efforts to extent possible
• Present/develop detailed plan for Portal
• where we are now
• who will do what in future
• develop coherence with NCSA, other portal
  efforts
• get clear plan for future development, feedback
  to Globus, NCSA
• get testbed set up
• get user input asap!
• Break up into working groups, summarize plans
• Overall Top Question to Answer How do we
  integrate and develop limited production testbed
  asap? Want something in place by end of August!

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Agenda, cont.

• Questions to be asking and answering in your
  presentations
• What is the overview and status of your project
  (save gory details for working groups)?
• How do we best integrate the efforts?
• When will certain features be done?
• What support/features do you want from other
  groups (NCSA, Portal, Globus, TIKSL, HDF, Cactus,
  etc.)
• What to do about lunch?
• Look at rest of agenda...

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Big Picture Project Space
Users
Portal
Developers
AEI/NCSA/WashU
Cactus
TIKSL AEI-ZIB-Garching
KDI
Globus
EU Network
Grads
NCSA
Grid Forum
Zeus
Egrid
Numerical Rel
General User Community
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What is Cactus?

• Its not just for breakfast anymore...
• It is not a relativity application(but it can do
  that)
• It is not an astrophysics application(but it can
  do that)
• It is not a fluid dynamics application(but it
  can do that)
• It is a metacode framework for parallel
  applications, with
• Pluggable data distribution layers (generic MPI,
  others)
• Pluggable parallel I/O
• Pluggable performance monitoring tools (PAPI,
  Autopilot, etc)
• Pluggable engineering/scientific applications,
  linear solvers, etc
• Pluggable cool stuff (remote steering, monitoring
  tools)
• Etc...
• Cactus Globus apps plugged into Cactus can
  become Grid-enabled
• A portal under development main topic here...

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A Portal to Computational Science The Cactus
Collaboratory
1. User has science idea...
2. Composes/Builds Code Components w/Interface...
3. Selects Appropriate Resources...
4. Steers simulation, monitors performance...
5. Collaborators log in to monitor...
Want to integrate and migrate this technology to
the generic user...
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Portal Components
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Cactus Portal

• Has Generic and Cactus-specific parts build on
  generic interfaces, which should be enhanced for
  additional app info
• Cactus specific
• Code composition (Cactus can be what you want it
  to be)
• Configuration Analysis (What the hell is in this
  directory?)
• Parameter Setting
• Interfaces must be self configuring
• Generic ( Cactus specific bonus features)
• Manual Resource Selection
• 1. Which machine? User selects based on
  available resources
• How will user know loads, wait times, resources?
  Need to have some standard interface to provide
  this info...
• 2. Which machines? User wants 20GF, 20GB
  memory. Could get 64 procs at NCSA and 64 at
  SDSC...
• Added cactus bonus what resources are
  compatible or recommended with my special
  configuration
• Automatic Resource Selection
• Just direct job to appropriate resources given
  request.

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Cactus Portal, cont...

• Job Launching
• Once resources selected, start job, handle batch,
  job submission, compilation if required
• Take care of file storage, archiving
• Job Monitoring
• Generic monitoring queues through common
  interface, notification of completion of job
• What is that interface?
• What about distributed simulations across
  sites???
• Cactus specific
• Web server interface (thorn http)
• All active routines in running simulation
  displayed
• All parameters for those routines displayed,
  steerable parameters can be changed
• Crude visualization of running simulation through
  browser interface
• Sophisticated Remote Visualization
• Retrieval of arbitrary data through streaming
  HDF5 for local visualization
• 1D, 2D, 3D, downsampled, depending on bandwidth
  available
• Inline visualization (e.g., isosurfaces,
  streamlines) sent over network

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Cactus Portal, continued

• Performance monitoring Want generic interface
  to warn user when perf is poor (usually is, and
  user does not even know!!!)
• PAPI (single proc, color coded for routine)
• Autopilot
• What else should be provided? What is envisioned
  for generic portal?
• Steering
• Science
• User changes parameters based on what is observed
• Parameters screwed up abort or keep going?
• Forgot to turn on output of favorite variable
• Forgot to turn on some routine
• Too much output, disc filling up
• Scientific results lead to change in algorithm or
  resource request
• AMR
• Feature indicates some change beneficial
• Logging of all changes

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Cactus Portal, continued

• Performance steering
• How is my job doing?
• Network bandwidth OK?
• Suggest other architecture
• Suggest algorithm changes due to current state of
  performance
• E.g., Extra ghost zones
• Questions for discussion
• What is really Cactus specific?
• What is generic what will standard portal, VMR,
  etc, provide?
• How to get maximum overlap between these efforts?
• How to get active testbed established asap, get
  appropriate users, portal developers, Globus
  developers, Grads developers effectively working
  together
• How long before this can brought into production?
• Should at least have SC2000 demo!

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Grand Picture
Viz of data from previous simulations in SF café
Remote steering and monitoring from airport
Remote Viz in St Louis
Remote Viz and steering from Berlin
DataGrid/DPSS Downsampling
IsoSurfaces
http
HDF5
T3E Garching
Origin NCSA
Globus
Simulations launched from Cactus Portal
Grid enabled Cactus runs on distributed machines
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Further details...

• Cactus
• http//www.cactuscode.org
• http//www.computer.org/computer/articles/einstein
  _1299_1.htm
• Movies, research overview (needs major updating)
• http//jean-luc.ncsa.uiuc.edu
• Simulation Collaboratory/Portal Work
• http//wugrav.wustl.edu/ASC/mainFrame.html
• Remote Steering, high speed networking
• http//www.zib.de/Visual/projects/TIKSL/
• http//jean-luc.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Projects/Gigabit/
• EU Astrophysics Network
• http//www.aei-potsdam.mpg.de/research/astro/eu_ne
  twork/index.html