High Performance Computing Research

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High Performance Computing Research

• Juan Meza
• Department Head
• High Performance Computing Research

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Computational Research in Balance with NERSC
Center

• A organizational balance between production
  facility and research activities is essential for
  the success of both
• the NERSC Center benefits directly from the DOE
  funded computer science research project
• the requirements of the NERSC Center stimulate
  computer science research and keep it closely
  relevant to the DOE mission

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National Energy Research Scientific Computing
(NERSC) Division
DIVISION DIRECTOR HORST SIMON DIVISION DEPUTY
DIRECTOR WILLIAM KRAMER
DIVISION ADMINISTRATOR FINANCIAL
MANAGER WILLIAM FORTNEY
CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST DAVID BAILEY
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS DEPARTMENT WILLIAM
JOHNSTON Department Head DEB AGARWAL, Deputy
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING DEPARTMENT WILLIAM
KRAMER Department Head
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING RESEARCH
DEPARTMENT Juan Meza Department Head
MASS STORAGE NANCY MEYER
APPLIED NUMERICAL ALGORITHMS PHIL COLELLA
IMAGING COLLABORATIVE COMPUTING BAHRAM PARVIN
COLLABORATORIES DEB AGARWAL
NETWORKING WILLIAM JOHNSTON (acting)
CENTER FOR BIOINFORMATICS COMP.
GENOMICS MANFRED ZORN
NETWORKING SECURITY HOWARD WALTER
SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING ESMOND NG
DATA INTENSIVE DIST. COMPUTING BRIAN TIERNEY
COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS JIM CRAW
COMPUTER OPERATIONS NETWORKING SUPPORT WILLIAM
HARRIS
USER SERVICES FRANCESCA VERDIER
CENTER COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE ENGR. JOHN BELL
SCIENTIFIC DATA MANAGEMENT ARIE SHOSHANI
DISTRIBUTED SECURITY RESEARCH MARY THOMPSON
HENP COMPUTING DAVID QUARRIE
FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES BRENT GORDA
GRID TECHNOLOGIES KEITH JACKSON
VISUALIZATION WES BETHEL
Rev 02.15.02
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Future Technology Group

• Mission is to investigate, understand and
  recommend technologies of importance to the NERSC
  center and its user base in the 3-5 year
  timeframe
• Checkpoint/Restart to enable production computing
  for Linux
• Target OS is Linux User or system administrator
  initiated
• Specifically aimed at parallel MPI jobs
• Part of Scalable Systems Software SciDAC project
• Infiniband Study
• IB is the next big thing in system area
  networking
• Switched fabric, O/S bypass, one-sided messaging,
  self healing
• IPv6 addressing

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Big Data and Remote Visualization Visapult

• Motivation remote and interactive visualization
  of large scientific data over a wide area
  network.
• Framework and application for remote direct
  volume visualization of large structured mesh
  data.
• Visapult winner of SC2001 Bandwidth Challenge

Source Volume
6
Scientific Computing Group

• Computational materials science
• electronic structure calculations, molecular
  dynamics
• Environmental and earth sciences
• climate modeling, groundwater flow simulation,
  modeling of the earth
• Computational Physics
• cosmic microwave background radiation,
  high-energy neutrino detection, accelerator
  modeling
• Numerical linear algebra
• eigen/singular value computations, sparse matrix
  computations
• extended precision basic linear algebra
  subprograms
• environments and tools

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Advanced Computational Testing and Simulation
(ACTS)

• Make ACTS tools available on NERSC platforms
• Enable large scale scientific applications
• Extended support for experimental software
• Perform independent evaluation of tools
• Provide consistent application interfaces
• Coordinate efforts with other supercomputing
  centers
• Educate and train
• Provide technical support (acts-support_at_nersc.gov)
  
• Maintain ACTS information center
  (http//acts.nersc.gov)

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Use of ACTS Tools

• Scattering in a quantum system of three charged
  particles (Rescigno, Baertschy, Isaacs and
  McCurdy, Dec. 24, 1999),
• SuperLU.

Cosmic Microwave Background Analysis, BOOMERanG
collaboration, MADCAP code (Apr. 27,
2000), ScaLAPACK.
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Vision

• Listening mode
• Some observations (after 2 months)
• Clear that NERSC is doing world class research
• Leaders in the application of modeling and
  simulation to science
• Good balance of applications, computer science,
  and algorithms that benefits the entire community
• Challenges
• Delivery on SciDAC goals
• Earth Simulator response advanced architecture
  research
• Maintaining a balance that will successful track
  record