NCREN Community Day, MCNC Friday, December 9th, 2005 Barry Wilkinson Department of Computer Science

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NCREN Community Day, MCNCFriday, December 9th,
2005Barry WilkinsonDepartment of Computer
ScienceUNC-CharlotteFor the grid computing
course team.Co-instructor Clayton Ferner, UNC-W
Grid Computing Experiences using NCREN to Teach
Grid Computing to Institutions Across North
Carolina
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Grid Computing

• Using geographically distributed and
  interconnected computers for high performance
  computing and/or for resource sharing.

The grid virtualizes heterogeneous geographically
disperse resources From "Introduction to Grid
Computing with Globus," IBM Redbooks
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Applications

• Originally e-Science applications
• Computational intensive, not necessarily one big
  problem but a problem that has to be solved
  repeatedly with different parameters.
• Data intensive.
• Experimental collaborative projects
• Now also e-Business applications to improve
  business models and practices.

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Virtual Organizations

• Grid computing offers the
• potential of virtual organizations
• groups of people both geographically and
  organizationally distributed working together on
  a problems sharing computers AND other resources
  such as databases and experimental equipment.
• Crosses multiple administrative domains.

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Numerous grid computing projects ExampleNSF
Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation
(NEES)

I. Foster
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Close to home
From Grid Computing in the Industry by Wolfgang
Gentzsch, presentation to Fall 2004 grid
computing course. Full set of slides on course
home page.
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Grid Computing Course

• Taught on NCREN network, Fall 2004 and 2005
• Undergraduate course
• Fall 2004 8 sites
• Fall 2005 12 sites

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• Western Carolina University (originator)
• UNC-Wilmington
• NC State University
• UNC-Asheville
• UNC-Greensboro
• Appalachian State University
• NC Central University
• Cape Fear Community College
• Elon University

Participating Sites, Fall 2004 course
43 students, several faculty
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Grid Computing Course - Fall 2005

• Broadcast from UNC-C to students at
• Appalachian State University
• Lenoir Rhyne College
• NC State University
• UNC-Asheville
• UNC-Pembroke
• UNC-Wilmington
• Western Carolina University
• Winston-Salem State University
• Also received at
• Elon University
• UNC Chapel Hill
• Wake Tech. Community College
• 32 students, several faculty

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Participating Sites, Fall 2005
Lenoir Rhyne College
Wake Tech. Community College
Elon University
Participating UNC campuses Private institutions
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Fall 2005 Course grid structure
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• Guest Speakers, Fall 2004
• Professor Daniel A. Reed, Vice Chancellor for IT
  and CIO, UNC-Chapel Hill, Director of RENCI.
• Wolfgang Gentzsch, Managing Director, MCNC Grid
  Computing and Networking Services.
• Chuck Kesler, Director, Grid Deployment and Data
  Center Services, MCNC.
• Professor Ian Foster, Argonne National Laboratory
  and University of Chicago (Taped presentation).
• Guest Speakers, Fall 2005
• Jeff Schmitt, genesismolecular.com
• Jim Jokl, University of Virginia, Art Vandenberg,
  Georgia State University, Mary Fran Yafchak,
  SURA.
• Lavanya Ramakrishnan, The Renaissance Computing
  Institute (RENCI).

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Course Home Page http//www.cs.uncc.edu/abw/ITCS
4010F05
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Faculty UNC-C Dr. Barry Wilkinson UNC-W Dr.
Clayton Ferner NCSU Dr. Gary Howell UNC-A Dr.
Dean Brock WCU Dr. Mark Holliday Students UNC-C
Kevin Hammond (PhD student) Nalin Subramanian
(MS student) WCU James Ruff (Undergraduate
student)
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Challenges and successes
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Challenges - Technical Issues(grid computing)

• Setting up the grid infrastructure very
  challenging
• Providing students with a stable distributed grid
  computing platform
• Moving the students through a set of detailed
  programming assignments in the face of system and
  student problems.
• Relies heavily on faculty contacts at each site.

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Challenges - NCREN issues

• Communicating effectively in class with up to 12
  sites simultaneously.
• Involving new NCREN sites
• Private universities joined NCREN network in 2005
  and were provided with televideo equipment to
  receive course.

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Other Multi-site Issues

• Each site has a different academic calendar!
• Only one date was the same at each site -
  Thanksgiving and even that there different
  numbers of days provided for it
• Can state institutions unify calendars?

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Successes

• This course was probably the first such course in
  the country, and possibly in the world, to
  involve undergraduate students and so many
  distributed sites and students using a televideo
  system such as NCREN.

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Sample email from Fall 2005 class

• Dr. Wilkinson, I just wanted to say I enjoyed
  your course very much it was without doubt the
  most "contemporary" area of CS study I have ever
  pursued. . --Clarence Alston App State. Dec 7,
  2005

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Attracting National Attention

• Hello, I am the editor of Science Grid This Week
  (http//www.interactions.org/sgtw), an NSF-funded
  e-newsletter for the scientific and grid
  computing communities. I would like to write an
  article about your grid computing course for the
  newsletter, Sincerely, Katie Yurkewicz, Grid
  Communications Office of Public Affairs,
  Fermilab
• Dec 7, 2005

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Acknowledgements

• I wish to thank everybody at NCREN for making it
  possible.
• Natasha Stracener, Program Coordinator/ Technical
  Director at UNC-C.
• Also NCREN infrastructure pivotal factor in being
  able to raise external funding (4 NSF grants
  1995-2004).

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Acknowledgements

• University of North Carolina Office of President,
  A Consortium to Promote Computational Science
  and High Performance Computing, PI B. Kurtz
  (Appalachian State University) total 650,000,
  2004-2006.
• University of North Carolina Office of President,
  Fostering Undergraduate Research Partnerships
  through a Graphical User Environment for the
  North Carolina Computing Grid, PI R. Vetter
  (UNC-Wilmington), total 557,634, 2004-2006.
• National Science Foundation, Introducing Grid
  Computing into the Undergraduate Curricula, ref.
  DUE 0410667/053334, PI B. Wilkinson, 100,000,
  2004-2006.

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New funding and leveraging work

• National Science Foundation, Introducing Grid
  Computing into the Undergraduate Curricula,
  Additional Funding, ref. DUE 0533334, PI B.
  Wilkinson, 8216, 2005-2006, to collaborative
  with the University of Arkansas.
• (This grant may be the smallest NSF award ever.)
• EPA, VisualGrid (Phase I), PI W. Ribarsky,
  500,000, Nov 1, 2005- Oct 31, 2006.
• Other grid computing proposals being submitted
  with various partners.

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Questions?