The meeting, held in Berkeley Lab's Perseverance Hall, was opened
by ExERSUG Chairman Ricky Kendall, who welcomed participants and
made routine announcements.
The first speaker was NERSC Program Manager Tom Kitchens from
DOE's Mathematical, Information and Computational Sciences Division.
Tom's "View from Washington" consisted mainly of an
overview of the proposed FY99 DOE budget as it pertains to scientific
computing.
The budget proposal includes funding for Next Generation Internet
(NGI) testbeds, DOE2000, and collaborative facilities. The budget
proposes $10 million in funding for DOE research in support of
NGI.
In FY99, there will be two strategic thrusts:
Tom also outlined several DOE education programs supporting students
and teachers at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school levels.
Phase I of the Academic Strategic Alliances Program, funded by
ASCI, has been implemented with five universities, and Phase II
is in the works.
NERSC Director Horst Simon followed with an overview of NERSC
research and cited accomplishments of the past year. Horst noted
that NERSC is bringing forth one or two innovations per month.
In the past year, these included upgrading the Cray J90s, taking
delivery and accepting the Cray T3E-900, joining with Intel and
UC Berkeley in the Millennium clustered workstation project, the
Sun Microsystems "Wildfire" collaboration, HPSS being
placed into production, and installation of the remote visualization
server and math server.
Horst reiterated the NERSC model of combining a major facility
with appropriate intellectual services. He said it's important
to maintain the appropriate balance between the two.
Among the recent NERSC research programs receiving funding are
DOE2000 ACTS Toolkit support, a national bioremediation project
called NABIR, a climate research project with NCAR and GFDL, and
combustion research. Although none of these have received large-scale
funding, they represent important steps toward larger efforts
involving NERSC.
Horst also introduced new staff members and reviewed the recent
revisions to the NERSC organization, including creation of the
Advanced Systems Group to appraise new architectures and technologies.
The NERSC Division currently consists of 120 employees, with 63
of them working under the NERSC Program.
Horst concluded by distributing copies of two reports: the 1997
NERSC Annual Report and "How Are We Doing?", a self-assessment
of NERSC systems and services for FY97.
Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences Director Bill McCurdy gave an
update on the proposed Computing Science initiative now making
its way through DOE and hopefully to Congress in time for FY2000
funding. Now called the Strategic Simulation Initiative, or SSI,
the proposal began as a plan to expand scientific computing within
Energy Research. Proposed funding would start at $100 million
and increase to $300 million by FY2004.
After much discussion between various labs and organizations within
DOE, the initiative has been fashioned to focus on two main areas:
accelerated climate prediction and combustion simulation and modeling.
The accompanying science needed to support this effort, such as
fluid dynamics and materials science, could help further research
in other ER areas, too. Future thrust areas could be developed.
The plan is to have the entire package ready by the end of summer
to begin working its way through the budget process.
"We haven't had an opportunity like this and aren't likely
to in the next 10 years," McCurdy said.
Tom Kitchens outlined several proposals for changing the way time
is allocated on the Cray T3Es. The suggestions came out of a SCAC
(Scientific Computing Access Committee) meeting held in March.
The allocations for the vector computers would remain essentially
unchanged.
About half the time on the T3Es now goes to the Grand Challenge
researchers, Tom said. The remainder is split between users who
are looking to gain expertise in MPP and users who already have
the expertise. Requests are currently reviewed by a technical
committee to assess the pertinence of the projects to DOE's missions.
Among the suggested changes for ERCAP 99 are:
Harvard Holmes of NERSC's Mass Storage Group gave a presentation
on plans for archival storage quotas. The goal, Harvard said,
is to influence user behavior to use storage resources more efficiently.
The new plan is for quotas, not for charging users for storage.
The overall quota would be a formula and include file counts,
space used, and input/output performed. The proposed default allocation
would accommodate about 90 percent of NERSC users, so only about
10 percent would need to be actively managed. Because the plan
is still being developed, Harvard said he would like to hear from
users. Whatever plan is adopted, he said, it should not get in
the way of doing science.
Small changes/improvements in use of storage can make a big difference,
Harvard said. Current storage capacity is estimated to be adequate
through FY99, but with the increase of data intensive computing,
storage needs to be well managed. Storage, Harvard noted, is more
than just file space and includes bandwidth, file counts, and
other elements.
The new system would try to give early notice to those who consistently
exceed their quota. NERSC would have some storage in reserve to
quickly address requests for larger quotas. The current plan is
to include storage in this year's ERCAP process.
Nancy Meyer of NERSC's Mass Storage Group discussed the upcoming
migration of file storage from CFS to HPSS. Earlier this year,
NERSC changed the UniTree storage system over to HPSS in two days.
The changeover involved 700,000 files accessed by 950 users. CFS,
on the other hand, holds 3.3 million files used by 5,000 users.
Based on the UniTree migration, Nancy said the CFS changeover
would take four to six days. The timetable calls for the migration
to be done this summer.
Among the benefits of the conversion for CFS users are:
Nancy said that although a lot of work remains before the migration
is made, there appear to be no insurmountable obstacles. She also
emphasized that the conversion won't be done until everything
is right.
Steve Lau of NERSC's Visualization Group presented an update on
the group's activities, including installation of a new remote
visualization server. The machine, a Silicon Graphics Onyx 2,
features six R10000 processors, 3 GB of memory, a 100 GB disk
array, a HIPPI connection to NERSC's Cray supercomputers, a fast
Ethernet connection, and an ATM interface.
The server allows users to view their data from afar, which is
useful when the data is too large or complex to be viewed with
users' local resources. Users can also use the server for collaborations.
The server will provide visualization capabilities to users who
do not otherwise have access to visualization resources. Initially,
the server will support about 35 low-end users and 10 high-end
users. Eventually, it should support about 150 users.
The server is currently available only to NERSC users with visualization
needs -- the server is not available as a secondary compute server
or for uses other than visualization, and use will be monitored.
In addition to serving as a testbed for developing and testing
new remote visualization and collaboration techniques, the server
will be a repository for NERSC visualization software.
The server, named "Escher," will be available to any
user upon request, and there are currently no set restrictions
on the amount of use. Users will have access to 300 MB of disk
space per user directory and both graphics pipelines. The machine
features real-time interactive capability, not the batch mode
of NERSC's other high performance computers.
For more information about Escher, visit the web site at: http://www.nersc.gov/hardware/servers/vis-server.html
At the request of Bill Kramer, a technology review panel was formed to assist
him in the evaluation of proposals for the next procurement. Panel members are
Bas Braams, Brian Hingerty, Ricky Kendall, Jean-Noel Leboeuf, Mike Minkoff,
Steve Pieper, and Robert Ryne.
Stu Loken presented an overview of the DOE2000 collaborative tools,
what they can do, and where to get them. DOE2000 will fundamentally
change the way DOE does collaborative experiments and computation
by developing new capabilities and enhancing existing tools. Collaboratory
R&D projects involve shared virtual reality, software infrastructure,
collaboration management, security infrastructure, electronic
notebooks, floor control, and quality of service. Tools that researchers
can use today include electronic notebooks and videoconferencing
tools. The two major collaboratory pilot projects are the Diesel
Combustion Collaboratory and the Materials Microcharacterization
Collaboratory. Some other limited collaboratory efforts are going
ahead with non-DOE2000 funds.
A taxonomy of collaboration tools includes:
Stu demonstrated the electronic notebook architecture, which includes
a notebook client, object, engine (with plug-ins and storage interface),
and storage object. The notebooks are based on Web browsers to
take advantage of existing standards, familiar interface, cross-platform
capabilities, and lots of existing software.
Stu then compared various conference tools, as summarized in the
following tables:
| Mbone tools | Unix, Win95, NT |
| NetMeeting | Win95, NT |
| CUSeeMe | Mac, PC |
| PictureTalk | Web-based |
| MeetingPlace | telephone |
| ISDN systems | room-based, PC |
| Mbone | ||||||
| NetMeeting | ||||||
| CUSeeMe | ||||||
| PictureTalk | ||||||
An old but popular conference tool is ESnet's VCS, which has a
40-port ISDN hub at Berkeley Lab, full bi-directional Mbone gateway,
and Web-based video resource management. Over 110 video rooms
around the world are registered. January 1998 statistics showed
406 conferences totaling 3217.5 hours. ESnet also has a 48-port
AudioBridge that provides out-of-band, good-quality audio in parallel
with any video conference or stand-alone.
A 100-user data conferencing server that provides desktop image
sharing can be reserved in parallel with any video conference,
audio conference, or stand-alone. The free client software is
a Web browser plug-in.
In the future, VCS will become Virtual Collaboration Services,
no longer just video-centric. Future services and capabilities
will include audio/video recording with playback on demand, fax
support, ATM-based and H.323 (packet) conferencing, Webcasting,
transcoding, continuous presence, and live video distribution.
The Quality of Service (QoS) project will change the way the Internet
works by providing the equivalent of first class, business, and
coach classes, with higher-priority traffic paying more for faster
speed.
Collaboration tools are available at these Web sites:
A Queue Structure Working Group will begin considering modifications
to the existing queue structure. Volunteers for the group are
Jim Craw, Bas Braams, Greg Kilcup, Jean-Noel Leboeuf, Doug Olson,
and Salman Habib.
Tom Kitchens led further discussion of the reallocation of T3E
resources. He would like feedback on the proposal within 10 days.
Jim Craw reported on the J90++, the follow-on to the J90se. The
J90++ has faster processors and vector caching. In January/February,
SGI/Cray met their milestones which involved final testing and
release to production of several key ICs. Cray will test a prototype
system in July and ship a 24-processor system to NERSC in the
fourth calendar quarter of 1998.
The cost of NERSC's C90 maintenance (hardware and software) has
been reduced by 50%. The maintenance contract has been modified
to "best effort" instead of 24 x 7 support. The operating
system will be upgraded to UNICOS 10.0 in June. The decommissioning
of the C90 is set for December 31, 1998.
Bill Kramer gave an overview of security: responsibilities, incidents,
strategies, and future plans. NERSC works within the Berkeley
Lab security framework and implements special requirements as
needed in cooperation with CIAC and other organizations. NERSC
conforms to and often exceeds required standards.
In the two years since NERSC moved to Berkeley, there were five
security incidents and two compromises, but no compromises of
mission-critical (compute and storage) systems. Incidents included
compromise of two C90 user accounts and five staff workstations,
threatening phone calls to staff, and a SAS system compromise
that resulted in changed files in only one account. Unauthorized
attempts to access NERSC systems are increasing, but users have
been very cooperative in detecting and addressing attacks.
Bill outlined NERSC's security approach:
Future security plans include:
Ricky Kendall led a discussion of ExERSUG membership. Representation is needed from the following fields:
Criteria for membership are participation and program management
support.
Brian Hingerty and Jerry Potter were nominated, and Brian was
elected.
There was discussion on whether to hold the meeting at the beginning
or end of SC98, which will be held November 7-13 in Orlando. Until
more details of the conference are known, the ERSUG meeting is
tentatively set for Saturday-Sunday (11/7-8) or Sunday-Monday
(11/8-9).
Ricky summarized the Greenbook recommendations:
Before handing over the reins to Bas Braams, Ricky volunteered
to finish the Greenbook and continue maintaining the ERSUG Web
site. He also advised members to "step up or step out"
-- i.e., participate and help the new chair.
Bas led the group in thanking Ricky for his leadership from 1996-98,
and Ricky was presented with a mounted Cray 2 CPU module in recognition
of his efforts.