The NERSC Center

As a national facility for scientific research, NERSC does much more than operate and provide access to supercomputers. The current model for the NERSC Center involves four areas of activity: HIGH-END SYSTEMS — Balanced introduction of the best new technologies for complete computational and storage systems, coupled with the advanced development activities necessary to wisely incorporate these new technologies. COMPREHENSIVE SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT— Providing the entire range of support activities, from high-quality operations and client services to direct collaborative scientific support, to enable a broad range of scientists to effectively use the NERSC systems in their research. SUPPORT FOR SCIENTIFIC CHALLENGE TEAMS — Supporting SciDAC and other computational science teams, with the goal of bridging the software gap between currently achievable and peak performance on the new terascale platforms. UNIFIED SCIENTIFIC ENVIRONMENT (USE) — Using Grid technology to work toward an integrated science environment, combining experiment, simulation, and theory by facilitating access to computing and data resources, as well as to large DOE experimental instruments. This section provides an overview of these activities during the past year—a behind-the-scenes glimpse into what it takes to make possible the scientific achievements describes in the previous section. The section begins with a look at NERSC’s clients, sponsors, and advisors.