Rock Solid Science: Scaling New Heights in Computational Science

Computer scientists from Berkeley Lab will show how computational science and high performance networking are helping to solve some of today's most pressing scientific problems in a series of displays and demonstrations at SC97, the annual high performance computing and networking conference.

The Lab is the home of the nation's most powerful unclassified supercomputing center and the management center for the Department of Energy's Energy Sciences Network.

Under the theme of "Rock Solid Science: Scaling New Heights in Computational Science," the Computing Sciences organization from Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will show how the latest technologies are being applied to produce unprecedented scientific results. Berkeley Lab highlights include:

• The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, or NERSC, which is home to seven Cray Research supercomputers, giving it the most computing power of all the unclassified computing centers in the United States. NERSC is a partner in seven of the 12 "Grand Challenges" funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Grand Challenge scientists will spotlight results obtained from using NERSC's 512-processor Cray T3E supercomputer. Work by the Lab to help organize and analyze massive amounts of data generated by these projects will be demonstrated as well.
• The Energy Sciences Network, or ESnet, is a high-performance data communications network interconnecting more than 30 national laboratories and other major DOE research sites in the United States with collaborators on a global basis, allowing close collaborations and remote access to specialized research facilities. As one of the fastest "backbone" networks on the Internet, ESnet provides connections at speed of up to 155 megabits per second, or the equivalent of transmitting 2,000 pages of text a second.
• Computing Sciences Visualization Laboratory will offer eye-popping images of computer simulations of research in earth sciences, high energy physics and materials science. Using virtual reality techniques, the data can be viewed and manipulated naturally in a true three-dimensional environment. Viewing the data in this way can quickly draw the scientist's attention to areas of significance.
• The Lab's Computing Sciences organization is working closely with UC Berkeley on several projects to develop and evaluate new computer architectures for potential future applications. These efforts will be highlighted by NERSC's Future Technologies Group.
• WALDO, a Berkeley Lab research program designed to enable access to large databases over wide-area networks, will be demonstrated.
• Nobel Laureate and Lab Associate Director At Large Glenn Seaborg will participate in the SC97 Education Program on Wednesday, Nov. 19.

Berkeley Lab is also participating in a Department of Energy display of "DOE2000" technologies. DOE2000 is developing a set of collaborative tools including desktop videoconferencing, remote control of experimental facilities and electronic notebooks for recording and sharing information from research. The benefits of this collaborative work will be greater access to experimental facilities, increased cooperation among the nation's leading research facilities, better use of resources, more frequent interactions, and a greater interchange of ideas between experts in various scientific fields.

SC97 will be held from Saturday, Nov. 15, thorough Friday, Nov. 21, at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.