Texas Internet Grid for Research and Education (TIGRE) Charles Koelbel Rice University

Outline Who and what is TIGRE? TIGRE Activities TIGRE Application Example Final Thoughts

Texas A&M Houston Texas Tech Univ. of Texas at Austin Who Is TIGRE? A project of the High Performance Computing Across Texas (HiPCAT) organization Composed of 5 leading research universities

What is TIGRE? Part of the State of Texas’ plan to support CyberInfrastructure —LEARN: $7.3M / 33 institutions –Lonestar Education And Research Network –Network (fiber, routers, etc.) to connect institutions  (But that’s another talk…) —TIGRE: $2.5M / 5 schools –People to build and support the software TIGRE goals —Implement and deploy grid software –Note: funded as construction project, not research —Support three applications “of economic interest to the State of Texas” —Document best practices, train potential users

Where is TIGRE? NLR LEARN (2007) LEARN (Sept. 2006) Lubbock Houston Austin College Station Denton Dallas Longview Waco Galveston Beaumont San Antonio Corpus Christi El Paso

Outline Who and what is TIGRE? TIGRE Activities TIGRE Application Example Final Thoughts

TIGRE Portal and Testbed

TIGRE Software Stacks Server software stack —Globus 4.x (pre-web services & web services servers) —GPIR monitoring —GSI OpenSSH server —Client software stack Client software stack —Globus 4.x (pre-web services and web services clients) —GSI OpenSSH client —UberFTP —MyProxy client —Condor-G Both drawn from Virtual Data Toolkit (VDT) Storage is still an unresolved issue for TIGRE

TIGRE Target Applications Biology and Medicine —Ultrascan - data analysis from ultracentrifuge —MCNP - proton beam therapy for cancer —Radiotherapy modeling Environmental quality —WRF-Chem - air quality forecast over Houston Energy —Eclipse - reservoir modeling —DSNMO - seismic inversion Grid-ready codes —“The low-hanging fruit”

TIGRE Global Scheduler (candidates) Gridge Resource Management System (GRMS) — Gridway —

Outline Who and what is TIGRE? TIGRE Activities TIGRE Application Example Final Thoughts

T = 0T > 0 T =  Inverse Problem! UltraScan - A TIGRE Target Application Comprehensive data analysis package —Integrated data editing, analysis environment, MySQL database, parallel Monte Carlo analysis —From UT Health Science Center San Antonio For analytical ultracentrifugation experiments —Analyze wavelengths of scatted light –Many samples at many locations over time —Compute number of components, molecular weights, shapes, interactions —Solve by genetic algorithm (optimization) –Embarrassingly parallel, but overwhelms UTHSCSA’s 128-node cluster

TIGRE Portal TIGRE / Ultrascan Demo Centrifuge data

Ultrascan on TIGRE - Results "I can now do science that was not possible before.” - Borries Demmler, UTHSCSA, Ultrascan creator

Outline Who and what is TIGRE? TIGRE Activities TIGRE Application Example Final Thoughts

Leveraging TIGRE for VGrADS Obvious target of opportunity —Two common players —Both sides reasonably open to collaboration —Both sides interested in outreach (albeit not the same kind) Application challenges —VGrADS contribution needs to be robust –Or modular and applied sparingly –2-phase scheduling, BQP may fit the bill now —New twists for VGrADS –DSNMO - needs dynamic compilation, may need app mgr –MCNP - needs access control –WRF-Chem - needs data management, may need deadline scheduling

Backup slides go here

TIGRE Testbed NameSchoolSystemCPUsMemory CosmosTexas A&MSGI Altix GB EldoradoHoustonHP Itanium2 cluster GB GLB-testTexas TechCondor pool6814 GB LonestarUT AustinDell Xeon cluster GB MinigarTexas TechDell Linux cluster3264 GB RodeoUT AustinCondor pool GB RTCRiceHP Itanium2 cluster GB WelandTexas TechAMD Athlon cluster6464 GB Note: All access donated by the home institution; no equipment budget

TIGRE Milestones Year 1 (start 12/1/2005) Q1 Certificate Authority, minimal testbed Q2 Portal (alpha quality) Q3 Define server software stack Simple application demonstration Q4 Client software stack Year 2 Q1 Customer management service (alpha) —Q2 –Global grid scheduler —Q3 –Stable software stack available —Q4 –Hardening, documenting, demonstrating

Why TIGRE? (Do We Need Yet Another Grid?) Texas is looking to the future —Creating statewide CyberInfrastructure —Supporting existing research and education —Attracting new industry –TIGRE funded from Texas Enterprise Fund Computers and networks are already (partly) there —LEARN —UT Austin a partner in TeraGrid We need the people to make it work —Build the grid! –Funded as a construction project, not research —Support software —Reach out –To non-research schools, maybe to K-12