July 21, 2005Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 1 Advanced Computing in Environmental Sciences ACES Vanda Grubišić Desert Research Institute Division of Atmospheric Sciences

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 2 ACES State-wide research infrastructure development program funded by the NSF Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) $3.4M ($1M/yr) in support of computational science activities in environmental research A collaboration between environmental scientists, computer scientists, and applied mathematicians at all three NSHE research campuses

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 3 Why environmental sciences? The area in which Nevada scientists have traditionally been the most competitive in securing funding Starting with an existing large community that supports excellent graduate level programs Environmental science disciplines are“data-intensive” (large observational data sets, intensive modeling application, need for advanced visualization tools)

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 4 ACES Main Objectives To create a core of computational science expertise and capability in environmental science research Foster application of Information Technology (IT) advances in environmental scientific disciplines Stimulate new multidisciplinary research centered on computer modeling and scientific data visualization

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 5 ACES Strategy Creation of the Nevada Environmental Computing Grid (NECG) - research infrastructure that is more than just a sum of individual components dispersed throughout the state Fostering scientific collaboration and growth of the Application Community at NSHE

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 6 Funding Opportunities for the Application Community Competitive postdoctoral (5) and graduate fellowships (14) in AY 2003/4 and 2004/5 - Congratulations Glenn! Summer 2005 graduate research program (13 fellows) Seed grants for development of new collaborative proposals and course development (4) - Congratulations Laurel! Matching funds for startup packages for new faculty in computer science and applied mathematics New faculty program for this fall

INFRASTRUCTURE Nevada Environmental Computing Grid (NECG) Three grid nodes (DRI, UNR, UNLV) with the main node and the core facility at DRI NNSC in Reno Utilizes the high-bandwidth network communication infrastructure of the Nevada Research Network (NRN) connected to Internet2 Two parts of NECG: –Computational Grid –Collaboration Grid (Access Grid)

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 8 ACES Web Portal The main entry point to all ACES resources Simple and unified access to technical documentation and job submission (using Globus Toolkit and Sun Grid Engine) Equally accessible from within or outside of DRI Expertise in using the grid portal future-proof Beta testing started in December ACES Survey questionnaire on the ACES web page!

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 9 ACES Web Site and Grid Portal aces.dri.edu

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 10 Grid Portal: Login A grid certificate is required to login

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 11 ACES High-performance Computer (ACE) SGI Altix Itanium2 CPUS 80 GigaBytes of RAM 3 TeraBytes of fast disk storage Gflops/sec (LINPACK) Linux operating system

ACES CORE FACILITY Located at DRI NNSC in Reno Hardware investment only of more than $1M Support personnel: System Administrator (Kathy Smith- Miller) and Scientific Applications Programmer (Shulan Liu) ACES Computing: High-performance SMP computer (ACE) Linux-based high-end visualization cluster (VisCluster) ACES Visualization: State-of-the-art multi-use scientific visualization laboratory (VisLab) with an Access Grid node

ACES VisLab Collaborative Environment Tiled back-projection system with a 17’ x 4.5’ flat-wall screen and 3 DLP projectors for collaborative visualization (Panoram, Christie) Front-projection stereoscopic system with polarization multiplexing (Panoram, Christie) Access Grid node for group-to-group interaction over the Internet (inSORS)

ACES VisLab Computing Environment VisCluster: bit Opteron processors, Myrinet interconnect, Framelock video synchronization OS X and Linux-based advanced graphics workstations supporting time multiplexing stereo for individual work and content preparation

ACES at DRI Established a new thrust in scientific computing and visualization at DRI Brought DRI to a new level of competitiveness in environmental modeling and scientific visualization More than $6M in competitive proposals from DRI since the beginning of this year that plan on using the ACES facilities Co-initiator of the new project for immersive visualization in the CAVE TM environment

July 21, 2005 Interdisciplinary Modeling of Acquatic Ecosystems, Lake Tahoe 16 ACES WEBSITE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION VISLAB WEBSITE CONTACT Dr. Vanda Grubišić ACES Coordinator and VisLab Director

State-Of-The-Art Visualization Laboratory Tiled back-projection system utilizing 17’ x 4.5’ flat-wall screen 3D front-projection stereoscopic system Numerous video sources from the Linux-based 10-processor VisCluster, Mac OS X and Windows XP computers Individual Linux and Mac OS X workstations for content preparation Advanced Computing in Environmental Sciences AG Node in SessionFlat-Wall Back-Projection 3D Stereoscopic Projection Access Grid Node World-wide collaborative network with 6 nodes in Nevada Group-to-group interaction and real-time collaboration utilizing Internet2 resources Located at DRI NNSC Contact More Info