The Interplay of Funding Policy for infrastructure at NSF Richard S. Hirsh

History - 1 Pre-history –1970s: Academic Computer Centers decline –late 70s - early 80s: Studies of academic needs (Lax Report, December 1982) Start-up & establishemnt –late 1983: NSF starts Centers Program –June 1986: Five NSF Centers operational First Renewal – May 1989: Four Centers renewed for five years

SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER CORNELL THEORY CENTER CRAY X-MP 48 IBM 3090/400 PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER NATIONAL CENTER FOR SUPERCOMPUTING APPLICATIONS CRAY X-MP 48 CRAY X-MP NSF Supercomputer Centers Configuration

History - 2 MetaCenter & Expansion –1992: Metacenter concept announced –1993: Blue Ribbon Panel on High Performance Computing –1994: Metacenter Regional Alliances –1995: Task Force on Future of NSF Supercomputer Centers Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) –1997: PACI Program initiated

Cray C90 Intel Paragon nCUBE2 Cray C90 Cray 2 Convex C3 TMC CM5 TMC CM2 IBM ES9000 IBM SP-1 TMC CM2 Kendall Square KSR1 SDSC NCSA PSC CTC Cray T3D Cray YMP Metacenter

History - 2 MetaCenter & Expansion –1992: Metacenter concept announced –1993: Blue Ribbon Panel on High Performance Computing –1994: Metacenter Regional Alliances –1995: Task Force on Future of NSF Supercomputer Centers (Hayes Report) Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) –1997: PACI Program initiated

Location of PACI Partner Institutions-1997

History - 3 Terascale Computing Initiative –1999: Workshops on need for high-end (Terascale) systems –2000: TCS –2001: DTF (TeraGrid) –2003: ETF Cyberinfrastructure

DTF Configuration

Lessons Learned from the NSF Experience Community input is essential for policy formation Always expect that the architects of the infrastructure will expand your original vision – Don’t be prescriptive As the primary supporter NSF could create guidelines for its grantees; the initial goals for participants were uniformly NSF’s – we were not “federating” already existing facilities