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

2. 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

3. 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 24 1987 NSF Supercomputer Centers Configuration

4. 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

5. 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 - 1995

6. 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

7. Location of PACI Partner Institutions-1997

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

9. DTF Configuration

10. 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