Message from SCD Director Al Kellie
I am pleased to highlight some of SCD's many activities during FY2000. It has
been a challenging and productive time for SCD staff. We have:
- Overseen major machine upgrades, resulting in a 400% increase in available
compute cycles for our community
- Provided for new mass storage capabilities
- Enhanced our visualization resources
- Subcontracted with UCAR to provide for enterprise web services
- Provided easier access to and management of treasured research datasets
SCD has moved confidently out of the doldrums of the aborted NEC system acquisition
and become a vibrant, energetic provider of the services required by our constituents.
Our mission is to support large and small research investigators, no matter where
they are located, and to empower them with access to user-centered computing facilities.
Greetings from the SCD staff
Computer upgrades
A major milestone in FY2000 was to upgrade the computing capabilities of the
IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer (blackforest) to a 151-node, 604-processor cluster
running the AIX operating system. Blackforest now provides 135 compute nodes that
are equally divided between Community Computing users and the Climate Simulation
Lab. Upgrades were also applied to our test IBM SP system (babyblue) and to our
Compaq ES40 evaluation system (prospect). This, in conjunction with our other
production systems (four SGI Origin 2000 and two Cray J90se machines) has kept
SCD on track to providing teraflop computing for the atmospheric and related sciences.
More MSS silos
With increased computing capability comes the need to manage an ever-greater
volume of data. During this review period, we sought and acquired three additional
StorageTek automated tape cartridge systems for our world-class Mass Storage System
(MSS), bringing our total number of automated tape handlers to five. At end FY2000,
the MSS contains over 275 terabytes (TB) of research data, and the additional
tape handlers will allow us to continue providing outstanding data storage and
delivery services for the foreseeable future.
New data access and visualization services
Recognizing that data are the currency of scientific research, SCD expanded
its data analysis capabilities with a new machine (dataproc) dedicated to such
work for our scientific researchers. Moreover, the Data Support Section within
SCD has worked hard to make more of its research data archive (including major
sets of corrected data) available to researchers around the world. We have also
teamed with UCAR's Unidata program to provide a dedicated machine for use in distributing
regional weather data to university researchers around the country.
In another data-driven area, SCD has taken steps to create a leading-edge
scientific visualization facility to serve researchers who need the finest data
analysis and presentation capabilities. SCD's strong reputation in this developing
technology has been nationally recognized. We intend to invest significantly in
the visualization facility, which will be used for a variety of purposes, including
real-time model analysis and visualization, collaboratory research, and access
to the evolving NSF GRID. Construction is slated to begin in November 2000.
A new RFP
Finally, in April 2000, members of the division began the complex and important
task of preparing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the next generation of computing
hardware to be acquired for NCAR. In preparing this RFP, the needs of NCAR
scientists and SCD technical personnel were merged to create a unique
document that will drive this important acquisition.
Of particular note was the need to create an entirely new suite of computing
system performance benchmarks, using various production codes (MM5, WRF, PCM,
CCM, etc.) as a metric for determining what type of system (or systems) should
be offered for NCAR's consideration. The RFP was released in draft form to all
interested vendors in late August 2000, and we plan to release the final version
at the end of October 2000.
Greater challenges ahead
As we report on our activities for this Annual Scientific Report, the staff
and management of SCD look forward to even greater challenges and exciting opportunities
in the coming months. As always, in all that we do, we seek to provide the finest
in computing resources, teamed with a dedicated and talented staff to help advance
our understanding of the Earth's complex climate system.
Al Kellie
