NCCS Joins DICE partnership
The NASA Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS), jointly with the
U.S. Departments of Defense (DoD) and Energy (DoE), is establishing
the Data Intensive Computing Environment (DICE). DICE, administered
by AVETEC, will provide the necessary information technology proving
ground to test solutions for data management problems associated with
high-performance computing (HPC).
Scientists, engineers, and researchers use HPC to solve complex and
interdisciplinary problems. One of the major performance bottlenecks
is the difficulty in effectively managing the massive amount of data
generated by the applications running on the HPC systems. The time to
solution for many researchers is often hindered by the large number
and size of files as well as the time and difficulty associated in transferring
large files between systems. These issues directly affect HPC users
every day and delay the critical analysis and processing of data.
As applications grow more complex and problem sizes increase, issues
associated with managing large data sets are becoming even more difficult
to solve. While great advances in network technologies have occurred,
typical end users do not have the ability to acquire high-bandwidth
network connections to facilitate data management.
The initial task of DICE is to establish a test environment
at three sites – the NCCS, DoD’s Aeronautical
Systems Center (ASC) Major Shared Resource Center (MSRC),
and DoE’s Ohio Supercomputer Center. The test bed
will support the identification, investigation, and development
of cutting edge hardware and software solutions specifically
designed to overcome problems associated with the creation
and use of large data sets. Typically, these data sets
will be distributed not only across geographically diverse
locations but also across agencies over real-world wide
area networks.
The DICE program is currently negotiating with various
vendors to finalize the initial technical implementation.
The three sites will have a combination of state-of-the-art
Linux clusters, distributed file systems, storage devices,
and a complete security infrastructure. Equipment is
scheduled to start installation at the NCCS in early
2006 |
Image above:
The initial DICE environment will create a collaborative
test bed linking DoD, DoE, and NASA over existing networks
(Image credit: Tracey Wilson, CSC). |
Through the investments made by the three participating agencies and
the vendor community, the ultimate goal of DICE is to create a self-sustaining
test bed environment for the HPC community. This test bed environment
will provide the necessary proving ground for viable HPC solutions with
appropriate security measures to facilitate a shared and distributed
data environment.
http://www.avetec.org/dice
http://nccs.nasa.gov |
