Large-Scale Team Science
Demonstrated Over 10 Gbps Coast-to-Coast
Network
Using its recently installed direct connection
to the National LambdaRail (NLR), GSFC joined
the University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
to demonstrate science applications over the
10 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) network. GSFC
hosted “A Demonstration of Large-Scale
Team Science in the 21st Century” on
August 8. The event was a tribute to Al Diaz,
outgoing NASA associate administrator, Science
Mission Directorate, who funded CISTO’s
NLR effort when he was GSFC director in 2004.
| “The
demo exceeded every expectation
I had when I initiated the
program for information technology
at Goddard,” Diaz said. “At
that time I hoped that this
project would serve as a
demonstration of the value
of IT investments in the
conduct of NASA-sponsored
science, particularly Earth
science. Not only did it
do that, but I hope the demonstration
served to promote further
investment.”
On July 28, engineers from
CISTO’s Lambda Network
(L-Net) Project installed
the last link between GSFC
and the NLR Point of Presence
(POP) in McLean, VA. This
link goes through DRAGON,
a Washington, DC-region 10
Gbps optical network funded
by the National Science Foundation.
The coast-to-coast CAVEwave
lambda connects a growing
collection of computing,
visualization, and data storage
resources at GSFC, UCSD,
and the University of Illinois
at Chicago (UIC) into a national-scale
OptIPuter (see “GSFC
Among First 10 Users of the
National LambdaRail,” ESDCD
News, Winter 2005). |
Image
above: The demonstration
was a tribute to Al Diaz
(right), recently retired
NASA associate administrator,
Science Mission Directorate.
Sitting nearby were (from
right to left) Tsengdar Lee,
program manager, Science
Mission Directorate; Gail
McConaughy, senior information
systems architect, GSFC;
and Franco Einaudi, director,
Earth-Sun Exploration Division,
GSFC (Photo credit: Chris
Gunn, INFONETIC).
|
The OptIPuter organizations and Ames Research
Center (ARC) collaborated on the demonstration,
which took place in the Software Integration
and Visualization Office’s Scientific
Visualization Studio (SVS) facility. Serving
as master of ceremonies was Milt Halem, GSFC
emeritus scientist affiliated with the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and chair
of GSFC’s IT Pathfinder Working Group.
The presentation featured a variety of technologies
that take advantage of the NLR.
Larry Smarr, director of UCSD’s California
Institute for Telecommunications and Information
Technology (Calit2) and OptIPuter principal
investigator, spoke with attendees from UCSD
via high-definition videoconferencing in a
partition of the SVS’s nine-screen HyperWall.
Exploiting the UIC/Electronic Visualization
Laboratory (EVL)-developed TeraVision software
running over the NLR, this capability will
enable closer collaboration between GSFC and
UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Scientific data sets and videoconferencing
can co-exist on a HyperWall or on a scientist’s
desktop. Later in the program, Scripps’ V.
Ramanathan and Bernard Minster used the videoconferencing
capability to describe plans for accessing
petabytes of Earth science data.
 |
Image
above: The 10 gigabit-per-second
National LambdaRail now connects
resources at GSFC and the
University of California,
San Diego (Image credit:
Kevin Fisher, GSFC). |
The HyperWall at GSFC displayed Land Information
System (LIS) 1-kilometer-resolution
data sets residing on an OptIPuter
storage cluster at UCSD. GSFC hydrologist Christa
Peters-Lidard spoke about LIS advancements
such as resolving small cities as well as advantages
of using the NLR. Using UIC/EVL's
SAGE and JuxtaView software, Randall Jones
of the SVS/GST, Inc., sitting at GSFC, panned
and zoomed on visualizations of the eastern
United States to show how the views get updated
over 2,000 miles of the LambdaRail with only
a slight delay.
At the nearby Lambda Display, a two-screen
set-up possible for a scientist's
office, Kevin Fisher of GSFC called
up MAP '05 hurricane data sets
employing GrADS-DODS software from across the
continent. This technology will also serve
the Coordinated Enhanced Observing
Period (CEOP) collaboration involving GSFC,
Scripps, and other organizations. Arlindo da
Silva, a GSFC data assimilation scientist,
said that CEOP scientists will soon be analyzing
hydrological data sets from 10 national meteorological
centers as part of the World Climate
Research Program.
Image
above: Christa Peters-Lidard,
a GSFC hydrologist, points
out features of Land Information
System (LIS) data products.
Using the National LambdaRail,
the HyperWall behind her
displays LIS 1-kilometer
data sets fed from an OptIPuter
cluster at the University
of California, San Diego
(Photo credit: Chris Gunn,
INFONETIC)
|
A fourth application
involved NASA finite-volume
General Circulation Model
(fvGCM) forecasts of Hurricane
Irene running on the Columbia
supercomputer at ARC. As
a movie loop of fvGCM output
appeared on a wall-sized
screen, ARC’s Chris
Henze explained how 2-D MPEG
visualizations from every
time-step were being assembled
in real time and then compressed
and continuously delivered
over an Internet2 connection.
Horace Mitchell of the SVS
explained that ARC’s
forthcoming NLR connection
will enable sharing of 3-D,
uncompressed visualizations.
More than 50 contributors
made the demonstrations possible.
CISTO participants included
L-Net Project members Pat
Gary and Bill Fink of GSFC
and Paul Lang and Aruna Muppalla
of ADNET Systems, Inc.
http://cisto.gsfc.nasa.gov/IRAD_Lambda.html |
|
