SCI: TeraGrid Resource Partners

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

The Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF) is developing and deploying the nations largest unified computational infrastructure. The goal of the ETF is to provide scientists with the most powerful, integrated computational resource possible, While ETF resources are geographically dispersed, they represent the integrated capability of nine different sites. The resources integrated by ETF include compute resources, storage, data collections, instruments, and visualization tools. Users of the ETF will experience the ETF as a single utility that is not only accessible from anywhere, but will also run jobs from anywhere. The ETF will work towards building a common framework for expansion and robust reliable operation. Additional sites will be invited to join the ETF and will do so by embracing the common software infrastructure that makes ETF more than a loosely coupled system of HPC site. The common infrastructure is at the heart of the ETF and brings the grid concept to fruition with features such as single login, single allocation currency, single programming environment, single helpdesk, single queuing system but heterogeneous and dispersed resources. Purdue University as a Resource Provider will make available to the ETF, 1,000,000 SUs through its IBM SP and Linux clusters. This commitment is expected to increase by 10% each year. Purdue will also make available and maintain several dataset collections in remote sensing, climate modeling, and bioinformatics. Purdue will also work with other RP sites to develop a data collection framework that will facilitate metadata publishing and searching as well as post- processing of large datasets. Finally, Purdue will engage scientific users through science gateways, especially the computational nanotechnology community through the NSF Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN) and the remote sensing community through the Purdue Terrestrial Observatory (PTO). With two science partners representing major national and international research communities, Purdue will stimulate the use of TeraGrid resources to explore and extend the frontiers of key scientific disciplines. Our goal and the ultimate measure of our success will be establishing science gateways used by hundreds of scientists in each of these disciplines