Recommendation 5: In support of research, UITS should provide broad support for basic collaboration technologies and begin implementing more advanced technologies. UITS should provide advanced data storage and management services to researchers. The University should continue its commitment to high performance computing and computation, so as to contribute to and benefit from initiatives to develop a national computational grid.
Action 27. UITS should launch an aggressive program to systematically evaluate and deploy across the University state-of-the-art tools and infrastructure that can support collaboration within the University, nationally and globally.
Action 28. UITS should explore and deploy advanced and experimental collaborative technologies within the University's production information technology environment, first as prototypes and then if successful, more broadly.
Many of the activities of UITS in this area have been concerned with establishing the networking infrastructure that will make implementation of these Actions possible. Details of these activities can be found under Recommendation VII. OVPIT established a major program – the HPNAP Program described under Recommendation III – to assist in the development of network-based applications in this area. The AVL is involved in projects in this area that are prototyping new collaborative technologies:
In another initiative, the AVL is supporting a collaborative effort between NASA-supported researchers in the IUB Department of Computer Science and the University of Chicago's Department of Astronomy. The goal of the Solar Journey project is to develop collaborative desktop and virtual reality tools to visualize the dynamic local galactic environment of the Sun.
A research programming position, specializing in collaborative visualization, was created in the AVL, based at IUPUI.
Web-based data dissemination and sharing
UITS has proposed a Web-based suite of applications for collaborative data dissemination, sharing, and input. This service will be a key part of IU's efforts in helping to make the Web a multifaceted environment for research collaboration.
Action 29. In order to maintain its position of leadership in the constantly changing field of high performance computing, the University should plan to continuously upgrade and replace its high-performance computing facilities to keep them at a level that satisfies the increasing demand for computational power.
Action 31. The University should plan to evolve its high performance computing and communications infrastructure so it has the features to be compatible with and can participate in the emerging national computational grid.
IBM agreement
In May, IU and IBM announced a far-reaching agreement to work together to upgrade IU's information technology infrastructure and collaborate on joint research projects. The agreement includes a $1M IBM Shared University Research (SUR) grant for new computational nodes and data storage hardware for the mission-critical areas of massive data storage, supercomputing, and the platform for IU's new central information systems. IU's SUR grants have focused thus far on collaborative research activities involving component technologies of high performance computing, distributed supercomputing, bioinformatics, and high-energy physics. The SUR grants are the cornerstone of a productive research relationship between IU and IBM that includes annual presentations of research during visits to IBM's research laboratories and at IBM research conferences.
Research SP upgrades
UITS followed the 1998 upgrades to the Research SP with an even more dramatic upgrade in 1999 which added some of IBM's newest Power3-based technology to the SP (some so new that it is not yet publicly announced). These upgrades were made possible in part by further hardware grants from IBM through its SUR program, which provided $2.25M (retail value) worth of new hardware for the Research SP, which now includes 139 processors and has a theoretical peak performance of 146 GFLOPS. This brings the Research SP to around 100th place on the current list of the world's 500 most powerful supercomputers.
The Research SP is the most powerful supercomputer in this region, and is the mainstay of IU's research computation activities. IU researchers are developing novel and important software technologies on this system, including Professor Randall Bramley's Component Architecture Toolkit. The Research SP supports pathbreaking research in astronomy, chemistry, business, economics, and physics. A unique feature of IU's use of this supercomputer is that it is accessible to all faculty, staff, and graduate students. The same supercomputer that IU's most distinguished supercomputer experts use also provides excellent responsiveness in statistical software programs that first-year graduate students run. A benefit of this approach is that IU receives good value from its investment in this supercomputer, with utilization running better than 2/3 theoretical maximum, near the practical limit of the utilization of such systems.
High Performance Parallel PC (PPCC) cluster
In May IU announced the development, with Compaq, of a high performance parallel computing system for computationally intensive scientific and research applications. Based on a cluster of commodity PCs, and offering a theoretical peak performance of 25.6 GFLOPS, the system provides supercomputer levels of performance at a fraction of the cost. The system comprises 32 Compaq Proliant servers, each equipped with a pair of 400 MHz Pentium II processors. Distinguishing this cluster is the fact that researchers can use the Linux and Microsoft NT operating systems interchangeably. IU's PPCC is one of just three clusters in the US with this capacity. IU system administrators were the first to develop the ability to switch between operating systems under software control.
Origin 2000
Origin 2000 system utilization averaged 50% of capacity with research in chemistry, physics, astronomy, and geology. Through application and peer review the machine was opened to researchers beyond the SCAAMP (Scientific Applications on Arrays of Multi-Processors) group, whose successful NSF MRI grant partially funded its initial purchase.
High Performance Computing Support Group
A High Performance Computing Support Group (HPC) was created in Bloomington, and a Research Support Group is being created in Indianapolis. A primary goal of both groups is to better support users of the high performance computing systems, while expanding the userbase of IU's supercomputers. By helping the University's intellectual community make greater use of IU's world-class supercomputers, these activities bring the IU community into greater familiarity with the tools that will enable them to contribute to the kinds of dramatic advances in the state of human knowledge that IT enables.
Grids
The PPCC, the Research SP, and the SGI Origin 2000 have been added to the Globus computational grid, and the SGI Origin 2000 was added to the Legion computational grid. Craig Stewart is the co-principal investigator and primary author of a grant application for a CIC grid computing prototype submitted to the NSF. The grant proposes to build grid and network connections that will support QoS and DiffServ among CIC institutions and establish a Grid Operations Center and toolkit for grid management by IU.
National Computational Science Alliance (NCSA) supercomputers
As a CIC member and NCSA partner, IU received a block of 20,000 hours of CPU time on NCSA supercomputers for use by University researchers. OVPIT solicited applications from researchers for portions of this allocation. As of December, some 15,000 hours of CPU time had been used and more than a dozen IU researchers had been introduced to NCSA facilities. Some of these researchers will apply for larger allocations of NCSA time.
HPNAP awards
The HPNAP Program is described under Recommendation III and aims to accelerate the evolution of next-generation network-based applications and research tools at IU. This program provides grants to assist IU faculty, graduate students, and staff in developing innovative applications for research and teaching that require high performance local, regional, or national advanced networks. The applications developed through this initiative will provide considerable competitive advantage to the University in the areas of teaching, learning, and distributed education, and in new collaborative technologies. For more on the HPNAP initiative and projects, see Actions 7, 27/28, and 34.
Action 30. The University needs to provide facilities and support for computationally and data-intensive research, for non-traditional areas such as the arts and humanities, as well as for the more traditional areas of scientific computation.
Action 33. The University through UITS should provide support for a wider range of research software including database systems, text-based and text-markup tools, scientific text processing systems, and software for statistical analysis. UITS should investigate the possibilities for enterprise-wide agreements for software acquisitions similar to the Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement.
IU's supercomputer facilities formed the core of an international collaboration on evolutionary biology. IU researchers in Professor Jeffrey Palmer's lab used the Research SP to estimate evolutionary relationships of organisms using data sets they have previously been unable to analyze. UITS modified the programs used in this research to enable these analyses.
IU's supercomputer is also used by Professor Richard Durisen's lab to model the formation of protostellar disks. Partly because of the processing capabilities of the Research SP, Durisen's simulations are unique in their full resolution of 3-dimensional models.
UITS provides consulting and programming help that enables IU researchers to enhance the quality and speed of their computing work; this dramatically enhances researchers' ability to make strides in their disciplines. At the same time, UITS staff have been involved in research that advances the understanding of advanced computer systems, such as characterizing the performance of the PPCC under Linux and NT and evaluating software packages.
In 1999, the AVL worked with a number of researchers in non-traditional areas, providing extended consultations, facility usage support, and custom application development. A selection is noted below.
The Stat/Math Center negotiated an Enterprise License Agreement with SPSS, Inc., making SPSS software available University wide. This agreement provides SPSS software (valued at $2000 list price) to IU students, faculty, and staff at no charge on the day publicized for distribution, and for $5 thereafter. Additional software site licenses signed in 1999 include Portland compilers and performance analysis systems. Negotiations of site licenses in collaboration with various schools and departments at IUPUI are estimated to have saved some $50,000. Local support of statistical and mathematical software at IUPUI was enhanced, and three new staff positions were created to support computationally intensive data applications at IUPUI and the regional campuses.
The Unix Workstation Support Group (UWSG) licenses and distributes the latest versions of Unix along with consulting support to faculty, staff, and students. Available software and documentation includes all major versions of the Linux operating system, documentation from Sun Microsystems, and a network-based system for software installation. UWSG also site licenses many programs and software packages, ranging from compilers to word processors. Among the key additions in 1999 were the Island Office and Applixware productivity suites which provide word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software for Unix workstation users. The UWSG hosted the highly successful LinuxFest Conference at IUB to promote the Linux operating system which offers a Unix-like alternative for PCs. While Unix has traditionally been the operating system of choice for research computing, commercial versions are very expensive and run only on high-end hardware. Downloaded free from the Web, Linux brings the stability and power of Unix to the desktop.
Action 32. The University should evaluate and acquire high-capacity storage systems, capable of managing very large data volumes from research instruments, remote sensors, and other data-gathering facilities.
Action 43. UITS should implement massive storage technology for storage of the University's institutional data, migrate tapes over time to the new environment, and integrate this technology with database management systems to support image, sound, and video data types.
In June the High Performance Storage System (HPSS) went into production with the Distributed File System (DFS) following in August, making IU's installation the first production system in the country using DFS/HPSS. The HPSS system currently houses more than five terabytes of data belonging to a number of major research projects in a variety of disciplines, among them: astronomy, biology, chemistry (including Molecular Crystallography), geological sciences, physics (including the FOCUS project), theater and drama, and the IU Digital Library Program.
IU's older generation of tape technology was phased out as all IBM 3484 tapes were migrated to newer, faster and more efficient IBM 3590 tapes. The conversion and migration process was completed in September.
Massive data storage services are available to all campuses. Additional storage system infrastructure has been implemented at IUPUI, and planning is underway to locate an IBM 3494 tape robot silo at IUPUI in February.
In 1999 StorageTek made a donation to IU of a 120TByte massive data tape storage silo. This donation, valued at around $.75M, is one of the largest donations of equipment ever made to the University. The donation was made to help support IU's participation in Internet2 and is currently being integrated into the IU massive storage infrastructure.
The 1999 IBM SUR grant (see Action 29) will assist in the development of an HPSS Data Migration Application for the IBM General Purpose File System (GPFS) for fast, parallel data transfer. IU formed partnerships with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the NCSA to research the new frontier of geographically distributed storage.
Plans are being developed to migrate the central NFS services (HPNFS at IUB and Network Appliance at IUPUI) to DFS. Hardware to create this common file structure for IUB and IUPUI will be installed in Spring 2000, reducing the common file system from six or seven file systems to no more than three.
Action 34. UITS should participate with faculty on major research initiatives involving information technology, where it is appropriate and of institutional advantage. Further, UITS should provide proactive encouragement and supportive services that create opportunities where faculty from diverse disciplines might come together on collaborative projects involving information technology.
The major development in this area in 1999 was the award by the Lilly Endowment Inc. in September to IU of a $30M grant for the development of a world-class research initiative in some of the fundamental information technologies in the next century in the area of pervasive computing. This five-year grant will enable IU to establish the Indiana Pervasive Computing Research (IPCRES) Initiative. Under this Initiative, six world-class research laboratories will be established at IU in key areas that underpin pervasive computing. The IPCRES Laboratories will be geographically located to leverage IU's IT and academic strengths. Three will be established in advanced telecommunications at IUPUI in such areas as high performance networking, wireless networks, telecommunications convergence, and distributed storage. The other three laboratories will be established in software technologies at IU Bloomington to focus on information grids and portals, human-computer interaction, smart devices, and network agents. IPCRES will be managed by a Steering Committee chaired by President Brand, and Vice President McRobbie will be the IPCRES CEO.
Three UITS groups, the Research and Academic Computing (RAC) Division, and within it, the HPC, and the AVL have also made valuable contributions to this Action.
A key goal of the RAC Division is to make IU's high performance computing systems broadly available to researchers so that they have the tools to be at the forefront of IT use in all areas of scientific inquiry and artistic accomplishment. RAC's success here is evidenced in the diverse groups that now make use of UITS resources. They include the Purdue School of Engineering at IUPUI, the IU School of Medicine, the IU School of Nursing, the IU School of Optometry, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the Purdue School of Science at IUPUI, the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, and the College of Arts and Sciences at IUB. COAS departments represented among supercomputer users include anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, fine arts, geography, geology, mathematics, physics, psychology, and theatre and drama.
A program managed through the IU-chaired CIC Research Computing Group provided start-up grants of time on NCSA supercomputers. Over a dozen IU researchers have used these grants, and some are going on to make major requests for time on NCSA systems.
The HPC has worked extensively with Dr. Jeff Palmer's group on an exciting bioinformatics project. Dr. Palmer's group studies evolutionary phylogenies, and utilizes a program called fastDNAml to perform maximum likelihood estimation of evolutionary relationships from DNA sequence data. The group ported this code to run on IU's Research SP and PPCC. They restructured and tuned the parallel processing algorithms of the program so it could be run on geographically distributed grids of supercomputers, greatly enhancing its performance. This has enabled Palmer's group to analyze much larger data sets than were previously possible.
Professor Richard Durisen in astronomy studies the formation of binary stars and planetary systems from dust and gas clouds by simulating the clouds' motion with a full 3-dimensional hydrodynamics code. The HPC helped restructure and improve the primary codes which are now written in OpenMP, one of the new and sophisticated approaches to parallel computing. This means it can be run on any parallel computer that supports Fortran77/OpenMP programming. The group's enhancements based on the MPI parallel processing standard will enable the code to run on the world's largest supercomputers and on large grids of supercomputers.
The AVL has engaged in numerous research partnerships discussed in Actions 15/16, 27/28, and 30. Other long-term partnerships with research faculty resulted in 1999 in software packages that have been released inside and outside the University. Beyond their application and usefulness within the University, the contribution of these packages to the larger academic research community helps establish IU as an active contributor to the field of immersive visualization and paves the way for possible external collaborations.
Under development via HPNAP is We Think!, a collaborative learning tool for distributed education. Proposed by researchers in the Kelley School of Business at IUB, We Think! will enable as many as 40 concurrent, collaborative learning exercises among pairs of students in distributed classrooms, each performing exercises via personal control of voice, video, and data sharing as effectively as students sitting beside each other. We Think! will offer students the benefits of interaction with peers in other countries, cultures, and academic disciplines, and universities will benefit from the economic and strategic appeal offered by inter-institutional courses.
IV. Teaching and Learning | Table of Contents | VI. Information Systems
January 2000
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