data link for September 2002

Stories for September 2002

Illinois steps toward the national TeraGrid network: The first connection in what will become the TeraGrid network came online earlier this summer with the activation of the state of Illinois' I-WIRE project. Two 10 gigabit-per-second connections (soon to be upgraded to at least 30 gpbs) now link NCSA on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the StarLight facility on Northwestern University's Chicago campus, and Argonne National Laboratory in southwest suburban Chicago. In time the TeraGrid network will link all the TeraGrid sites across the nation.
Timing codes on NCSA Linux clusters: NCSA's Performance Engineering group has assembled useful information on timing codes that run on the NCSA Linux clusters. You may want to time the overall run of your code or to time functions, subroutines, or sections of code. Methods available on the clusters include /usr/bin/time, gprof, gettimeofday, CPU_TIME from Intel Fortran Compiler Library, and Linux Assembly language routines.
Alpha release of VMI Version 2.0 from NCSA: In mid-August NCSA announced the first alpha release of version 2.0 of the Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) software. This release is intended for developers and early adopters. VMI, a middleware communication layer, addresses issues of availability, usability, and management in the context of large-scale SANs interconnected over wide-area computational grids.
Simplifying Grid Computing with NCSA's GPT: In late August NCSA released its Grid Packaging Toolkit (GPT), which helps integrate software applications and tools to work together easily and seamlessly over across multiple Internet sites. GPT is an integral component of the first release of the NSF Middleware Initiative software, a suite of applications developed by the National Science Foundation's Middleware Initiative (NMI). GPT is also a key element used to package and distribute the Globus Toolkit version 2.0, the defacto standard grid services software package and another key component of NMI Release 1. Binaries and source are available through the Download button at the top of the NMI-R1 web page. NMI Release 1.1 (NMI-R1.1), issued on August 28, includes a new security patch.
Testbeds evaluate emerging middleware technologies: In early September the NSF Middleware Inititative (NMI) announced that eight universities have begun testing software that will use the Internet to link applications or services that are not otherwise connected. The NMI Integration Testbed includes universities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Texas, and Virginia. The testbed sites, managed by Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), are actively evaluating NMI Release 1 and preparing to evaluate Release 2, which will be available this fall.
OGSA partnership reaches the United Kingdom: This summer the UK's e-Science Program announced it would adopt the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) standard for distributed computing and would contribute its OGSA database code to the Globus Toolkit.
OSCAR Version 1.3 released: In late July the Open Cluster Group announced the release of the latest version of OSCAR (Open Source Cluster Application Resources) software. OSCAR includes everything needed to install, build, maintain, and use a modest-sized Linux cluster. Features of version 1.3 include support for RedHat 7.1 and 7.2 and the Itanium 1 platform, the ability to add or delete nodes, and easy selection of MPI implementation.
R&D 100 Awards include two Alliance-related projects: At least two Alliance-related projects—HDF5 and Globus Toolkit—are among R&D Magazine's choices for the 100 most significant technologies in 2002. The magazine will feature the R&D 100 Awards in its September issue, and each winning technology will be honored at an awards banquet and exhibition in October.
NSF extends NLANR DAST: NSF has awarded $3.7 million in a three-year extension of the National Laboratory for Applied Network Research (NLANR) Distributed Applications Support Team (DAST) to continue supporting researchers who use the resources of high-performance networks and the middleware-based grid environments that depend on these networks. Team members maintain tools for measuring network performance, build distributed applications, and assist others developing distributed applications. Based at NCSA, the NLANR/DAST team is one of three NLANR teams.
NSF extends NLANR MNA: NSF has awarded $3.28 million in a three-year extension of the NLANR Measurement and Network Analysis (MNA) to continue studying network operations, measuring the traffic flow of traffic, and analyzing performance issues inorder to deliver maximum end-to-end performance to users. Based at SDSC, the NLANR/MNA team is one of three NLANR teams.
New Access Grid documentation: On September 5 Version 1.2 of "How to Install and Use a Quick Multicast Bridge (QuickBridge)" was published on the Access Grid Documentation Project (AGDP) website. All current AGDP documents are intended to support version 1.0 of the Access Grid Toolkit.
More AG nodes are added: There are now 113 active Access Grid sites—81 in the U.S. and 32 elsewhere around the world (in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom). Sites are listed in alphabetical order by institution, and contact information for each site is available through this link.

Conferences and Workshops & Training Events

Registrations due today for LCI workshop in New Mexico: September 30-October 4 are the dates for the LCI workshop at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Linux Clusters Institute (LCI) workshops are intensive, hands-on sessions for computational scientists, engineers, and cluster system administrators. Participants are encouraged to bring along their own applications/problems. The next LCI workshop will be January 13-17 at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
Access Grid User Seminars in September and October: The Alliance PACS Training Group's Access Grid Users Seminar Series offers seminars on September 12, 17, and October 21. These approximately one-hour seminars seminars are conducted over the Access Grid by and for AG users to encourage deployment and effective use of the AG. Although these events are free, advance registration is required.
NCSA Seminar Series schedule for September and October: The NCSA Seminar Series over the Access Grid presents information about high-performance computing tools and applications developed by Alliance partners and NCSA. Each seminar lasts one or two hours. Upcoming dates and topics: September 10 and 12, HDF5 (different presentations); 11, Web design; 23, Biology Workbench; October 8, D2K; and 22, BioCoRE . All Access Grid sites are welcome to participate in this series as either a remote host or presenter. Staff of NCSA Education, Outreach, and Training (EOT) are coordinating the NCSA Seminar Series.
Register by September 30 for Linux clusters conference in October: The Third LCI International Conference on Linux Clusters: The Linux HPC Revolution 2002 will be October 23-25 in St. Petersburg, FL. Keynote speakers will be Daniel Reed, director of NCSA and the Alliance, and William Pulleyblank, director of Exploratory Server Systems in IBM's Research Division and of the IBM Deep Computing Institute.
Early registration for Fall 2002 Internet2 Member Meeting ends October 3: The Fall 2002 Internet2 Member Meeting, hosted by the University of Southern California, will be October 27-30 at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles. The preliminary program will be available the week of September 9. Early registrants will be entered in the drawing for a Global Positioning System (GPS) watch. Online registration ends October 21.
October deadlines for next April's IPDPS symposium: The 17th Annual International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium IPDPS will be April 22-26 Nice, France. Papers are due October 4; tutorial proposals and industrial track submissions are due October 20.
SURA's 2nd annual computational chemistry workshop is October 7 and 8: "Software Solutions to Large Scale Problems in Computational Chemistry," at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and also broadcast live on the Access Grid, will emphasize the development and use of computational techniques in chemistry and material science for the new generation of terascale computers. There is no registration fee. This conference is supported by SURA under a grant from NCSA, serving as a Partner for Advanced Computational Services (PACS).
Early registration for SC2002 ends October 11: SC2002: From Terabytes to Insights will be held in Baltimore November 16-22. To qualify for advance registration discounts, both your registration form and payment must be received by 5:00pm EDT, Friday, October 11. Registrations received between October 12 and 25 will be charged at the higher late/onsite registration rate.
Register now for Cluster 2002: Cluster 2002: IEEE Fourth International Conference on Cluster Computing will be September 23-26 in Chicago. Conference co-chairs are Dan Reed of NCSA/Alliance and Mark Baker of University of Portsmouth. This forum for researchers to share recent results and new developments in hardware, software, and applications is being organized by Argonne National Laboratory and NCSA.
Attend iGrid in person or on the Web: If you can't go to Amsterdam September 23-26, iGrid2002: Focusing on e-science, Grid and Virtual Laboratory, you can watch the webcast of the plenary sessions. iGrid is a biennial international grid event that concentrates on visualizing with grids can do. Speakers will include individuals from Alliance partners Argonne National Lab, Electronic Visualization Laboratory, and NCSA.