Texas Internet Grid for Research and Education TIGRE

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Texas Internet Grid for Research and Education
(TIGRE)

• Charles Koelbel
• Rice University

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Outline

• Who and what is TIGRE?
• TIGRE Activities
• TIGRE Application Example
• Final Thoughts

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Who Is TIGRE?

• A project of the HighPerformance
  ComputingAcross Texas (HiPCAT)organization
• Composed of 5 leading research universities

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What is TIGRE?

• Part of the State of Texas plan to support
  CyberInfrastructure
• LEARN 7.3M / 33 institutions
• Lonestar Education And Research Network
• Network (fiber, routers, etc.) to connect
  institutions
• (But thats another talk)
• TIGRE 2.5M / 5 schools
• People to build and support the software
• TIGRE goals
• Implement and deploy grid software
• Note funded as construction project, not
  research
• Support three applications of economic interest
  to the State of Texas
• Document best practices, train potential users

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Where is TIGRE?
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Outline

• Who and what is TIGRE?
• TIGRE Activities
• TIGRE Application Example
• Final Thoughts

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TIGRE Portal and Testbed
http//tigreportal.hipcat.net/gridsphere/gridspher
e?cidresources
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TIGRE Software Stacks

• Server software stack
• Globus 4.x (pre-web services web services
  servers)
• GPIR monitoring
• GSI OpenSSH server
• Client software stack

• Client software stack
• Globus 4.x (pre-web services and web services
  clients)
• GSI OpenSSH client
• UberFTP
• MyProxy client
• Condor-G

Both drawn from Virtual Data Toolkit (VDT)
Storage is still an unresolved issue for TIGRE
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TIGRE Target Applications

• Biology and Medicine
• Ultrascan - data analysis from ultracentrifuge
• MCNP - proton beam therapy for cancer
• Radiotherapy modeling
• Environmental quality
• WRF-Chem - air quality forecast over Houston
• Energy
• Eclipse - reservoir modeling
• DSNMO - seismic inversion
• Grid-ready codes
• The low-hanging fruit

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TIGRE Global Scheduler (candidates)

• Gridge Resource Management System (GRMS)
• http//www.gridge.org/content/view/30/66/
• Gridway
• http//www.gridway.org/

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Outline

• Who and what is TIGRE?
• TIGRE Activities
• TIGRE Application Example
• Final Thoughts

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UltraScan - A TIGRE Target Application

• Comprehensive data analysis package
• Integrated data editing, analysis environment,
  MySQL database, parallel Monte Carlo analysis
• From UT Health Science Center San Antonio
• For analytical ultracentrifugation experiments
• Analyze wavelengths of scatted light
• Many samples at many locations over time
• Compute number of components, molecular weights,
  shapes, interactions
• Solve by genetic algorithm (optimization)
• Embarrassingly parallel, but overwhelms
  UTHSCSAs 128-node cluster

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TIGRE / Ultrascan Demo
TIGRE Portal
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Ultrascan on TIGRE -Results
"I can now do science that was not possible
before. - Borries Demmler, UTHSCSA, Ultrascan
creator
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Outline

• Who and what is TIGRE?
• TIGRE Activities
• TIGRE Application Example
• Final Thoughts

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Leveraging TIGRE for VGrADS

• Obvious target of opportunity
• Two common players
• Both sides reasonably open to collaboration
• Both sides interested in outreach (albeit not the
  same kind)
• Application challenges
• VGrADS contribution needs to be robust
• Or modular and applied sparingly
• 2-phase scheduling, BQP may fit the bill now
• New twists for VGrADS
• DSNMO - needs dynamic compilation, may need app
  mgr
• MCNP - needs access control
• WRF-Chem - needs data management, may need
  deadline scheduling

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Backup slides go here
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TIGRE Testbed
Note All access donated by the home institution
no equipment budget
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TIGRE Milestones

• Year 1 (start 12/1/2005)
• Q1
• Certificate Authority, minimal testbed
• Q2
• Portal (alpha quality)
• http//tigreportal.hipcat.net/
• Q3
• Define server software stack
• Simple application demonstration
• Q4
• Client software stack

• Year 2
• Q1
• Customer management service (alpha)
• Q2
• Global grid scheduler
• Q3
• Stable software stack available
• Q4
• Hardening, documenting, demonstrating

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Why TIGRE?(Do We Need Yet Another Grid?)

• Texas is looking to the future
• Creating statewide CyberInfrastructure
• Supporting existing research and education
• Attracting new industry
• TIGRE funded from Texas Enterprise Fund
• Computers and networks are already (partly) there
• LEARN
• UT Austin a partner in TeraGrid
• We need the people to make it work
• Build the grid!
• Funded as a construction project, not research
• Support software
• Reach out
• To non-research schools, maybe to K-12