[Nsa] Meeting on Future Computing at NCAR

[Rolando Garcia]

Dear colleagues,

Just a reminder of the NSA meeting next tuesday. The agenda is also 
posted
at the NSA website (http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/Director/NSA/index.html),
under the "NSA Meetings" link.

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	NSA meeting on supercomputing
	May 30
	9:30 am
	ML Main Seminar room.

                                A G E N D A

   1. NCAR's response to upcoming OCI solicitations (625 & beyond)

       *** presentation by Rich Loft

   2. The "Data Center Project"

       *** presentation by Lawrence Buja and Peter Fox

   3. Compare/contrast NCAR's OCI roadmap and the Data Center Project

       *** arguments by Rich Loft vs. Lawrence Buja and Peter Fox

   4. Massive-cpu/small memory per node architectures appear likely,
       but one size does not fit all.  The challenges of porting our
       codes to a Cray XT3 to achieve useful throughput are presumably
       quite different from the challenges associated with a Blue Gene.
       - What is the range of plausible architectures under consideration
           and the range of impacts/challenges these pose for our
           application groups with regards to operation and memory 
scaling,
           archival bandwidth and necessity for parallel I/O, etc.?
       - How to make the science staff aware of coming architecture
           changes and the the potential impacts on their research codes?
       - What must be done to secure the additional resources required 
for
           conversion/optimization of NCAR science codes?

        *** technical issues explained by Rich Loft

    5. Should NCAR definitely commit to the Data Center idea?
       - Is this too much of a "Faustian bargain" or is this the only way
         to keep supercomputing at NCAR?  Not a trivial question at all.

       *** discussion led by Rolando Garcia

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Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend.  Hope to see you at the meeting on 
tuesday,

Rolando

Rolando R Garcia
(co-Chair, NSA Exec. Committee)
NCAR/ACD
PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000
rgarcia at ucar.edu
(303) 497-1446
(303) 497-1400 (fax)