SC18 History Makers – Marking SC’s 30th Anniversary

SC Insider
Fri, 16 Nov 2018 00:45:52 +0000
SC18, 30 Year Anniversary, Corsa Technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, San Diego Supercomputer Center

SC18 HISTORY MAKERS

The following are partner organizations responding to “How did your organization make supercomputing history?” survey as compiled by the 30th Anniversary team. Check back to the blog for additional installments.

Name of Individual or Organization: IBM

Name: Celeste Bishop

Type of organization: Academic; Vendor/Industry

Number of years exhibited at SC? 10

Description of the contribution:

In the 1990s as high-performance computing (HPC) gained traction in the enterprise, HPC infrastructure was required to serve multiple users working on multiple projects against business priorities. Out of this was born the need to manage the growing resources used to handle HPC workloads in more complex, heterogeneous environments, ushering in distributed cluster computing. In 1992, based on research at the University of Toronto Load Sharing Facility (LSF), an HPC workload manager for distributed clusters was released by Platform Computing.

LSF has evolved from a simple workload scheduler to a broad family of products designed to improve the productivity of todays HPC users through easy-to-use desktop, web and mobile interfaces. Acquired by IBM in 2012, IBM Spectrum LSF has continued to evolve, making significant advances in scalability and performance while simplifying management and use of complex HPC infrastructures including multi-cloud, accelerated computing (GPUs), and containerized workloads. In 2017, LSF celebrated 25 years with a new release providing a tightly integrated solution for demanding, mission-critical HPC environments that helps increase both user productivity and hardware utilization while decreasing management costs.

For over 25 years IBM Spectrum LSF has been managing many of the workloads that make our everyday lives possible, from playing a key role in sequencing the first human genome, to supporting some of the most powerful supercomputers, including Summit and Sierra systems.

Name of Individual or Organization: San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego

Name: Jan Zverina

Type of organization: Academic; National Lab

Booth number: 3013

Number of years exhibited at SC? 30

Description of the contribution:

1985 – SDSC opens its doors with its first supercomputer, a CRAY XMP-48. First calculations made on the system by Herbert Hamber, UC Invine. 1989 – SDSC stands up a CRAY Y-MP8/864. 1990 – SDSC acquires 256-node NCUBE 2 parallel computer. 1993 – SDSC acquires a CRAY C-90, 1996 – SDSC acquires a CRAY T3E. 1999 – Supercomputer simulations led by UC San Diego’s J. Andrew McCammon reveal a new anti-HIV strategy, leading to a new HIV drug from Merck – the most important HIV drug in a decade. 2000 – SDSC acquires an IBM Blue Horizon. 2004 – SDSC acquires as IBM eServer Blue Gene. 2009, 2011 – SDSC launches ‘Gordon’, which debuts as the 48th fastest on the Top 500 list.

Name of Individual or Organization: Corsa Technology

Name: Carolyn Raab

Type of organization: Vendor/Industry

Booth number: 3043

Number of years exhibited at SC? 4

Description of the contribution:

In 2016, leveraging software-defined networking (SDN), Corsa created a SCinet Network Research Exhibition (NRE) which allowed large data transfers to share ‘bandwidth on demand’ thus avoiding data collisions and lost data on the network. Within SCinet, the Corsa DP2400 SDN Switching platform provided shared 100 Gbps WAN access to multiple exhibitors located throughout the SC16 show floor. Participating exhibitors accessed a 100 Gbps ring topology to reach one of two Wide Area Networks; Internet2 and ESnet. Each exhibitor was able to schedule their high bandwidth research experiments into assured forwarding traffic classes guaranteeing them the bandwidth they needed for as long as they needed it. The SCinet Network Operations Center (NOC) controlled the Corsa equipment using OpenFlow. The following were participating data intensive science demos using SCinet and Corsa: Pittsburgh SuperComputing (PSC), GEANT DynPAC, iCAIR DTN, RNP to Ampath.

Name of Individual or Organization: Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Name: Stephanie Whalen

Type of organization: Information Technology (IT)

Booth number: 2429

Number of years exhibited at SC? 30

Description of the contribution:

HPE Historical Contribution to SC History 1: In July 2000, Compaq Computer Corporation (HPE) provided the lion’s share of the technology for what may amount to one of the most significant IT projects of 2000: Mapping the human genome. Harnessing the power of more than 200 AlphaServers and a 70- to 80-terabyte database, scientists were able to map 3.12 billion base pairs of DNA that make up the genetic blueprint and the human body. Source: Computerworld: Compaq, Celera Map the Human Genome, July 6, 2000. https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/93001/compaq_celera_map_human_genome/