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Technical support services

Core mission statement

Providing software engineering and math libraries support for scientists using NCAR/SCD's high-performance scientific computing facilities is the core business and mission of SCD's Technical Consulting Group (TCG). This group is the first point of contact for users with questions and concerns about their scientific computing efforts. They provide the user community a centralized interface for resolving technical problems, advising users on optimal software design and implementation techniques, and channeling needs expressed by users into SCD's planning process. When the assistance of a specialist from another SCD section is required to resolve a problem, TCG coordinates SCD efforts and manages the follow-through with the user. Collaborations with other SCD groups, users, vendors, and other high-performance computing centers are central to maintaining the expertise required to support this mission.

Progress on near-term projects and goals

In addition to TCG's core business, the group identified several near-term projects and goals that are critical to SCD's mission and which require special attention because of recent developments in supercomputing and scientific computing technology. TCG has made progress on many projects with the currect status described below.

DSM development

Distributed Shared Memory architecture computer systems are the current most likely future of high performance computing at NCAR. TCG is growing a level of expertise with these architectures similar to what is currently available for Parallel-Vector architectures. TCG has accomplished these goals in this regard:

Production systems

Supporting the production computing environment per TCG's core mission statement has continued to be critical to the success of the Scientific Computing Division. Historically, SCD's best asset in the eyes of the user community has been user support. TCG maintains the highest standards in user responsiveness, as well as diligence in system test and checkout to guarantee a stable and productive work environment for our users. TCG recognizes the need to expand the quality of user outreach, collaboration, and individualized service.

In addition to AIX operating system support on the IBM systems, SCD provides support for platforms running Irix, UNICOS, and Solaris, with Compaq's Tru64 UNIX to be added soon. TCG's core focus this year has been assisting users in their migration efforts to the new IBM with an eye toward identifying re-engineering opportunities to improve the portability and scalability of the codes. User interest for this system has been overwhelming.

System test and checkout

TCG is responsible for testing the user environment in cooperation with HPS to ensure that operating system and programming environment software upgrades have minimal impact on user productivity. To this end, TCG was involved in every operating system and compiler environment software installation. As problems were uncovered, TCG developed strategies and diagnostic code for testing and isolating the problem. TCG has been increasingly taking the lead in characterizing the problem for the vendor and following the bug fixes through the pipeline.

DCS completion

TCG staff have contributed a significant amount of programming effort to the Distributed Computing Services (DCS) project for the last several years. The goal of the DCS effort was the redesign of the user interface to the Mass Storage System. With the completion of the MSS import/export functions this year, the project is now complete and the software has been placed in maintenance mode.

Revamp of web-based documentation

In addition to the major projects of developing documentation for the IBM systems, TCG has been incrementally adding information on RISC-based processors, DSM technology, and cache optimization, as well as updated information on Fortran and OpenMP standards. Documentation for other platforms is also available on the web from SCD as well. Documentation in these areas has received much attention from the TCG staff in order to allow users immediate access to information on their own.

External collaborations

TCG includes external collaborations on their list of goals because community leadership and a high level of awareness of industry trends are critical to providing supercomputing users with the information they need to stay current with new hardware and software developments such as those involved with the recent move toward DSM architectures. Over the last year, TCG has maintained a presence in the Supercomputing conferences, user groups, and other standards organizations including the Parallel Tools Consortium and the High Performance Debugging Forum.
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