Production cyberinfrastructure plans highlight: ICESS procurement
The deployment in late FY2005 of the IBM POWER5 supercomputer bluevista was the first step in a five-year plan to meet the SCD Strategic Plan goal of a 25-fold increase in sustained computing capacity. During FY2006, CISL/SCD will initiate the second step in the plan by executing the Integrated Computing Environment for Scientific Simulation (ICESS) procurement. ICESS will be an open, competitive procurement, where vendor proposals will be solicited, then evaluated on a best-value basis by considering technical, business, and price factors to maximize the benefit to UCAR and the user communities who will utilize the system.
The scientific community has been engaged to assist in formulating and evaluating the system requirements that will meet the scientific objectives of the institution. Within the current domestic high-end computing marketplace and the funds budgeted, the new system is expected to provide roughly four times the sustained computing capacity of bluevista. It is expected that the ICESS system will arrive during early FY2007 and be opened to the user community early in CY2007.
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FY2005 Annual Report |
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