Supercomputer Special Campaigns
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Comparison of real and simulated
images of Hurricane Katrina, the latter produced via a special computing
campaign on the bluesky cluster. The CISL Supercomputer Special Campaigns
provide dedicated time for using CISL-managed supercomputer resources.
These special campaigns allow time-critical and more in-depth studies
of important questions; they also support new model verification and
special-purpose benchmarking of new scientific research codes. |
Supercomputer special campaigns are a regular feature of the services
CISL provides for the scientific user community to support the NCAR
strategic priority of "Developing and providing advanced services and
tools." Some campaigns recur annually while others are either a one-time
event or are done on an as-needed basis. They are all managed by a
CISL-developed Special Campaign Software Tool Suite. The day-to-day
NCAR production supercomputing environment provides capacity computing
to the scientific end-user community, and the special campaign mechanism
was developed by CISL to provide by-request capability computing to this
same community. It is another example of the robust, accessible, and
innovative information services and tools that are being developed and
deployed by CISL software engineers.
In FY 2006, CISL supported 10 major and numerous minor special
computing campaigns that made use of all of the production supercomputer
clusters. In FY 2007, CISL will continue to provide full 24 by 7 support
for special computing campaigns. Software engineering work will continue
to refine, streamline, and simplify the CISL-developed Special Campaign
Software Tool Suite, with the overarching goals being to minimize induced
idle time and to maximize the ease-of-use and self-healing properties of
the software.
The special computing campaigns are made possible through NSF Core
funds including CSL funding.
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