Awesome information architecture advanced at SC '95

The ambitious SC '95 information architecture included a number of advanced technologies:

• The Information Wide-Area Year (I-WAY) was an experimental, high-performance network linking dozens of the country's fastest computers and advanced visualization environments. The network was based on ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) technology, an emerging standard for advanced telecommunications networks. SC'95 Global Information Infrastructure (GII) testbed and High Performance Computing Challenge participants were the first users of the I-WAY.

• SCinet'95, Supercomputing's internal network, was the most advanced conference network ever demonstrated. It provided a seamless networking infrastructure throughout the San Diego Convention Center to give researchers, exhibitors, and attendees access to other computers on the show floor and at their home institutions. SCinet'95 used ATM, FDDI, serial HIPPI, switched Ethernet, and shared Ethernet.

• The GII testbed showcased interactive 2-D and 3-D scientific visualization and virtual reality demonstrations of National Challenge and Grand Challenge problem solving. Simulation software remotely executed in scientists' numerical laboratories and the results were transmitted over high-speed networks for presentation in San Diego. The goal of the GII testbed was to encourage the development of teams, tools, hardware, systems software, and human interface models on an accelerated schedule to enable national-scale, multisite collaborations.

• On-site experimental local networks:
  • The WAVE (Wide Area Visualization Experimental) network was an experimental, high-performance, local-area network constructed on site at SC'95 and connected to the I-WAY. The WAVE was used to enable interactive GII Testbed and High-Performance Computing Challenge applications and video servers. Due to the experimental and high-bandwidth requirements of the projects using the WAVE, it was implemented as a physically separate network from the SCinet'95 production network.

  • Wireless local-area networking enabled key conference people to use wireless systems for continuous Internet access to browse the World Wide Web, send/read e-mail, and use two-way voice/video.

  • The video server project consisted of live digital video sources (from meeting areas, mobile cameras, and remote sites). The video streams were recorded and simultaneously made available for real-time and delayed narrowcasting via the WAVE and I-WAY to local and remote conference attendees. Parallel computers were used as video server engines to store and play back hundreds of hours of conference activity on demand.

• Next-generation audiovisual capabilities: Video projection, personal computers, and laptop-based equipment were standard equipment in all SC'95 rooms. Meeting rooms also had Ethernet access to local and remote computers, enabling speakers to access and display WWW pages and computer files in real time in a large, single-screen projection environment.