Getting up to speed : the future of supercomputing

306 Pages·2005·1.89 MB·English

GETTING UP TO SPEED
THE FUTURE OF
SUPERCOMPUTING
Susan L. Graham, Marc Snir, and Cynthia A. Patterson, Editors
Committee on the Future of Supercomputing
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
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propriate balance.
Support for this project was provided by the Department of Energy under Spon-
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International Standard Book Number 0-309-54679-6 (PDF)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2004118086
Cover designed by Jennifer Bishop.
Cover images (clockwise from top right, front to back)
1. Exploding star. Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing
(SciDAC) Center for Supernova Research, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of
Science.
2. Hurricane Frances, September 5, 2004, taken by GOES-12 satellite, 1 km
visible imagery. U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
3. Large-eddy simulation of a Rayleigh-Taylor instability run on the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory MCR Linux cluster in July 2003. The relative abun-
dance of the heavier elements in our universe is largely determined by fluid insta-
bilities and turbulent mixing inside violently exploding stars.
4. Three-dimensional model of the structure of a ras protein. Human Genome
Program, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science.
5. Test launch of Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile. Vandenberg
Air Force Base.
6. A sample of liquid deuterium subjected to a supersonic impact, showing
the formation of a shock front on the atomic scale. The simulation involved 1,320
atoms and ran for several days on 2,640 processors of Lawrence Livermore Na-
tional Laboratory’s ASCI White. It provided an extremely detailed picture of the
formation and propagation of a shock front on the atomic scale. Accelerated Stra-
tegic Computing Initiative (ASCI), Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory.
7. Isodensity surfaces of a National Ignition Facility ignition capsule bound-
ing the shell, shown at 200 picosec (left), 100 picosec (center), and near ignition
time (right). An example of ASCI White three-dimensional computer simulations
based on predictive physical models. ASCI, Lawrence Livermore National Labo-
ratory.
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COMMITTEE ON THE FUTURE OF SUPERCOMPUTING
SUSAN L. GRAHAM, University of California, Berkeley, Co-chair
MARC SNIR, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Co-chair
WILLIAM J. DALLY, Stanford University
JAMES W. DEMMEL, University of California, Berkeley
JACK J. DONGARRA, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak
Ridge National Laboratory
KENNETH S. FLAMM, University of Texas, Austin
MARY JANE IRWIN, Pennsylvania State University
CHARLES KOELBEL, Rice University
BUTLER W. LAMPSON, Microsoft Corporation
ROBERT F. LUCAS, University of Southern California
PAUL C. MESSINA, Distinguished senior computer scientist,
Consultant
JEFFREY M. PERLOFF, University of California, Berkeley
WILLIAM H. PRESS, Los Alamos National Laboratory
ALBERT J. SEMTNER, Naval Postgraduate School
SCOTT STERN, Northwestern University
SHANKAR SUBRAMANIAM, University of California, San Diego
LAWRENCE C. TARBELL, JR., Technology Futures Office, Eagle
Alliance
STEVEN J. WALLACH, Chiaro Networks
Staff
CYNTHIA A. PATTERSON, Study Director
PHIL HILLIARD, Research Associate (through May 2004)
MARGARET MARSH HUYNH, Senior Program Assistant
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist
iv
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
DAVID LIDDLE, U.S. Venture Partners, Co-chair
JEANNETTE M. WING, Carnegie Mellon University, Co-chair
ERIC BENHAMOU, Benhamou Global Ventures, LLC
DAVID D. CLARK, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CSTB Chair
Emeritus
WILLIAM DALLY, Stanford University
MARK E. DEAN, IBM Almaden Research Center
DEBORAH ESTRIN, University of California, Los Angeles
JOAN FEIGENBAUM, Yale University
HECTOR GARCIA-MOLINA, Stanford University
KEVIN KAHN, Intel Corporation
JAMES KAJIYA, Microsoft Corporation
MICHAEL KATZ, University of California, Berkeley
RANDY H. KATZ, University of California, Berkeley
WENDY A. KELLOGG, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
SARA KIESLER, Carnegie Mellon University
BUTLER W. LAMPSON, Microsoft Corporation, CSTB Member
Emeritus
TERESA H. MENG, Stanford University
TOM M. MITCHELL, Carnegie Mellon University
DANIEL PIKE, GCI Cable and Entertainment
ERIC SCHMIDT, Google Inc.
FRED B. SCHNEIDER, Cornell University
WILLIAM STEAD, Vanderbilt University
ANDREW J. VITERBI, Viterbi Group, LLC
CHARLES N. BROWNSTEIN, Director
KRISTEN BATCH, Research Associate
JENNIFER M. BISHOP, Program Associate
JANET BRISCOE, Manager, Program Operations
JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer
RENEE HAWKINS, Financial Associate
MARGARET MARSH HUYNH, Senior Program Assistant
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist
LYNETTE I. MILLETT, Senior Program Officer
JANICE SABUDA, Senior Program Assistant
GLORIA WESTBROOK, Senior Program Assistant
BRANDYE WILLIAMS, Staff Assistant
For more information on CSTB, see its Web site at <http://www.cstb.org>, write
to CSTB, National Research Council, 500 Fifth Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20001,
call [phone], or e-mail the CSTB at
Preface
igh-performance computing is important in solving complex
problems in areas from climate and biology to national security.
HSeveral factors have led to the recent reexamination of the ratio-
nale for federal investment in research and development in support of
high-performance computing, including (1) continuing changes in the
various component technologies and their markets, (2) the evolution of
the computing market, particularly the high-end supercomputing seg-
ment, (3) experience with several systems using the clustered processor
architecture, and (4) the evolution of the problems, many of them mis-
sion-driven, for which supercomputers are used.
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science expressed an
interest in sponsoring a study by the Computer Science and Telecommu-
nications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council (NRC) that
would assess the state of U.S. supercomputing capabilities and relevant
research and development. Spurred by the development of the Japanese
vector-based Earth Simulator supercomputer, the Senate’s Energy and
Water Development Appropriations Committee directed the Advanced
Simulation and Computing (ASC) program of the National Nuclear Secu-
rity Administration (NNSA) at DOE to commission, in collaboration with
DOE’s Office of Science, a study by the NRC. Congress also commis-
sioned a study by the JASONs1 to identify the distinct requirements of
the stockpile stewardship program and its relation to the ASC acquisition
strategy.
1Formed in 1959, the JASONs are a select group of scientific advisors who consult with the
federal government, chiefly on classified research issues.
vii
viii PREFACE
CSTB convened the Committee on the Future of Supercomputing to
assess prospects for supercomputing technology research and develop-
ment in support of U.S. needs, to examine key elements of context—the
history of supercomputing, the erosion of research investment, the chang-
ing nature of the problems demanding supercomputing, and the needs of
government agencies for supercomputing capabilities—and to assess op-
portunities for progress. The 18 distinguished members of the study com-
mittee (see Appendix A for their biographies) were drawn from academia,
industry, and government research organizations in the United States.
Several committee members have had previous government and/or in-
dustry service. Their collective expertise includes software, computer ar-
chitecture, performance assessment, applications using supercomputing,
economics, and policy matters.
The committee did its work through its own expert deliberations and
by soliciting input from key officials in its sponsoring agency (DOE) and
numerous experts in both the United States and Japan, including govern-
ment officials, academic researchers, supercomputer manufacturers, soft-
ware vendors, supercomputer center managers, and application users of
supercomputing systems (see Appendix B). In addition to meeting six
times, the committee hosted a workshop attended by more than 20 scien-
tists from a broad range of disciplines to explore the supercomputing
needs and opportunities of key scientific domains in the coming decade
and to discuss the supercomputing technologies that will facilitate super-
computer use in these domains. Many of the workshop participants pro-
vided white papers (see Appendix C for a list) expressing their views on
computational challenges in supercomputing, which informed both the
workshop and this report.
The committee also visited five DOE supercomputer centers and the
National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) Supercomputer Center (see Appen-
dix B). A subset of the committee received classified briefings from the
Department of Energy on stockpile stewardship and from the NSA on
signals intelligence that helped illuminate how these mission require-
ments drive supercomputing needs now and in the future. Given that a
significant fraction of government funding of supercomputing is for clas-
sified national security programs, the committee believed such briefings
were needed to ensure that its report would be useful for the entire
supercomputing community. Having received the briefings, the commit-
tee believes that the needs of the classified supercomputing applications
reinforce, but do not change, the committee’s findings and recommenda-
tions for the future of supercomputing. This unclassified report does not
have a classified annex, nor is there a classified version.
To facilitate communication within the broader community, the com-
mittee hosted a town hall meeting at the annual 2003 Supercomputing
PREFACE ix
Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition, a subset of the committee
spent one week in Japan meeting with senior colleagues from the Japa-
nese government, industry, and academia to discuss scientific, technical,
and policy issues of mutual interest and to better understand both the
similarities and the differences in how the two countries approach super-
computing. They visited several sites in Japan, including the Earth Simu-
lator; the government ministry responsible for funding the Earth Simula-
tor; a university supercomputer center; Japan’s Aerospace Exploration
Agency; and an auto manufacturer. On the committee’s behalf, the Na-
tional Academy of Engineering co-sponsored with the Engineering Acad-
emy of Japan a 1-day forum in Tokyo on the future of supercomputing.
Twenty-five Japanese supercomputing experts participated in the forum.
The sharing of ideas in those meetings provided important perspectives
that contributed to the completeness and accuracy of this report. It is the
hope of the committee that activities such as the Tokyo forum will lead to
future collaboration between Japan and the United States in areas that
will advance supercomputing in both countries.
2
In July 2003, the committee released an interim report that provided
a high-level description of the state of U.S. supercomputing, the needs of
the future, and the factors that contribute to meeting those needs. That
report generated a number of comments that helped to guide the commit-
tee in its work for this final report. Additional inputs helpful to commit-
tee members and staff came from professional conferences, the technical
literature, and government reports.
The committee is grateful to the many people who contributed to this
complex study and its comprehensive report. First and foremost, the com-
mittee thanks the sponsors, DOE’s Office of Science (Fred Johnson and
Dan Hitchcock) and DOE’s NNSA (Dimitri Kusnezov, Edgar Lewis, and
José Muñoz), not only for their financial support but also for their help in
facilitating meetings with people with whom its members wished to
speak.
The committee appreciates the thoughtful testimony received from
many individuals at its plenary sessions (see Appendix B for a complete
list of briefers). The NSA and DOE site visits provided critical input to the
committee deliberations. These site visits would not have been possible
without the assistance of people at each locale. The committee and staff
thank the following people for their help: Gary D. Hughes (NSA), Lynn
Kissel (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), James S. Peery (Los
Alamos National Laboratory),Horst D. Simon (Lawrence Berkeley Na-
2
National Research Council (NRC). 2003. The Future of Supercomputing: An Interim Report.
Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.