ITR: The OptIPuter

ITR：OptIPuter

• 批准号: 0225642
• 负责人: Larry Smarr
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-10-01 至 2009-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0225642&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ITR; OptIPuter

The OptIPuter project explores a new architecture for the distributed information infrastructure (which NSF terms infostructure) required by a number of this decade's science and engineering shared facilities. The project is driven by a close collaboration with leaders of two of these community systems?NSF's EarthScope and NIH's Biomedical Imaging Research Network (BIRN)?both of which are beginning to produce an accelerating flood of data which will in stored in distributed federated data repositories. One characteristic blocking such science is that the individual data objects (a 3D brain image or a terrain dataset) are large (Gigabytes) compared to what can be interactively manipulated or visualized over today's networks. What these scientists require are ultra-high-speed predictable "clear-channel" networks linking PC clusters, storage and visualization systems, enabling collaborating scientists to explore interactively massive amounts of previously uncorrelated data. An important opportunity exists over the next few years to develop a radical new architecture for this needed scientific infostructure. Observing that the exponential growth rates in bandwidth and storage are now much higher than Moore's Law, this research "goes to the end of the rainbow" to exploit a new world in which the central architectural element is optical networking, not computers. This transition is caused by the use of parallelism, as in supercomputing a decade ago. However, this time the parallelism is in multiple wavelengths of light, or lambdas, on single optical fibers, creating supernetworks. The OptIPuter project aims at the re-optimization of the entire Grid stack of software abstractions, learning how, as George Gilder suggests, to "waste" bandwidth and storage in order to conserve "scarce" computing in this new world of inverted values. Such a period of technological paradigm shifting requires large-scale application-driven system experiments and a broad multidisciplinary team to understand and develop innovative solutions for a "LambdaGrid" world. Smaller scale efforts are unlikely to produce the radical changes needed to seize the opportunity. Without tackling this research arena, more traditional approaches to developing e-Science infostructure will instead be widely adopted, but at what ultimate cost to the country in our loss of scientific leadership in the long term? Our approach is not without risk; however, with these exponentials crossing, and therefore a technologically driven reordering of infostructure architectural considerations inevitable, an exciting research opportunity is now made possible. Essentially, the OptIPuter is a "virtual" parallel computer in which the individual "processors" are widely distributed clusters; the "backplane" is provided by IP delivered over multiple dedicated lambdas (each 1-10 Gbps); and, the "mass storage systems" are large distributed scientific data repositories, fed by scientific instruments as OptIPuter peripheral devices, operated in near real-time. Furthermore, collaboration will be a defining OptIPuter characteristic; goals include implementing a next-generation Access Grid with optical multicast, enabling tiled stereo HDTV screens of reality-matching visual resolution. The OptIPuter is an embodiment of the vision of the "hollowing out of the computer" prophesized by Erich Schmidt in the mid-1990s. The old "computer-in-a-box" is being blown up and scattered across the Net. The OptIPuter's fundamental inventions include software and middleware abstractions to deliver unique capabilities in a lambda-rich world, a world in which endpoint-delivered bandwidth is greater than individual computers can saturate. This research on campus and metro-scale OptIPuters complements State (CENIC/ONI in California, I-WIRE in Illinois), national (TeraGrid), and international (StarLight) projects. The six-university OptIPuter research team spans applications, software, networking and hardware expertise to address the challenges. This team has a long history of successfully managing large multidisciplinary and multi-institutional projects, working with companies, and delivering high-impact innovations in hardware and software systems. Since industry is developing key subcomponents of the OptIPuter, several leading companies are involved as partners. The new architectural models and the software systems to make them function should contribute important capabilities to other large-scale Federally funded networked science facilities. Going beyond research, the collaborative visualization data-fusion OptIPuter centers coupled to remote instrumentation will be enabling technologies for broader societal needs, including emergency response, homeland security, health services, and science education.

OptIPuter项目为分布式信息基础设施（NSF称之为信息基础设施）探索了一种新的体系结构，这是近十年来许多科学和工程共享设施所需要的。该项目是由这两个社区系统的领导人密切合作推动的。NSF EarthScope和NIH生物医学成像研究网络（BIRN）？这两者都开始产生加速的数据洪流，这些数据将存储在分布式联合数据存储库中。阻碍这种科学的一个特征是，与当今网络上可以交互操作或可视化的数据相比，单个数据对象（3D大脑图像或地形数据集）太大（gb）。这些科学家需要的是连接PC集群、存储和可视化系统的超高速可预测的“清晰通道”网络，使合作的科学家能够交互式地探索大量以前不相关的数据。未来几年将有一个重要的机会，为这一所需的科学基础设施开发一种全新的架构。观察到带宽和存储的指数增长率现在远远高于摩尔定律，这项研究“走向彩虹的尽头”，以探索一个新的世界，在这个世界中，核心架构元素是光网络，而不是计算机。这种转变是由并行性的使用引起的，就像十年前的超级计算一样。然而，这一次的并行性是在单个光纤上的多个光波长，或lambdas，创造了超级网络。OptIPuter项目旨在重新优化软件抽象的整个网格堆栈，正如George Gilder所建议的那样，学习如何“浪费”带宽和存储，以便在这个倒转值的新世界中保存“稀缺”的计算。这样一个技术范式转变的时期需要大规模的应用驱动系统实验和广泛的多学科团队来理解和开发“LambdaGrid”世界的创新解决方案。小规模的努力不太可能产生抓住机遇所需的根本变化。如果不解决这个研究领域的问题，更传统的发展电子科学基础设施的方法将被广泛采用，但是从长远来看，我们失去科学领导地位的最终代价是什么？我们的做法并非没有风险；然而，随着这些指数的交叉，因此技术驱动的基础设施架构考虑的重新排序是不可避免的，一个令人兴奋的研究机会现在成为可能。本质上，OptIPuter是一个“虚拟”并行计算机，其中各个“处理器”是广泛分布的集群；“背板”由通过多个专用lambda（每个1-10 Gbps）传输的IP提供；“海量存储系统”是大型分布式科学数据存储库，由OptIPuter外围设备等科学仪器提供数据，以近乎实时的方式运行。此外，协作将是OptIPuter的一个决定性特征；目标包括实现具有光学多播的下一代接入网格，使平铺立体高清电视屏幕具有与现实匹配的视觉分辨率。OptIPuter是埃里希·施密特（Erich Schmidt）在20世纪90年代中期预言的“计算机空心化”愿景的体现。老式的“盒子里的电脑”正在被炸毁，分散在网络上。OptIPuter的基本发明包括软件和中间件抽象，以在lambda丰富的世界中提供独特的功能，在这个世界中，端点传输的带宽大于单个计算机可以饱和的带宽。这项关于校园和城域规模OptIPuters的研究补充了州（加利福尼亚州的CENIC/ONI，伊利诺伊州的I-WIRE），国家（TeraGrid）和国际（StarLight）项目。由六所大学组成的OptIPuter研究团队涵盖了应用、软件、网络和硬件专业知识，以应对这些挑战。这个团队在成功管理大型多学科和多机构项目、与公司合作以及在硬件和软件系统中交付高影响力创新方面有着悠久的历史。由于工业界正在开发OptIPuter的关键子组件，因此几家领先的公司作为合作伙伴参与其中。新的体系结构模型和使其发挥作用的软件系统应该为其他大型联邦资助的网络科学设施提供重要的能力。除了研究之外，与远程仪器相结合的协作可视化数据融合OptIPuter中心将为更广泛的社会需求提供技术支持，包括应急响应、国土安全、卫生服务和科学教育。