CRI: CRD Collaborative Research: Archer - Seeding a Community-based Computing Infrastructure for Computer Architecture Research and Education

摘要美国八所大学的研究人员正在合作开发Archer，这是一个基于社区的计算基础设施，用于计算机体系结构研究和教育。Archer以一种集成的方式满足了计算机体系结构研究人员访问强大计算资源和共享模拟环境的广泛需求。该项目通过部署大规模、灵活且易于使用的计算基础设施来实现这一目标，该基础设施可在用户加入网络时将用户的本地计算资源添加到Archer专用资源中，从而随着更多用户的加入而增加Archer的计算能力。此外，Archer项目包括一个存储库，用户可以在其中共享他们创建的工具和模拟环境，这为用户加入Archer社区增加了另一项激励，促进了研究小组之间的合作，并推动了计算机体系结构领域的发展。Archer的核心硬件由部署在康奈尔大学、佛罗里达州立大学、东北大学、西北大学、佛罗里达大学、明尼苏达大学和奥斯汀德克萨斯大学的计算机集群组成。硬件基础设施提供数百个处理器，以支持计算机体系结构研究在包括软错误建模、基于统计的设计探索和芯片-多处理器微体系结构等领域所需的苛刻模拟工作负载。能够以安全、可扩展和无缝的方式聚合社区资源的关键软件技术是资源虚拟化和健壮的批处理作业调度，其中包括来自美国佛罗里达州的IPOP虚拟网络和来自美国威斯康星州的秃鹰中间件。Archer社区资源将允许研究人员，特别是那些没有配备高通量计算本地资源的机构的研究人员，运行大规模模拟实验，从而推动计算机体系结构的进步。它的技术提供了一种新的方式，可以在机构内部或机构之间快速创建临时共享的“网格”计算池，这将为为其他社区创建类似的网络基础设施铺平道路。

Abstract Researchers at eight U.S. universities are collaborating in the development of Archer, a community-based computing infrastructure for computer architecture research and education. Archer addresses, in an integrated manner, computer architecture researchers' broad need to access powerful computational resources and share simulation environments. The project achieves this objective by deploying a large-scale, flexible, and easy-to-use computing infrastructure which adds users' local computing resources to Archer-dedicated resources as users join the network, thereby increasing Archer's computing power as more users join. In addition, the Archer project comprehends a repository where users can share tools and simulation environments they've created, adding another incentive for users to join the Archer community, facilitating collaboration among research groups, and advancing the field of computer architecture. The core hardware of Archer consists of computer clusters to be deployed at Cornell University, Florida State U., Northeastern U., Northwestern U., U. FLorida, U. Minnesota, and U. Texas at Austin. The hardware infrastructure provides hundreds of processors to support the demanding simulation workloads required by computer architecture research in areas including soft-error modeling, statistically-based design exploration, and chip-multiprocessor micro-architectures. The key software technologies enabling community resources to be aggregated in a secure, scalable and seamless manner are resource virtualization and robust batch job scheduling, which include the IPOP virtual network from U. Florida and the Condor middleware from U. Wisconsin. The Archer community resource will enable advances in computer architecture by allowing researchers, particularly those in institutions not equipped with local resources for high-throughput computing, to run large-scale simulation experiments. Its technology provides a new way to swiftly create ad-hoc shared "Grid" computing pools within or across institutions, which will pave the way to the creation of similar cyberinfrastructures for other communities.