HPCwire: NSF Showcases High-Performance Networks at AAAS 2009

The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing

HPCwire >> Off the Wire

February 18, 2009

NSF Showcases High-Performance Networks at AAAS 2009

Page: 1 of 2
1 | 2 All »

The National Science Foundation showcases gigabit-enabled science at the world's largest general science conference

CHICAGO, Feb. 18 -- The transformative technology of high-performance networking in support of science was prominently featured at the 175th American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting held Feb. 12-16 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. For the first time, the National Science Foundation (NSF) provided an advanced network service for its exhibition space at the conference, enabling multiple gigabit-performance applications to be demonstrated continuously.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Northwestern University were invited by the NSF to showcase its International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program in the city where StarLight, the world's most advanced communications exchange facility, was established with funding from the NSF.

To support the demonstrations, a high-performance network was extended from StarLight, located on the Chicago campus of Northwestern University, to the Hyatt Regency Hotel, site of the conference. The StarLight communication services supported high-resolution video teleconferences with international collaborators as well as several high-performance application demonstrations.
The high-definition video teleconferences took place between the NSF booth and scientific institutions in Michigan, Russia, the Netherlands, Korea, the Czech Republic and Brazil. Attendees were able to watch the live presentations and question the scientists appearing on a 65-inch LCD display, as if meeting face to face.

"The clarity of high-definition audio and video were compelling, eliminating technological artifacts so we could easily interact with our colleagues and concentrate on what they were saying and showing us," said Maxine Brown, associate director of UIC's Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) and co-principal investigator of the NSF IRNC award TransLight/StarLight, which provides connectivity between the U.S. and Europe.

In addition to the teleconferencing demonstrations, Greg Cole from the University of Tennessee and principal investigator of the NSF IRNC GLORIAD award gave booth presentations on GLORIADEarth, a real-time graphical depiction of network use of large science applications on the GLORIAD network, a research and education network ring circling the earth.

Northwestern University's International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) demonstrated its High Performance Digital Media Network (HPDMnet) by streaming high-resolution digital content from servers in Spain, Canada, the Netherlands and StarLight to the displays in the NSF booth.

HPDMnet is an advanced digital media service that is being designed and developed by an international consortium which has created unique technologies that allow high-performance networks to stream exceptionally high-quality digital media from any source, including cameras, servers, scientific instruments and data repositories.

HPDMnet, which is based on a global optical networking facility, can support high-volume digital media streams including individual streams thousands of times larger than those on the common Internet.

"Today's Internet provides a generalized service that does not support high-quality digital media," said iCAIR director Joe Mambretti. "Using HPDMnet, you can transport digital media worldwide in the highest possible resolution, including media that's more than four times the resolution of HD."

Page: 1 of 2
1 | 2 All »

Article Tools

Share Options

(Digg, Technorati, more)

Subscribe

Subscribe to HPCwire

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Join the Discussion

You must be a registered user in order to comment on HPCwire stories.

Members enjoy:

	Access to Special Content, including Podcasts, Webcasts, and Whitepapers and more!
	Ability to take an active role in the discussions that are shaping the HPC technology discipline!
	Special offers available only to HPCwire members!

Become a Registered User Today!

Registered Users Log in Here to Comment

Email Address:	Password (case sensitive)

Remember me	Forgot Password?

RSS Feeds

Feeds by Topic

Feeds by Industry

Feeds by Content Type

Feature Articles

The Week in Review

C-DAC announces plans for a petaflop system; IBM researchers are working on vertical integration techniques to extend Moore's Law another 15 years. We recap those stories and more in our weekly wrapup.
Read More...

Moscow State University Supercomputer Has Petaflop Aspirations

The Moscow State University supercomputer, Lomonosov, has been selected for a high-performance makeover, with the goal of tripling its processing power to achieve petaflop-level performance in 2010. T-Platforms, who developed and manufactured the supercomputer, is the odds-on favorite to lead the project.
Read More...

Intel Ups Performance Ante with Westmere Server Chips

Right on schedule, Intel has launched its Xeon 5600 processors, codenamed "Westmere EP." The 5600 represents the 32nm sequel to the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem EP) for dual-socket servers. Intel is touting better performance and energy efficiency, along with new security features, as the big selling points of the new Xeons.
Read More...

Read more HPCwire features...

Top Headlines

Australia Commissions Cray Supercomputer

Mar 19 | OfficialWire | New super to support intelligence work Down Under. Read more...

Intel Partners See 'Easy' Upgrade Path With Xeon 5600 Chips

Mar 18 | ChannelWeb | Westmere parts already showing up in HPC machines. Read more...

AMD: OEMs primed for Opteron 6100s

Mar 17 | The Register | But what about the tier ones? Read more...

Arrival of the Desktop Supercomputer

Mar 17 | Cadalyst Magazine | A new generation of workstations is changing the nature of technical computing. Read more...

Scheduling HPC In The Cloud

Mar 17 | Linux Magazine | Latest iteration of Sun Grid Engine able to tap into Cloud. Read more...

Read more headlines...

Featured Whitepapers

Virtualization for Aggregation And The vSMP Architecture™

Jan 12 | | In-depth look at vSMP Foundation server virtualization technology, technical implementation, use cases and capabilities. The technical whitepaper provides an architectural overview and details on the three vSMP Foundation products: vSMP Foundation for SMP, vSMP Foundation for Cluster and vSMP Foundation for Cloud.

Copper Cable Technologies for High Performance Computing

Jan 18 | | This white paper discusses Gore’s copper cable assemblies, and how they continue to exceed the standards for providing reliable, cost-effective solutions for high-performance computer applications.

View the White Paper Library

Multimedia

Webcast: Virtualized Data Center Roundtable

Join this online panel discussion for live Q&A with leading industry experts, analysts, and end-users to discuss the latest innovations, best practices, barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits of server virtualization with a particular focus on today's real world solutions.

Webcast: Watch SC09 Birds of a Feather Video: Scalable Fault-Tolerant HPC Supercomputers

Learn about scalable fault-tolerant architectures and examples of energy efficient and scalable supercomputing clusters using dual QDR InfiniBand to combine capacity computing with network failover capabilities with the help of programming languages such as MPI and a robust Linux cluster management package.

Webcast: High Performance Computing for a Smarter Planet

LIVE@SCO9: The IBM team discusses new innovations in hardware, software and services that help clients better understand their workloads and get insight from their R&D efforts. Technology demonstrations include the soon-to-be-released Power7 HPC processor, the DCS990 system with 2.4 petabytes of storage, the xCAT management tool, secure HPC cloud computing and more. Winners of two HPCwire Readers' and Editors’ Choice Awards! Take the IBM virtual tour at SC09 or more information go online to: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/sc09.html