DOE Greenbook Documents Computational
Challenges, Recommendations
The DOE Greenbook—Needs and Directions
in High-Performance Computing for the Office of
Science was compiled by Douglas A. Rotman and
Paul Harding for the NERSC Users Group and published
in April 2002. This report documents the computational
science being done at NERSC and other DOE computing
centers and provides examples of computational challenges
and opportunities that will guide the evolution
of these centers over the next few years. Examples
are provided from every research program supported
by the DOE Office of Science.
The Greenbook states
that a large shared computing center continues
to be essential to the scientific mission of the
Office of Science, as it provides researchers
with resources that could not be supplied locally.
The authors believe that parallel computing is
now the primary production computing paradigm,
although some performance issues remain. The report
discusses the need for software and algorithms
that enable better utilization of parallel systems,
as well as platform configurations that are better
aligned with the requirements of computational
science. The Greenbook also addresses the use
of distributed computational systems and the need
for enhanced mass storage, visualization facilities,
and networks.
The Greenbook’s recommendations include:
Expand the high-performance computing resources
available at NERSC.
Encourage the continued improvement of algorithms,
software (including middleware), and database
technology for improved performance on parallel
platforms.
Strengthen the networks to provide reliable,
robust, and fast access to Grid resources.
Coordinate NERSC activities with SciDAC,
ISIC, and other Office of Science compute centers.
Identify mechanisms to provide larger-scale
production facilities. A growing number of future
simulations will need to run continuously for
hundreds of hours, but current computer centers
can only handle a few simulations of this type.
