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Academic Services and Programs

San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)

Mail Code 0505
(858) 534-5000 (general inquiries)
(858) 534-5100
http://www.sdsc.edu

Over the past two decades, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) has enabled science and engineering discoveries through advances in computational science and high-performance computing. Data is an overriding theme in SDSC activities. By developing and providing data cyberinfrastructure, the center acts as a strategic resource to science, industry, and academia, offering leadership in the areas of data management, grid computing, bioinformatics, geoinformatics, and high-end computing.

The mission of SDSC is to extend the reach of the scientific community by providing data-oriented technology resources above and beyond the limits of what is available in the local laboratory, department, and university environment. SDSC is an organized research unit of UC San Diego. Staff includes scientists, technologists, software developers, and support personnel. Over the years, SDSC has served more than 10,000 researchers at 300 academic, government, and industrial institutions in the United States and around the world. Today, these scientists and engineers increasingly rely on the availability of integrated data cyberinfrastructure tools such as hardware, software, and human support to drive research and education. Cyberinfrastructure provides a broad and useful spectrum of integrated technologies to support increasingly complex, data-intensive, and collaborative scientific endeavors.

When an application’s or research project’s technological needs outgrow the capabilities of its home environment, cyberinfrastructure extends the reach of the scientist by providing needed storage, high-speed networking, archiving and preservation, high-performance computing, and other resources remotely. SDSC provides both the tools and the facilities that integrate a user’s home environment with a high-end, resource-rich, remote environment. Users can take advantage of SDSC’s visualization, interdisciplinary expertise, and other resources to extend their home environments and accomplish their goals.

To meet the modern scientist’s and engineer’s extreme data needs, the center provides an integrated set of software and user services, including

• An internationally renowned environment for data management, mining, curation, analysis, visualization, access and preservation, as well as leadership-class storage technologies
• A broad spectrum of software tools, portals, workbenches, and packages integrated to enable users to develop and deploy complex applications
• Professional user services that enable users to make the most out of cutting-edge hardware, software, and information resources
• A range of collaboration vehicles for working with partners on strategic and community applications, data collections, and projects
• An advanced cyberinfrastructure laboratory that provides an environment for designing, developing, and testing software and hardware systems at scale
• A computational and storage infrastructure for community data collections. Our team helps researchers from a wide variety of scientific domains to manage, mine, analyze, publish, and share datasets

Along with these tools, SDSC also offers users full-time support including 24-hour helpdesk services, code optimization, training, portal development, and a variety of other services.

SDSC was founded in 1985 with a $170 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Supercomputer Centers program. From 1997 to 2004, SDSC extended its leadership in computational science and engineering to form the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI), teaming with approximately forty university partners around the country.

The demanding research problems that are being tackled by the scientists using SDSC’s cyberinfrastructure tools are numerous and diverse. A few key programs focus on understanding the origin of the universe, visualizing earthquakes, providing data management for disaster recovery organizations, modeling proteins, simulating the human nervous system, and predicting climate changes.

Cyberinfrastructure Resources

SDSC has  launched a wide-ranging project called the Triton Resource, a high-impact massive data analysis and preservation system that will accelerate innovation and discovery through the use of leading-edge research cyberinfrastructure at SDSC. The Triton Resource provides supercomputing capabilities in three key areas: a large-scale disk storage facility, a data analysis facility for petascale research, and a shared research cluster. These are connected via a high-speed 10-gigabit network already in place at the UC San Diego campus. The three prongs of Triton consist of

• Data Oasis, a high-performance storage system, which will assist in the practical manipulation of data across high-bandwidth paths to researchers throughout UC San Diego and the UC system. This system will store, manage, and preserve the deluge of data from research instruments and experiments that forms the basis for future generations of research.
• Petascale Data Analysis Facility, capable of analyzing data from petascale computers, in which one petaflop of compute power equals one quadrillion calculations per second. That is the equivalent of having about 100,000 laptops to create simulations at a level of detail or scope previously not possible for scientists.
• Condo Cluster, a scalable, shared resource or group of linked computers equipped with standard compute nodes but enhanced memory capability. The cluster may be configured to operate in a standard batch mode or be set up to allow users to run customized software stacks at scale, with full connectivity to large-scale storage.

SDSC’s new “green” data center, launched during a new building addition dedication in October 2008, is equipped to house colocation servers for UC San Diego and UC researchers and academic units. The 5,000 square-foot data center, which augments the center’s previous 13,000 square-foot data center, contains the latest energy-efficient technologies and is managed by a staff of professionals on a 24-7 basis. Other key features of the new building addition include a state-of-the-art visualization center, high-tech conference room, and an OptiPortal, used by SDSC’s chief scientific officer and interim director Michael Norman to visualize results from cosmology simulations on the cutting-edge petascale machines.

The center also is a founding member of and serves as a data-intensive site lead in the National Science Foundation-funded TeraGrid, a multiyear effort to build and deploy the first national-scale grid infrastructure for open scientific research. The center’s supercomputing resources include Dash, a new high-performance computer and the first to feature flash-based memory to speed solutions for data-intensive problems.

SDSC also is partnering with UCSD Libraries, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the University of Maryland in a data-preservation project called Chronopolis, a geographically distributed data grid that supports the long-term management, stewardship, and access to digital collections. The system incorporates trust and reliability through replication, service-level agreements, monitoring, and rule-based systems.

Research Allocations, Resources, and Support

SDSC provides access to its vast array of data and computational resources and services for all UC researchers with a need for leading-edge research cyberinfrastructure. SDSC offers the foundation for custom cyberinfrastructure capabilities defined by UC-led activities. Any qualified UC researcher can request access to these resources. Some services are available free of charge and others via campus recharge.

All researchers with access to SDSC’s resources are supported by SDSC’s consulting staff, available online (http://www.sdsc.edu/us/consulting), by phone, or by e-mail: 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Researchers and students with accounts are welcome to attend SDSC’s periodic training workshops (http://www.sdsc.edu/us/training).

For more information and to apply, visit the SDSC Web site at http://www.sdsc.edu or contact opportunities@sdsc.edu.

Additional Opportunities for the Campus Community

SDSC offers the following additional opportunities for UCSD faculty, staff, and students:

• Access to high-performance computers through UCSD classes—Many UCSD classes make use of the SDSC resources, providing a hands-on way to learn about high-performance computing. Check class listings for biology, chemistry and biochemistry, computer science and engineering, mechanical and aerospace engineering, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and UC San Diego Extension.
• Seminars—SDSC hosts a wide variety of seminars on topics of interest to the high-performance computing and computational science community. Most are open to the UCSD community (http://www.sdsc.edu/pb/sspps/sem.htm).
• Publications—SDSC, with Calit2, Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego Libraries, Administrative Computing & Telecommunications (ACT), publishes UC San Diego CyberLink, a free monthly e-newsletter focused on the latest cyberinfrastructure news and events on campus. For subscriptions, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/news/subscribe.html.
• Part-time and full-time employment—SDSC posts part-time and full-time professional job openings at the UCSD Career Services Center or see http://www.sdsc.edu/about/Careers.html. Typical jobs are in research programming support, scientific writing, computer operations, and reception work.
• Tours—SDSC offers tours upon request. Special-interest tours for education and industry groups and others can be arranged by contacting tours@sdsc.edu.

Additional information about SDSC can be obtained from the SDSC Web site (http://www.sdsc.edu) or by calling SDSC at (858) 534-5000.