NEESgrid: Where
Infrastructure Meets
Cyberinfrastructure
Kim Mish
Presidential Professor of Structural Engineering
Director, Donald G. Fears Structural Engineering Laboratory
School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science
University of Oklahoma
So Why am I Here, Anyway?
• Professional Background
– Earthquake Engineering (structures, bridges, dams, infrastructure)
– Information Technology and Supercomputing
– National Security Research and Development
• Established LLNL Center for Computational Engineering
– Interfaces of Simulation, IT, and INFOSEC for LLNL Engineering
– Substantial university and government outreach component
• Currently providing technology management expertise for
the NSF NEES MRE
– Primary focus has been on the NEESgrid project (SI award)
– This project lies at interface of infrastructure and
cyberinfrastructure realms, a.k.a. where I’ve spent my career
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
Characteristics of Infrastructure
• Essential
– So important that it becomes ubiquitous
• Reliable
– Example: the built environment of the Roman Empire
• Expensive
– Nothing succeeds like excess (e.g., Interstate system)
– Inherently one-off (often, few economies of scale)
• Clear factorization between research and practice
– Generally, only deploy what provably works
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
Infrastructure vs. Cyberinfrastructure
• Characteristics of Infrastructure Culture
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Risk averse, which leads to slow technology adoption
Code-based practice to defend against litigation
Follow community wants/needs whenever possible
Goal is highest reliability, e.g., MTBF
• Characteristics of Cyberinfrastructure Culture
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High-risk, “innovate or die” approach to technology
Best-practices approach leaves legal issues dangling
Develop technology, then look for a market
Goal is highest performance, e.g., TFLOPS
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
So Exactly What is NEES?
• NEES = Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation
– NEES is a distributed array of experimental sites, grid-based data
repositories, tool archives, and computational resources
• NEES has four components, with three now funded:
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The consortium, which will run NEES after 2004
The consortium development (CD) builds the consortium
The experimental sites, which provide data and content
The systems integration (SI) effort, termed NEESgrid
• IT drivers include telepresence, curated repositories,
scalable HPC, experimental-numerical coupling, QoS…
• NEES is the first-ever Engineering MRE at NSF, and its
full title is the “George E. Brown, Jr. Network for
Earthquake Engineering Simulation”
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
NEES: Experiments and Numerics
• Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation
Goal: create collaborative
network of experimental sites
at fifteen U.S. universities
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
NEES Phase I Equipment Sites
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
NEES: UC Davis Soil Centrifuge
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
Oregon State Tsunami Facility
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
What About Numeric Simulation?
• GC Example: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
– Horrendous nonlinearities and ill-conditioning
– Foundation is saturated (fully-coupled multiphysics)
– Complexity from juxtaposition of forms (unstructured)
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
The Promise of Cyberinfrastructure
• NEESgrid Example:
the Terascale
Framework
– New client-server
engineering portal for
grid computing
– Scalable framework for
finite-element HPC
– Developed by Lee
Taylor (SNL ASCI
flagship SIERRA
framework lead)
– Funded by LLNL CCE,
SNL, and NSF ITR in
support of NEES MRE
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
The Perils of Cyberinfrastructure
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
How We Develop Infrastructure
• Multi-tiered structure for R&D
– NSF: basic engineering research
– TRB: development and reduction-to-practice
– FHWA, AASHTO, and DOTs: deployment of
innovations that are successful and feasible
• Clear lines of demarcation exist
– Don’t do research on production facilities
– Use funds from production to support R&D
• When in doubt, overbuild!
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma
Summary
• Design and deployment of infrastructure is
motivated by the goal of production
capability with low risk and high reliability
• Design and deployment of cyberinfrastructure is motivated by the goal of
performance and technological innovation
• The NEES MRE lies at the oft-problematic
interface of these two communities
FearsLab
Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory
University of Oklahoma