Scientists, engineers and other U.S. researchers may apply until April 15, 2010 for the next quarterly review of requests for free allocations of high-performance computer time, advanced user support, and storage resources that are available through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Cyberinfrastructure's (OCI) TeraGrid. To apply for an allocation of any size, visit TeraGrid's online submission system here.
Each quarter, a panel of computational experts known as the TeraGrid Resource Allocations Committee (TRAC) evaluates requests primarily on the appropriateness and technical aspects of using TeraGrid resources. Applications received by the April 15 deadline will be considered at the June 2010 TRAC meeting and awards will be available from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011. TeraGrid allocates more than 1 billion processor hours to meritorious requests each year. At the March 2010 TRAC meeting, 281 million processor hours and 1.25 petabytes of data storage were awarded to 133 research teams. TeraGrid resources currently exceed 2 petaflops of combined computing capability and approximately 50 petabytes of online and archival data storage from 11 resource provider sites across the nation.
For the next round of awards, researchers can request time on 12 systems, including TeraGrid's two largest, which were funded under NSF OCI's Track 2 Program: "Ranger" at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC); "Kraken" at the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS) in Tennessee; and the newest TeraGrid resource, the "Longhorn" remote visualization and data analysis system, also at TACC. Another remote visualization and data analysis system, "Nautilus" at NICS, will enter production in October 2010.
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Illinois will soon deploy a new highly parallel shared memory supercomputer, called "Ember." With a peak performance of 16 teraflops, "Ember" will double the performance of its predecessor, the five-year-old "Cobalt" system. For more information about TeraGrid resources, visit the resource catalog.
TeraGrid, the NSF, and the TeraGrid Science Advisory Board are actively preparing for the transition to the next phase of NSF-supported cyberinfrastructure, called eXtreme Digital (XD), which will begin in April next year. While a competition for the management of XD is ongoing, the program solicitation requires the winning team to provide continuity of service between TeraGrid and XD. To facilitate this, TeraGrid will provide transition documentation, training, consulting, and application support services for three months beyond the start of XD. Allocations awarded at the June 2010 TRAC meeting will be the first to span both TeraGrid and XD. For more information about XD, visit the NSF/OCI web site or the TeraGrid XD transition schedule and FAQ.
