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["Moore, Gregory A" <>]

Team led by IU wins Supercomputing Bandwidth Competition

View this news release online:
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6839.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 16, 2007

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A team led by Indiana University, with partners from the 
Technische Universitaet Dresden, Rochester Institute of Technology, Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, was awarded 
first place in an international competition for leading-edge, high-bandwidth 
computing applications. The award was presented Thursday at SC07, the world's 
largest international conference for high performance computing, networking, 
storage and analysis, being held this week in Reno, Nevada.

The Bandwidth Challenge competition invites teams of technologists from the 
nation's most elite supercomputing facilities to push the limits of modern 
computer networks. The competition this year was based on the theme "serving 
as a model." Competitors were challenged to create methods for fully 
utilizing a high-speed network path to support end-to-end network 
applications running across a grid that included the conference's exhibit 
floor and the participant's home institutions using production networks.

Using the IU Data Capacitor, a system designed to store and manipulate 
massive data sets, the IU team achieved a peak transfer rate of 18.21 
Gigabits/second out of a possible maximum of 20 Gigabits/second. This 
performance was nearly twice the peak rate of the nearest competitor. The IU 
team achieved an overall sustained rate of 16.2 Gigabits/second (roughly 
equivalent to sending 170 CDs of data per minute) using a transatlantic 
network path that included the Internet2, GÉANT, and DFN research networks.

"This project simultaneously pushed the limits of networking and storage 
technology while demonstrating a reproducible model for remote data 
management. Best of all, we did this using a variety of research applications 
that we support every day at Indiana University," said Data Capacitor and 
Bandwidth Challenge project leader Stephen Simms.

During the competition, the IU-led team ran several cutting edge computer 
applications, all of which depend upon the Data Capacitor's ability to read 
and write data at extreme speeds. A key aspect of the demonstration was the 
ability to simultaneously support a mix of several different applications 
from the sciences and humanities, including:

* Modeling and analysis of the amyloid peptide, which is thought to be the 
cause of Alzheimer's disease, using IU's Big Red Supercomputer, led by Mookie 
Baik of the IU School of Informatics and IU Bloomington Department of 
Chemistry.

* Live acquisition of x-ray crystallography data, led by D.F. "Rick" 
McMullen, of Pervasive Technology Labs at Indiana University.

* Digital preservation of ancient Sanskrit manuscripts, led by P.R. Mukund of 
the Rochester Institute of Technology.

* Performance analysis of a computational fluid dynamics application by the 
Technische Universitaet Dresden using its Vampir/VampirTrace software 
package, led by Matthias Mueller of the Center for Information Services and 
High Performance Computing.

* Simulations of a high energy physics reaction between the basic particles 
of matter, led by Scott Teige of Indiana University Information Technology 
Services.

"IU continues to develop deep and complementary skills in advanced 
networking, data storage, grids and scientific gateways," said Brad Wheeler, 
IU vice president for information technology and chief information officer. 
"This accomplishment demonstrates the cumulative expertise that we are able 
to apply to research problems of interest from the life sciences to 
humanities.

"We were pleased to earn an honorable mention in the SC06 competition, and 
winning this year with outstanding results is a testament to the team's 
advanced skills," Wheeler said.

The Bandwidth Challenge competition was just one aspect of IU's involvement 
in networking at SC07. IU was among the sponsors of the SC07 network, and IU 
staff helped build and manage a massive network that included more than 80 
miles of fiber optic cable installed to support the SC07 conference.

The Data Capacitor is powered by the open source Lustre file system and the 
Linux operating system. It is currently accessible to U.S. researchers though 
IU's participation in the TeraGrid. The Data Capacitor was developed by a 
team from IU University Information Technology Services, the IU School of 
Informatics, and Pervasive Technology Labs at Indiana University. Corporate 
partners for the IU Bandwidth Challenge effort include Data Direct Networks, 
Dell, Myricom, Inc., Force 10 Networks, Inc.

The Data Capacitor project is supported in part by the National Science 
Foundation under NSF Award Number CNS0521433 (Craig Stewart, PI; Stephen 
Simms, Co-PI and project manager; Caty Pilachowski, Randall Bramley and Beth 
Plale, Co-PIs). IU's involvement in the TeraGrid is supported in part by NSF 
grants ACI-0338618l, OCI-0451237, OCI-0535258, and OCI-0504075.

IU's Big Red Supercomputer was funded in part by a grant from the Lilly 
Endowment, Inc. for the Indiana METACyt Initiative. Any opinions, findings, 
and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of 
the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science 
Foundation or the Lilly Endowment Inc.

About UITS
University Information Technology Services at IU, with offices on the 
Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses, develops and maintains a modern 
information technology environment throughout the university in support of 
IU's vision for excellence in research, teaching, outreach, and lifelong 
learning.
UITS provides tools and services to support the academic and administrative 
work of the university, including a high-speed campus network with wireless 
access, central web hosting, a rich selection of free and low-cost software 
for personal use, tools and support for instruction and research, and 
supercomputers for data analysis and visualization.

About Pervasive Technology Labs at IU
Pervasive Technology Labs at IU (pervasive.iu.edu), established in 1999 by a 
grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc., performs leading-edge research based on the 
ubiquity of information technology in today's world, creating new inventions, 
devices, and software that extend the capabilities of information technology 
in advanced research and everyday life. Fundamental to its mission are 
efforts to attract, encourage, educate, and retain Indiana 's workforce of 
tomorrow, and to accelerate economic growth in the State through the 
commercialization of new inventions and by forming and supporting new 
start-up companies. In carrying out its mission, Pervasive Technology Labs is 
helping IU maintain its position of international leadership in information 
technology research and, as a result, is helping to enhance the prosperity of 
the entire State of Indiana.

About the IU School of Informatics
The IU School of Informatics offers a unique, interdisciplinary curriculum 
that focuses on developing specialized skills and knowledge of information 
technology. The School has a variety of undergraduate degrees and specialized 
master's and doctorate degrees in bioinformatics, chemical informatics, 
health informatics, human-computer interaction, laboratory informatics, new 
media and computer science. Each degree is an interdisciplinary endeavor that 
combines course work and field experiences from a traditional subject area or 
discipline with intensive study of information and technology.

About Indiana University
IU is one of the oldest state universities in the Midwest and also one of the 
largest universities in the United States, with more than 110,000 students, 
faculty and staff on eight campuses. IU has a national reputation in the 
areas of information technology and advanced networking.

Media Contacts
Susan Williams
University Communications

812-855-8773

Stephen Simms
Project Manager, Data Capacitor and Bandwidth Challenge

812-855-7211

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Gregory A. Moore
Senior Communications Specialist
Communications Office
University Information Technology Services
Indiana University
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