[Storage-research-list] SDSC to Host "Grand Challenges in Data-Intensive Discovery" Conference

[Jiahua]

SDSC to Host "Grand Challenges in Data-Intensive Discovery" Conference

Oct. 26-28 Event to Explore Opportunities for Flash Memory-based
‘Gordon’ Supercomputer to Debut in 2011

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of
California, San Diego, will host a special conference in late October
as it prepares to deploy a unique data-intensive, high- performance
computing (HPC) system called Gordon in mid-2011.

Called “Grand Challenges in Data-Intensive Discovery”, the
multi-disciplinary conference will be held October 26-28, 2010 at
SDSC, located on the UC San Diego campus. Attendees can register for
the conference beginning August 2 by visiting
www.sdsc.edu/gordongrandchallenge.

“Science has entered a data-intensive era, driven by a deluge of data
being generated by digitally based instruments, sensor networks, and
simulation devices,” said Michael Norman, interim director of SDSC.
“Hence, a growing part of the scientific enterprise is associated with
analyzing such data, placing special demands on computer architectures
because the associated calculations have frequent I/O accesses, large
memory requirements, and often limited parallelism.

“We believe this conference will greatly benefit those doing research
in data-intensive fields,” added Norman. “Gordon, and future systems
like it, will open new opportunities across numerous areas of
research, and it is important that such resources are utilized to
their utmost capabilities.”
The goal of the GCDID conference is to provide an opportunity for
attendees to share their expertise while exchanging ideas about the
computational challenges and concerns common to data-intensive
problems. Specifically, the conference is structured to facilitate
discussion to help:

    * Articulate and clarify "Grand Challenges" in data-intensive
research across a broad range of disciplines, including arts,
astronomy, biology, computer science, earth sciences, economics,
engineering, humanities, medicine, neuroscience, social sciences, and
data-related technologies
    * Identify applications and disciplines that can benefit from
Gordon's unique architecture and capabilities, including those that
have not been part of the traditional HPC community
    * Identify common technical needs across disciplines and relevant
software solutions
    * Recognize opportunities for leaders in data-intensive science to
take advantage of SDSC’s available expertise in this area

Speakers scheduled to address the GCDID conference, according to topic, include:

    * Visual Arts – Lev Manovich, UC San Diego
    * Needs and Opportunities in Observational Astronomy – Alex
Szalay, Johns Hopkins University
    * Transient Sky Surveys – Peter Nugent, Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory
    * Large Data-Intensive Graph Problems – John Gilbert, UC Santa Barbara
    * Algorithms for Massive Data Sets – Michael Mahoney, Stanford University
    * Needs and Opportunities in Seismic Modeling and Earthquake
Preparedness – Tom Jordan, University of Southern California
    * Economics and Econometrics –  James Hamilton, UC San Diego
    * Needs and Opportunities in Fluid Dynamics Modeling and Flow
Field Data Analysis – Parviz Moin, Stanford University
    * Needs and Emerging Opportunities in Neuroscience – Mark
Ellisman, UC San Diego
    * Data-Driven Science in the Globally Networked World – Larry
Smarr, UC San Diego
    * Accelerating Data-Intensive Science with Dash and Gordon – Allan
Snavely, San Diego Supercomputer Center
    * Data Challenges in Biomedical Informatics – Lucila Ohno-Machado,
UC San Diego
    * Needs and Opportunities in Computational Biology – Rick Stevens,
Argonne National Laboratory.*

       * to be confirmed

Contributed talks, panel discussions, sharing of early user
experiences, and posters will complement the plenary speakers listed
above. The schedule will be posted on the conference website shortly.

“With a peak speed of 245 teraflops, very large shared memory nodes,
and a quarter-petabyte of flash SSD (solid state drive) memory, Gordon
will vastly accelerate large database and data mining applications,”
said Norman. “This system will reduce solution times and yield results
for applications that now tax even the most advanced supercomputers,
while helping to make sense of the avalanche of data generated by the
digital devices of our era.”

SDSC announced last November that it won a five-year, $20 million
grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build and operate
Gordon, the first high-performance supercomputer to employ a vast
amount of flash memory to help speed solutions now hamstrung by slower
spinning disk technology. Gordon will be a peer-reviewed, allocated
resource on NSF’s TeraGrid, and be available to any U.S. researcher.
TeraGrid is the nation’s largest open-access scientific discovery
infrastructure.

SDSC has now deployed Dash, a smaller prototype of Gordon that gives
prospective users an opportunity to explore Gordon’s unique
architectural features.  Dash also gives computer scientists and
systems architects a way to address some of the key challenges that
must be met as part of Gordon’s deployment.  Attendees will have an
opportunity to hear from early Dash users during a panel session
focused on early user experience.

About SDSC
As an Organized Research Unit of UC San Diego, SDSC is a national
leader in creating and providing cyberinfrastructure for
data-intensive research, and is celebrating its 25th anniversary this
year as one of the National Science Foundation’s first supercomputer
centers. Cyberinfrastructure refers to an accessible and integrated
network of computer-based resources and expertise, focused on
accelerating scientific inquiry and discovery. SDSC is a founding
member of TeraGrid, the nation’s largest open-access scientific
discovery infrastructure.

Comment:
Michael Norman, SDSC, 858 822-5450

Media Contacts:
Jan Zverina, SDSC Communications
858 534-5111 or jzverina at sdsc.edu

Warren R. Froelich, SDSC Communications
858 822-3622 or froelich at sdsc.edu



Related Links
SDSC: http://www.sdsc.edu/
SDSC Dash User Guide: http://www.sdsc.edu/us/resources/dash/
UC San Diego: http://www.ucsd.edu/