Transcript Kelly Gaither

Visualization as a Science Discovery Tool
Issues and Concerns
Kelly Gaither
Director of Visualization/
Sr. Research Scientist
Texas Advanced Computing Center
September 8, 2011
Issues and Concerns
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Maximizing Scientific Impact
Managing Data at Scale
Providing Resources at Scale
Ensuring Broad Accessibility/Developing
Ubiquitous Tools
Visualization Mantra
“The purpose of computing is insight not numbers.”
-- R. W. Hamming (1961)
“The purpose of visualization is insight not pictures.”
-- Ben Schneiderman (2005)
Maximizing Scientific Impact
Image: Greg P. Johnson, Romy Schneider, TACC
Image: Karla Vega, Shaolie Hossain, Thomas J.R., Hughes
Image: Adam Kubach, Karla Vega, Clint Dawson
Greg Abram, Carsten Burstedde, Georg Stadler, Lucas C. Wilcox,
James R. Martin, Tobin Isaac, Tan Bui-Thanh,and Omar Ghattas
Managing Data at Scale
Pixels
HPC
System
Large-Scale
Visualization
Resource
Display
Mouse
Data
Archive
Remote Site
Wide-Area
Network
Local Site
Where Does Technology Fit In?
• We have always used technology to create
visualizations of what we see in our minds eye.
• What changes over time is the technology we use
to do the visualization.
Longhorn
First NSF XD Visualization Resource
256 Nodes, 2048 Cores, 512 GPUs, 14.5 TB Memory
• 256 Dell Dual Socket, Quad Core Intel Nehalem
Nodes
– 240 with 48 GB shared memory/node (6 GB/core)
– 16 with 144 GB shared memory/node (18 GB/core)
– 73 GB Local Disk
– 2 Nvidia GPUs/Node (FX 5800 – 4GB RAM)
• ~13.5 TB aggregate memory
• QDR InfiniBand Interconnect
• Jobs launched through SGE
• ~6GB/s to scratch filesystem
• ~6GB/s to Ranger filesystem
Kelly Gaither (PI), Valerio Pascucci, Chuck Hansen,
David Ebert, John Clyne (Co-PI), Hank Childs
Hadoop on Longhorn
PI: Weijia Xu (UT LIFT Grant)
• Local Storage Expansion
– 192 500GB 7.2k drives are installed on 48 R610
nodes on Longhorn (96 usable TB)
– 112 146GB 15k drives are installed on 16 R710
nodes on Longhorn. (16 usable TB)
• /hadoop file system
• Went in to production December 2010
• 6 early user projects (text mining and
information retrieval)
• 142k core hours from Dec to Feb
Longhorn Usage Modalities:
• Remote/Interactive Visualization
– Highest priority jobs
– Remote/Interactive capabilities facilitated through VNC
– Run on 3 hour queue limit boundary
• GPGPU jobs
– Run on a lower priority than the remote/interactive jobs
– Run on a 12 hour queue limit boundary
• CPU jobs with higher memory requirements
– Run on lowest priority when neither remote/interactive nor GPGPU
jobs are waiting in the queue
– Run on a 12 hour queue limit boundary
Longhorn Queue Structure
Example: qsub -q normal -P vis
Software Available on Longhorn
• Programming APIs: OpenGL, vtk (Not natively parallel)
– OpenGL – low level primitives, useful for programming at a
relatively low level with respect to graphics
– VTK (Visualization Toolkit) – open source software system for 3D
computer graphics, image processing, and visualization
– IDL
• Visualization Turnkey Systems
– VisIt – free open source parallel visualization and graphical
analysis tool
– ParaView – free open source general purpose parallel visualization
system
– VAPOR – free flow visualization package developed out of NCAR
– EnSight – commercial turnkey parallel visualization package
targeted at CFD visualization
– Amira – commercial turnkey visualization package targeted at
visualizing scanned medical data (CAT scan, MRI, etc..)
Longhorn Visualization Portal
portal.longhorn.tacc.utexas.edu
• Developed to provide easy access to
Longhorn and abstract away complexities
involved with command line access
• Leverages TeraGrid user portal codebase
and employs a fraction of TGUP developers
to ensure continuity
• Used for all in-person Longhorn training
Longhorn Visualization Portal
portal.longhorn.tacc.utexas.edu
>3000 jobs submitted through the portal
Longhorn Visualization Portal
portal.longhorn.tacc.utexas.edu
• Specify type of
session
• Specify resolution of
vnc session
• Specify number of
nodes needed and
the wayness of the
nodes
• Provides graphic of
machine load
Longhorn Visualization Portal
portal.longhorn.tacc.utexas.edu
• Vnc session opens
up in java enabled
browser
• Behaves as if user
had gotten a remote
desktop into
Longhorn.
EnVision
Greg Johnson, Brandt Westing
• Web-based visualization
software that allows
researchers to develop
interactive visualizations
intuitively.
• Currently integrated into the
Longhorn Visualization
Portal but can run
independently.
• Began collaborations with
ParaView team.
Summary
• Close collaborations with the science
partners are key
– User support
• Minimize data transfers if possible
– Data stays in single location
• Scale resources effectively based on use
cases
• Easy accessibility to and interaction with
technologies encourages diverse
communities participation
Questions?
[email protected]