Exploiting Market Realities to Address National Security’s High-Performance Computing Needs

1. Exploiting Market Realities toAddress National Security’sHigh-Performance Computing Needs Mark D. Hill Computer Sciences Department University of Wisconsin--Madison (Modified 01/00 for IDA-Bowie)

2. Bottom Line • Recommendations • Avoid directed procurement • Exploit clusters • Provide sustained funding to academia • Build the high-performance computing (HPC) market • Talk Outline • HPC is important to national security • History: PVPs and MPPs • Future: Clusters • Four Recommendations • Summary

3. HPC is Important to National Security • HPC is the upper extreme of computing • Supercomputers, etc. , costing $10M-$100M • HPC delivers for some important problems • Breaking encoded messages (NSA) • Nuclear stockpile stewardship (e.g., LANL)(without nuclear testing) • Requirements • Trillions of operations per second (tera ops) • Trillions of characters of semiconductor memory (terabytes) • 1015 characters on disks & tapes (petabytes)

4. History: Parallel Vector Processors (PVPs) • E.g., 1980s supercomputers from Cray Research • custom processors (i.e., no microprocessor) • Assessment • Were ideal for NSA and LANL in 1980s • Sales hurt for “killer micros” • E.g., Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) buys Cray in 1995 Cray-1

5. History: Massively Parallel Processors (MPPs) • E.g., Cray T3D, Intel Paragon, & Thinking Machines CM-5 in early 1990s • Replicated identical hardware(especially microprocessors) • But specialized software • Integrated computer vendor • Assessment • High-end HPC market stalls(see next slide) • Big companies lose interest in HPC • Small companies go out of business TMC CM-5

6. HPC Market in Billions US$ [IDC99]

7. Future: Clusters • Clusters of “Nodes” • Nodes: PCs to commercial servers • Networks: connect nodes with standard network to custom “system area network” • Cluster software: optional software that makes cluster appear more like an MPP • Clusters are a big part of DOE’s Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI)

8. Future: Clusters, continued • Nodes • Commercially viable • PC or server nodes? (You get what you pay for) • Available from multiple vendors • Insures sustained availability • Network • Commodity LAN? • Specialized SAN? • You get what you pay for • Need to port to new LAN/SAN every few years • Use middleware to rise above the details (e.g., MPI)

9. Future: Clusters, continued • Software • Need to port to new cluster every few years • Think about the performance lost from software not working in the first 1.5 years of a cluster’s 3-year life • Use shrink-wrapped software whenever possible • Use standard languages & libraries • For custom software: K.I.S.S. • Integration -- Creating a “Computer System” • Hardest problem (done by MPP computer vendor) • Select & deploy network hardware, network protocols, middleware, application library, debuggers, etc. • Who does integration? Customer? 3rd party?

10. Recommendation 1: Forget “Procurement” • Can’t buy HPC like bombers or carriers • Computer technology moves too fast for contractor mentality (two times the performance in two years) • Time lags too long • Specifications too detailed • Can’t depend on sustained government commitment(post cold war) • Can’t depend on one company (or a few) • large - “zero billion dollar market” • small - out of business

11. Recommendation 2: Exploit Clusters • Government should buy Clusters • Customer (e.g., NSA or LANL) • Is responsible for mission • Should be responsible for cluster integration • But • Sub-contracting integration? • Avoiding duplication of effort? • Many technical problems • Clusters are like Churchill view of democracy • “Democracy is the worst form of governmentexcept all the others that have been tried.”

12. Recommendaton 3: Fund Academia • (Warning: I have a bias here) • Sustained funding of academia to develop new HPC ideas (as we have done in the past) • Not just Kuhnian paradigm shifts (DARPA) • Not just “trickle down” (DOE ASCI) • The country reaps what it sows

13. Recommendation 4: Build HPC Market • Government should encourage private HPC customers to reduce mismatch between needs of government and private sector • Demonstration projects • Personnel exchanges • High risk but high payoff • Unbounded potential in Biology

14. Bottom Line • Recommendations • Avoid directed procurement • Exploit clusters • Provide sustained funding to academia • Build the high-performance computing (HPC) market • 10 issues in white paper • Acknowledgements • DSSG: Gould, Licato, Major, Roberts, colleagues, & mentors • IDA or CCS: Brenner, Carlson, Draper, Feustal, Greenberg, & Mayfield • LANL: Cerutti, Lee, Luo, McCoy, Thompson, Reynders, Wasseman, Watson, & White • NSA: Powers / DARPA: DSSG sponsorship & Hendler • NSF, Compaq, IBM, Intel, & Sun: my Wisconsin research sponsorship

15. Complete Recommendations (1 of 2) • Don’t direct one or a few computer vendors to build PVPs or MPPs (like bombers or carriers) • Do provide money for government to buy HPC machines (like ASCI but it’s not sufficient) • Encourage HPC customers to take responsibility for cluster integration • Appealing to industry patriotism will not work • Provide some money to computing vendors to build better HPC machines

16. Complete Recommendations (2 of 2) • Expose industry to HPC potential (pilot projects & personnel exchanges; consider biology) • Expose academia to HPC potential (pilot projects & personnel exchanges; consider biology) • Provide sustained HPC funding to academia • Provide HPC benchmarks to academia • Provide some money to academia to buy HPC machines to build better HPC machines