NEESgrid: Where Infrastructure Meets Cyberinfrastructure Kim Mish Presidential Professor of Structural Engineering Director, Donald G. Fears Structural Engineering Laboratory School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science University of Oklahoma

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma So Why am I Here, Anyway? Professional Background –Earthquake Engineering (structures, bridges, dams, infrastructure) –Information Technology and Supercomputing –National Security Research and Development Established LLNL Center for Computational Engineering –Interfaces of Simulation, IT, and INFOSEC for LLNL Engineering –Substantial university and government outreach component Currently providing technology management expertise for the NSF NEES MRE –Primary focus has been on the NEESgrid project (SI award) –This project lies at interface of infrastructure and cyberinfrastructure realms, a.k.a. where I’ve spent my career

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma Characteristics of Infrastructure Essential –So important that it becomes ubiquitous Reliable –Example: the built environment of the Roman Empire Expensive –Nothing succeeds like excess (e.g., Interstate system) –Inherently one-off (often, few economies of scale) Clear factorization between research and practice –Generally, only deploy what provably works

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma Infrastructure vs. Cyberinfrastructure Characteristics of Infrastructure Culture –Risk averse, which leads to slow technology adoption –Code-based practice to defend against litigation –Follow community wants/needs whenever possible –Goal is highest reliability, e.g., MTBF Characteristics of Cyberinfrastructure Culture –High-risk, “innovate or die” approach to technology –Best-practices approach leaves legal issues dangling –Develop technology, then look for a market –Goal is highest performance, e.g., TFLOPS Two communities with nothing in common!

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma So Exactly What is NEES? NEES = Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation –NEES is a distributed array of experimental sites, grid-based data repositories, tool archives, and computational resources NEES has four components: –The consortium, which has run NEES since late 2004 –The consortium development effort, which built the consortium –The experimental sites, which provide data and content –The systems integration (SI) effort, termed NEESgrid IT drivers include telepresence, curated repositories, scalable HPC, experimental-numerical coupling, QoS… NEES is the first-ever Engineering MRE at NSF, and its full title is the “George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation”

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma NEES: Experiments and Numerics Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Goal: create collaborative network of experimental sites at fifteen U.S. universities

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma NEES: UC Davis Soil Centrifuge

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma Oregon State Tsunami Facility

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma What About Numeric Simulation? GC Example: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge –Horrendous nonlinearities and ill-conditioning –Foundation is saturated (fully-coupled multiphysics) –Complexity from juxtaposition of forms (unstructured)

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma A Closer Look at the Bay Bridge Superstructure: Ill-conditioned numerics Material nonlinearities Geometric nonlinearities Substructure: All the problems of the superstructure AND of the foundation Foundation: Material nonlinearities Coupled fluid-solid multiphysics Impossible numerics Free-Field Response: Simulation has spatial limits, but the physical problem doesn’t. Validation and Verification: Don’t even ask!

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma Analysis of Site, Dam, and Reservoir Interoperability: NIKE3D/DYNA3D data

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma Morrow Point Finite-Element Mesh Analyze foundation, dam, and fluid in lake

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma The Promise of Cyberinfrastructure NEESgrid Example: the Terascale Framework –New client-server engineering portal for grid computing –Scalable framework for finite-element HPC –Developed by Lee Taylor (SNL ASCI flagship SIERRA framework lead) –Funded by LLNL CCE, SNL, and NSF ITR in support of NEES MRE

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma The Perils of Cyberinfrastructure

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma NEESgrid Architecture Problem Diverse user communities & applications –10s of experiment sites, 100s of user sites, 1000s of users (or more, eventually) –Access to data, simulation, collaboration, etc. Demanding performance requirements –Response time, data volumes, security, scale Impractical to meet these requirements with non-engineered stove-pipe solutions

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma What Went Wrong with NEESgrid Designed from bottom-up with virtually no requirements gained from users –Technology-push almost never works! –Grid developers (Globus) had no idea how to deliver production software component Useful software promised always, delivered almost never, users got fed up with the wait –Does this sound familiar (Multics)?

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma How We Develop Infrastructure Multi-tiered structure for R&D –NSF: basic engineering research –TRB: development and reduction-to-practice –FHWA, AASHTO, and DOTs: deployment of innovations that are successful and feasible Clear lines of demarcation exist –Don’t do research on production facilities –Use funds from production to support R&D When in doubt, overbuild!

FearsLab Donald G. Fears Structures Laboratory University of Oklahoma Summary Design and deployment of infrastructure is motivated by the goal of production capability with low risk and high reliability Design and deployment of cyber- infrastructure is motivated by the goal of performance and technological innovation The NEES MRE lies at the oft-problematic interface of these two communities