Connecting Live in Austin with One of the Mosts Powerful Networks in the World

The SCinet network, SC’s Supercomputing Internet, is now live! On November 14, the Austin Convention Center became home to the fastest and most innovative computer network in the world built by volunteers, delivering more than 1.6 terabits per second of network bandwidth to the SC conference (SC15).

SCinet gives the SC conference attendees a unique chance to showcase and discover the latest research in HPC. By building the fastest, most innovative operational network possible every year, SCinet enables data-intensive research and live-use of high performing hardware to run multi-gigabit demonstrations, requiring a fast and robust infrastructure.

SC15 SCinet Contributors (click to enlarge).

“This network is unrivaled with regards to its capabilities and the broad-reaching influence, both nationally and internationally, to support demonstrations and experiments that could not be done easily in any other place. It’s a one-of-a-kind environment where research meets production,” says Davey Wheeler, SCinet Chair and Senior Network Engineer from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). “As the SCinet Chair leading the development of this network, this year is a culmination of 17 years of experience working on SCinet from year to year. It is humbling and honoring to be able to work aside these colleagues and see the tremendous talent, dedication, and creativity of the volunteers.”

SCinet is built by a team of expert volunteers from around the world, taking one year to design the network, three weeks to set it up, four days to operate it, and twenty-four hours to tear it down. Over 100 engineers from industry, academia and government institutions came together to build this network, using over $22 million in loaned equipment and over 89 miles of newly installed fiber optic cables.

“Having been the SCinet Chair for SC07 in Reno, I am intimately familiar with the incredible amount of planning and work that goes into creating what will be the most powerful network. Over 130 SCinet volunteers from more than 15 countries have worked energetically for the past year to provide wired and wireless access to our conference attendees, and the platform for our exhibitors to showcase bandwidth-driven HPC and cloud computing applications. SCinet continues to be a crucial part of SC and I am extremely grateful for their hard work,” says Jackie Kern, Director of IT Shared Services at UIUC and SC15 Conference Chair.

For SC15, SCinet has connected multiple 100 gigabit circuits, bringing an unprecedented 1.62 terabits per second of bandwidth to the Austin Convention Center. Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN) leads this effort in collaboration with leading national and international research networks and commodity providers. LEARN and SCinet supports the HPC community by providing multiple 100 gigabit waves and complementary capabilities throughout the SC15 conference events. 

In addition to the massive external capacity SCinet brings to the convention center, the network is also supporting research initiatives through a half-day workshop, Innovating the Network for Data-Intensive Science (INDIS); and the Network Research Exhibition (NRE). SCinet organizes the INDIS workshop to discuss technical papers and show floor demonstrations dedicated to high performance networking technologies, innovations, protocols, hardware, and much more.

Further, SCinet is providing the wireless connectivity for more than 11,000 expected conference attendees throughout the conference areas. The SCinet team built the SC15 wireless network using 339 wireless access points to support more than 4,000 simultaneous users on the conference wifi. The wireless network will include support for eduroam (education roaming) service, which allows users (researchers, teachers, students, and staff) from participating institutions to securely access the protected wireless network using their home organization’s login credentials.

SCinet is the result of the hard work and significant contributions of many government, research, education and corporate collaborators who have volunteered time, equipment and expertise to ensure SC15’s success. This year, SCinet continued the Contributors Program and we would like to give a special thank you to all SCinet contributors and volunteers!

Platinum contributors: CenturyLink, Ciena, ESnet, Infinera, Internet2, Juniper Networks, and Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN).

Gold contributors: Brocade, Cisco, and Gigamon.

Silver contributors: Alcatel-Lucent, Arista, Austin Convention Center, Dell, Greater Austin Area Telecommunications Network (GAATN), inMon, IXIA, Reservoir Labs, Spirent, and The University of Texas System.

Bronze contributors: CABLExpress, Commscope, Splunk, Verisign, and Viavi Solutions.

Volunteers from the following organizations supporting the development and deployment of SCinet: Alcatel-Lucent, Army Research Laboratory, CABLExpress Corporation, CENIC, CenturyLink, Ciena, Cisco, Clemson University, DFN-Verein, DataDirect Networks, Dell Research, Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), Florida LambdaRail (FLR), Freelance, Georgia Institute of Technology, Idaho State University, InMon Corporation, Indiana University, Indiana University GlobalNOC, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Infinera, Internet Consulting of Vermont, Internet2, JDSU, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN), Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI), Louisiana State University, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, REANNZ, Radware, Reservoir Labs, SURFnet, Sandia National Laboratories, The University of Texas at Austin, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, University of Amsterdam, University of California, San Diego, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Heidelberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of Oklahoma, University of Pittsburgh, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, University of Texas, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Utah Education Network, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

If you’re interested in volunteering for SCinet or participating in the Contributor’s Program for SC16, please email scinet@info.supercomputing.org.

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern Previews the Conference and Exhibition

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern

Following is a brief conversation with Jackie Kern, SC15 General Chair from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Since 2003, she has served as  a member of the SC planning committee and in 2007 she also served as SCinet Chair.  

At the University of Illinois, she is the Director of IT Shared Services where she represents her department on various campus IT initiatives and committees including leading the community in a consolidation of service effort and being the operations chair of the Data Center Shared Services co-location efforts on campus.   

In these efforts she oversees the development of standards, procedures and policies related to data centers, identifies IT resources needed for current and future projects, and markets the services to campus. 
  

Describe how the “HPC Transforms” conference theme came to be this year?
Over the last three decades, HPC has become increasingly important in manufacturing, weather forecasting, medicine, entertainment and many other facets of everyday life. You would be hard pressed to experience a “normal” day for the average citizen without encountering something that wasn’t impacted by HPC. 

Starting last year, the SC conference team launched a program called “HPC Matters” to highlight this impact. The program supports the creation of short videos that explore the use of HPC in improving daily life.

These videos are available at the SC15 video library. The program also supports public talks by industry luminaries, such as the SC HPC Matters Plenary.

For this year, we wanted to dive deeper into why it is important, and to do that we wanted to demonstrate how it transforms lives and the world around us.  We have put together these videos that demonstrate why it matters and how it transforms lives.

SC15 is returning to Austin, Texas for the first time since 2008 – what is it about Austin that makes it a good fit for the SC community?
Austin is fantastic because of the technology-centric community as well as the culture, food, people and music.  We feel this is a really good fit for our attendees and exhibitors. It gives them the right balance of fun and technical aptitude to spark the creativity, and offers a wide variety of opportunities to network and collaborate. And the city itself is also very warm and welcoming to our group.

The SC15 Mobile App.

For someone new to the community, what tips can you offer for tackling the immense Tech Program and the massive exhibition hall?
Plan ahead!  Quite frankly there is too much to see and do at an SC conference so you need to budget your time based on your areas of interests and priorities.  Your best bet is to get plugged into everything now – the website, blog, schedule, conference app, etc.

Start with the conference schedule on the website and go from there. Put a priority on not only learning, but also networking.  Some of the people you meet at an SC conference will impact your career for years to come.  The more people you meet the more opportunities you have to collaborate and get involved.  If you are new, go to one of the Information Booths – they are staffed by veteran attendees who are there to help you.

Also, you will want to download our enhanced mobile app and started getting organized for a very packed week in Austin.

This year's Exhibition is sold out and is expected to draw big crowds.

What are some of the top things you are looking forward to experiencing/attending at SC15? 
Very difficult question since there are so many great things to experience or participate in at an SC conference!  Some of the things that I’m looking forward to are the rich and dynamic Invited Talks, the HPC Matters Plenary with Intel’s Diane Bryant, and the Alan Alda Keynote. In addition we have an international Student Cluster Competition that is sure to be exciting.

Plus the show floor has more than 300 cutting-edge exhibitors and I love checking in with SCinet – the world’s fastest, custom-built computer network.  Then there is the incredibly robust Technical Program. Quite honestly, there is too much to list here.

SC student volunteers with Jeanine Cook, SC15 Student Programs Chair.

The student program went thru some modifications this year.  Can you explain what those were and how the changes have been received?
This year we merged every student program under one umbrella called Students@SC. This is an effort to make sure that we are encouraging the next generation of HPC professionals to be engaged in the community. It provides more opportunities for all the students that apply to be a part of SC. We encourage them to participate in many of the events, such as the Mentor-Protégé Program and Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates. 

We have arranged to bring in key people from across the community to speak about their experiences and encouraged the use of the community to continue to move HPC forward into a new and exciting era.  We are also focusing on diversity and making certain that all students are treated equal and offered the same opportunities for success. 

True success won’t be measured until after the conference once we see how it goes, but we are encouraged by those students who have applied to the program and their engagement thus far.  We are also working with an evaluation team to measure our success and will have those data points after SC15 is over.

Anything else knew this year that people should know about?
This year we have added an all-day track for Birds-of-a-Feather sessions.  There is so much demand for them and with the high volume of submissions, we are excited to introduce this all-day track.  Other exciting things are a much more robust mobile app and networking opportunities like the addition of Duckling – a new networking tool for conference attendees.

Intel's Diane Bryant - HPC Matters Plenary Speaker

What can people expect this year from the HPC Matters Plenary?
It will be amazing.  This year will feature Diane Bryant of Intel who was recently named by Fortune as one of the 51 most powerful women.   She will describe how next generation supercomputers are not only transforming HPC and the future of computing, but also society.  Plus, there is no fee to attend the session although a badge is required.  It is shaping up to be an entertaining session that is a must attend event for everyone - from novice to expert.

Describe the process and time involved for putting on such a big event.
Planning a conference of this quality and magnitude couldn't happen without a fantastic team behind me. Three years ago I was selected to be the SC15 General Chair and at that time I made a conscious choice to select the best of breed to make sure this event was spectacular.

Over the course of the last three years we have spent many phone calls, face-to-face meetings, site visits, and countless hours working towards providing the best possible experience for our attendees. One group in particular spends a considerable amount of time working towards providing the best and fastest computer network in the world for one week in November.

The SCinet team spends an enormous amount of volunteer time designing the custom network, gathering equipment donations from vendors, connecting equipment, working with providers to get connected to the right networks, and then sustaining the network for everyone at the conference.

In addition, our Technical Program team has worked diligently to evaluate the submissions and create a program that is second to none.  Truly it has been the most exciting, challenging, and rewarding three-year project of my career. I am honored to be a part of it.

What advice would you give someone looking to get involved in the SC volunteer community?
The SC community is always looking for dedicated volunteers. The best way to get involved is to come to one of the Information Booths at SC15.  We strive to have new faces as volunteers who are able to provide new perspectives and ideas to keep SC fresh and diverse. 

What needs to happen for you to judge SC15 as a successful event?
To me, the most important thing would be walking around the Austin Convention Center and witnessing the engagement in the collaboration that we expect to see at an SC Conference.  I hope attendees leave feeling that there is simply nowhere else on the planet that offers as much education, collaboration and networking as an SC Conference.  After all, we are attendees ourselves and that remains the ultimate goal!

SC15 Invited Talk Spotlight: Reproducibility in High Performance Computing

The number of lines of code published in ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, 1960–2012, on a log scale. The proportion of articles that published code remained roughly constant at about a third, with standard error of about 0.12, and the journal consistently published around thirty-five articles each year. Source: click here and click here.

Ensuring reliability and reproducibility in computational research raises unique challenges in the

supercomputing context. Specialized architectures, extensive and customized software, and complex workflows all raise barriers to transparency, while established concepts such as Validation, Verification, and Uncertainty Quantification point ways forward.

Invited speaker Victoria Stodden co-edited this book.

The topic has attracted national attention: President Obama's July 29, 2015 Executive Order "Creating a National Strategic Computing Initiative" includes accessibility and workflow capture as objectives; an XSEDE14 workshop released a report "Standing Together for Reproducibility in Large-Scale Computing"; on May 5, 2015 ACM Transactions in Mathematical Software released a "Replicated Computational Results Initiative"; and this conference is host to a new workshop "Numerical Reproducibility at Exascale", to name but a few examples. In this context I will outline a research agenda to establish reproducibility and reliability as a cornerstone of scientific computing.



Speaker Background:

Dr. Victoria Stodden

Dr. Victoria Stodden is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with a faculty appointment at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. She completed both her PhD in statistics and her law degree at Stanford University.

Her research centers on the multifaceted problem of enabling reproducibility in computational science. This includes studying adequacy and robustness in replicated results, designing and implementing validation systems, developing standards of openness for data and code sharing, and resolving legal and policy barriers to disseminating reproducible research.

She is the co-chair the Advisory Committee for the National Science Foundation's Division of Advanced CyberInfrastructure, and is a member of the NSF CISE directorate's Advisory Committee.


  

Brief Q&A with SC15 SCinet Chair David Wheeler

The following is a brief Q&A with David Wheeler, SC15 SCinet Chair from the National Center for

David Wheeler, SC15 SCinet Chair

Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois where he serves as a Senior Network Engineer.

Describe your day job:
One of the responsibilities of our team is to architect the HPC system networking.  We evaluate current and future capabilities to ensure high-performing network performance for our HPC environment.  We also collaborate with the University of Illinois to support our local researchers and serve as members of the ICCN (Inter Campus Communications Network), which provides network services around the state of Illinois for the three main University of Illinois campuses.

How/why did you become involved in SC?
I started working for NCSA in 1998 and part of my hiring package was to participate in building SCinet for SC98 in Orlando.  Little did I know what that would fully entail, but with that opportunity, I was exposed to the extent of work required to bring the network together.  My first job that year was to help lay the fiber in the exhibition hall, which catered to my detailed experimentalist nature.  In following years, I’ve also lead the SCinet Wireless Team, IT Team, and eventually the SCinet management team.

What makes SCinet unique or special?
SCinet is the fastest network in the world created by volunteers. We build it to be the fastest network in order to support all the demos, applications, and cutting-edge technology that is displayed every year during SC.  Additionally, the “fastest” network speed grows rapidly from year to year. In 2013, SCinet brought in 885 Gigabits per second of bandwidth for SC13, and in 2014, SCinet brought in 1.3 Terabits per seconds for SC14. (That’s 1.3 trillion bits of data per second—more than 100,000 times faster than an average home network speed.)

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, SCinet is also a research and education network, or R&E network. This means that in designing and deploying this network and technology, our highest priority is serving our community needs (HPC and SC’s needs). It is a mission-driven network supported purely by volunteer efforts and contributions. It is more than a “customer-client service” relationship, it’s about what can we do to push the limits. How can we build and supply the network for our community? How can we be innovative in providing a high-performance network?

SCinet is also a unique forum where volunteers come from industry, academia, and government share practices and expertise as well as try out the latest research and technologies.

What are the biggest challenges facing SCinet this year?
Building SCinet is an amazing opportunity for the SCinet team but does provide its challenges—there’s no manual for this kind of work. However that is also part of the fun. SCinet is able to test and operate the newest technologies that a lot of the enterprise networks will not see for years.

SCinet is always pushing the limits of network innovation and operations. This year SCinet is provisioning production Software-Defined Networking (SDN) circuits to the exhibit floor booths, providing smarter, dynamically manageable connections. We are very excited to see the turn out for this project.

Describe the planning required to pull off SCinet:
SCinet has an amazing amount of dedicated volunteers and vendors every year who work very hard to make SCinet come to life for the SC conference. We have more than 15 teams that comprise all of SCinet and more than 10 operational teams focusing on all aspects of setting up a network from power to cybersecurity to laying the fiber cables.

It takes a full year to plan SCinet, one week to set it up, one week to operate it, and 24-hours to tear it down. The planning starts in force for the next year the same day as tear down for the previous year. In addition to the exploratory planning that started two years before SC15, we started aggressively planning for SC15 on November 21, 2014—the very last day of SC14.

Describe the technical hardware involved (type/length of cable, computing power, etc):
SCinet will install 80-90 miles of fiber within the Austin Convention Center.  With SCinet supporting more than 10,000 attendees and 330 booths, we expect to need 15 tons of cooling and around 30KW of power at 480V.  We will again supply more than 1 Terabit of bandwidth, donated from vendors and neighboring research and education networks. 

How many volunteers and hours go into SCinet?
SCinet has more than 120 volunteers from academia, government, and industry from over 50 different countries from year to year. Counting the hours is much more difficult though. SCinet’s volunteers are driven and dedicated. Often times we will pull many late nights and do whatever we can to make sure things get done in support of the exhibitors, demos, and attendees and I can’t really put an hour amount on this effort—just a huge amount of gratitude for everyone’s hard work.

How does someone get involved in SCinet for future conferences?
We are always looking for new volunteers. We have information about joining SCinet on the SC15 website. But mainly sending an email with a statement of interest is what it comes down to.

Most of the volunteers are supported by their various organizations that contribute volunteer hours and/or equipment for SCinet. We are greatly appreciative of this and try to widely recognize our community and vendors for contributions through the SCinet Contributor program.

How do you balance heading up this impressive task with your day job and personal life?
That is truly a challenge in taking on this opportunity. I am always thankful for the family I’m blessed with and keep them as a priority.  Additionally I strive to be a model for my children and teach them that hard work is rewarding. Being a volunteer on SCinet and chairing the design of this network is certainly challenging. It is also motivating to see where efforts in my day job overlap and are enhanced by my involvement in SC and SCinet—I would not be able to serve in this role if I didn’t have such great institutional support.

I also have to thank the previous SCinet chairs, including Bill Kramer, for their guidance. One main takeaway was to get at least one thing done for SCinet every day.

I’ve been encircled by many wonderful colleagues and friends who are striving to see SCinet succeed in providing the most capable network set up in a short amount of time.

In order to say that you had a successful SC15, what do you need to happen?
SCinet really relies on its volunteers and vendor contributors to make everything happen and to have a successful year. We would not be able to do the amazing amount of work in deploying this network without everyone’s efforts and contributions. If we continue to have the momentum that we have every year, this will be a successful show and we will continue to push the boundaries and expectations for high-performance networking as always.

Way Back Wednesday! Welcome back to Reno’s SC07

A seldom-seen photo during the blackout inside the Reno convention center at the Student Cluster Competition area.

SCinet’s Year of Epic Power Outages and Road Construction

SCinet, the world’s fastest network built each year for the SC conference by SC volunteers, has a heritage of  heroic stories about installing, bringing up, operating and managing networks and systems. Since its inception at SC91, SCinet continuously drives network resources as a platform for high performance computing, storage and analysis, the hallmark of the SC conference.  Even in 2007, this story was no different when SC went to Reno, Nevada.

At SC07, SCinet Chair Jackie Kern (SC15’s Conference Chair) led a team of more than 100 volunteers through unexpected power outages and last-minute road de-construction to bring in a whopping 200Gbps of bandwidth (cutting-edge at the time!).

With less than a month before the conference, the well-known “last mile” of fiber-optic infrastructure was needed to reach the convention center and support the network to the show floor.

Jackie Kern, SC07 SCinet Chair

“There was no other way to bring this kind of network connectivity into the convention center, so a trencher was needed to complete some last-minute road work—literally cutting the roadway outside the convention center to lay fiber into the facility,” explained Kern. This was patched with asphalt and served as a reminder that nothing stands in the way of SC’s SCinet network, which today is still a lasting connection into the Reno-Sparks Convention Center.

In addition to SCinet’s dedication to bringing in the technology to make demos and applications at SC possible, during the SC07 Exhibit show Kern said “a moment of complete silence occurred when all electronic devices suddenly came to a halt.” All was quiet as the convention center experienced three “power bumps,” overrunning all the circuits to the convention center with excessive electric currents. When power was restored moments later, hundreds of devices attempted to come back online, once again overriding the facility’s power infrastructure. With coordinated and staged power up, the SCinet team worked relentlessly to restore service to all exhibitors ASAP. The restoration of the SCinet network was tedious, but all services were returned to normal operations within a few hours.

The SCinet team is always on their toes, ready to respond to a variety of inevitable and unforeseeable hiccups. That said, all volunteers would agree these amazing, priceless experiences contribute to learning opportunities available only by building the fastest network in the world that is planned for one year, set up in one month, operated for one week, and torn down in 24 hours!

HPC Matters, because HPC Transforms - SC15 General Chair, Jackie Kern

Jackie Kern

From Jackie Kern:

Like many of you, HPC is more than just a vocation for me — there are many ways that I could make a living, but I choose to stay in HPC because only HPC allows me the chance to enable breakthroughs in such a broad range of fields. From new medicines to safer cars and clean water, HPC is making a difference every day.

Beginning in SC14 under the leadership of General Chair Trish Damkroger, the SC community began a multi-year effort to share the passion we feel for HPC with those outside the science and technical community. It is an effort to demonstrate the impact our community has on the world.

SC15 continues to focus on telling that story through our HPC Matters campaign. Throughout the year you’ll see new videos, inspiring stories, and links to examples of how HPC matters. As General Chair, I’m using this year to amplify that message with a discussion sparked by my own tagline, “HPC Transforms.” This emphasis supports the HPC Matters effort, but demonstrates specifically how HPC transforms ideas, products and people. 

As we are kicking preparations into high gear for this November, I wanted to take a minute to share the vision and goals we have set for this year’s conference:

SC15 Vision:
Provide the attendees the best possible experience from the best tech program and exhibits but also the most productive networking opportunities.  Create an environment where attendees can gain a renewed vigor for the industry and hopefully build the relationships they need to take science and computing to the next level. 

SC15 Goals:

• Engage the under-represented communities so that they become an integral part of the community of HPC. 
• Encourage young people to focus in STEM fields so that we can continue the trend of advancing science. 
• Provide a quality technical program that engages the community in new ways. 
• Enhance the user experience by offering them a way to easily find and get to what they need. This will be done through various methods of communicating and sharing information. 
• Bring awareness of the value of this field to the general population, as well as funding sources to continue investing in advancement. 

In her day job, Jackie Kern is the Director of Information Technology at Facilities and Services at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She manages a team that provides application development, infrastructure, web services, and user support for her department of more than 1,200 employees.

HPCwire Posts Interview with SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern

SC15 Chair on HPC Transforms, Diversity Outreach, and Austin

Jackie Kern

By John Russell

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern is hardly new to the HPC community. A member of the SC planning committee since 2003, Kern led the building of SCINET in 2007. The largest network in the world for a week, it delivered multicast video conferencing, among other things, onsite and around the world. As general chair this year, Kern is overseeing a broad agenda – themed HPC Transforms – and hoping to attract roughly 11,000 attendees, somewhat more than last year.

Click here to go the HPCwire website and continue reading the article.

SC15 Chair Jackie Kern Explains How HPC is Transforming the World

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern from the University of Illinois explains the vision behind this year's theme "HPC Transforms" and provides numerous examples of how HPC is transforming the world.