EGSC HPCC General Information: Purpose and Usage

EGSC HPCC Purpose and Usage

Purpose

The Eastern Geographic Science Center (EGSC) High-Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) is a Beowulf operated to support computationally intensive research and development activities, particularly land-change modeling. The HPCC (Beowulf) is intended primarily as a Bureau resource for USGS projects in computational and quantitative geography, including those interdisciplinary projects with signficant geographic components. The HPCC meets some of the need for general, professionally administered computational systems which has not otherwise been directly addressed since the de-commissioning several years ago of the Data General™ servers and other UNIX®-based systems once operated by the former National Mapping Divison's research branch. The HPCC is operated to encourage the expansion of USGS capabilities in quantitative geography beyond the problems and methods of conventional desktop geographic information systems (GIS). The role of Beowulfs in quantitative and computational geography is explained in more detail in this poster.

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Specifically, EGSC now operates the HPCC to:

Support the development of a Web interface for the SLEUTH (UGM-3) urban-growth model, and the development and application of parallelized calibration of this model for use in Chesapeake Bay restoration;
Provide a UNIX®-like (Linux) computing environment for geographic researchers who do not otherwise have access to UNIX® or UNIX®-like systems;
Provide a high-performance parallel-processing resource for USGS research;
Enable research in parallel computation and algorithms as applied to geographic modeling and analysis; and
Promote interdisciplinary and collaborative projects.

The HPCC provides a controlled and predictable computational environment in which application developers can apply deterministic optimizations. Hence the use of virtual-machine methods (such as PVM) and heuristic load-balancing methods (such as openMOSIX) is not currently planned for the HPCC.

Usage

Please see the Contacts section of this Web site for information about how to nominate an application for operation or development on the HPCC.

For USGS staff: Authorized USGS researchers may access the HPCC (Beowulf) through the secure-shell (SSH) family of client applications (primarily ssh, scp, sftp) from workstations located in the USGS Internet domain (*.usgs.gov) or from workstations connected to the USGS domain through the USGS virtual private network (VPN). (Since the HPCC is housed in a secure computer center, physical access to the HPCC is limited to two or three USGS users and administrators.) VNC access to the HPCC is also available. VNC is similar to the Remote Desktop Client provided by Microsoft™ for Windows™ systems, but VNC is more general — VNC can be used on Windows™, Linux, and even other operating systems. VNC allows any USGS HPCC user to display the graphical desktop of the HPCC master-control node on his or her personal workstation. The use of VNC requires the prior installation and configuration of the VNC client software. The Help pages on this site provide information about obtaining, installing, and configuring secure-shell and VNC client software for access to the HPCC by USGS researchers.

For non-USGS collaborators: A USGS project manager may request that Web access to an application running on the HPCC be granted to selected collaborators from partner agencies and organizations (such as State agencies, other Federal agencies, and universities).

For USGS Application Developers: Since secure-shell access to the HPCC is not available from outside the USGS domain, Web interfaces (which can include both (i) the familiar kind of applications for interactive access through Web browsers and (ii) the newer application-to-application interactions via Web Services) provide the primary form of user access to HPCC applications. A developer of an application intended to run on the HPCC should plan on providing a Web interface if outside collaborators will be involved in developing or using the application.