DisCom2

Milestone Satisfaction 
•	Hit Level I milestone
•	Note that they missed the deadline to get to LANL (by two weeks) due to factors beyond their control
•	Given the state of the art two years ago, we are very impressed with this extraordinary achievement
•	DisCom2 team has responded to the previous recommendations from the past review in an exemplary way 
•	Told them to collaborate with the community (model after NASA) and they did so
•	Leveraging the broader …
•	“Did very good work with little resources” (Ian Foster) (25 –30 staff ears of effort)
•	Building the infrastructure between LLNL and Sandia is a heroic activity.  Goal to achieve local performance remotely was achieved
•	Work is innovative – DRM combines innovation and understanding of the best technologies

•	Orderly plans for making the capabilities available (next section?)
•	Built good coordinated support structure 
•	Including Capability Release, TriLab coordination, User web pages
•	Usage Model is a plus
•	Some concerns that it is computer-centered and batch-oriented (this is a last generation Usage Model, not next generation)
•	Recommend that they factor input from more interactive users into the Model in future
•	Suggest that the Model be revisited as the system evolves and new capabilities become available
•	Provide leadership and show new ways to use the capabilities to the users
•	Use the User Model process to introduce the users to the new technologies

•	Approach to the milestone was well structured – presentations were effective.  The context was set and the delta was defined.  Structuring and organizing of the presentations was excellent reflecting well on DisCom2 management

Milepost: Piece by Piece
•	Four components across Usage Model and technologies:
•	Gather information
•	Web pages – Not technically challenging but important.  Need for project to continue
•	Data migration and storage
•	Network infrastructure – Important
•	Is there a more fundamental methodology for determining requirements?  (Methodology used was not bad)
•	Good strategy for striping (first to deploy at scale?) – constraints make engineering complicated. 
•	Only alternative to more than OC-12 right now (pushing the limit)
•	Looks more complicated than it is (extending HPSS complexity into the network)

•	Storage
•	Parallel ftp model not the most advanced (not considering global file system)
•	File transfer requirements met
•	Familiar interface with good performance
•	Running applications
•	DRM and Globus
•	Having a user interface that is usable – commend for an excellent job
•	What is in the user interface? (future section and milestone)
•	Pat on the back for putting Kerberos into Globus
•	Look forward to feedback from a broad user community in the future
•	TriLab coordination 
•	Pat on the back for excellent coordination 
•	Weekly prioritization of workflow
•	Coordination of support across labs
•	Capability Release Process
•	Good to have a process, review every six months is the right frequency
•	Are the users involved sufficiently? Should the feedback cycle go back to the users?
•	Users need to be involved (and encouraged to be involved) in the loop

Next Generation Milestones
•	Plan for future milestones (Distance computing on 30T in FY02, NWC-wide in FY03, DC on 100T in 04)
•	Seem to be on track and commend them
•	Suggest that DisCom2 set up joint milestone with PSE to make tools available
•	Suggest joint milestone(s) with VIEWS and Apps
•	Suggest milestone for Cplant
•	Recommend outreach to users to include tutorials, materials and effective training and support
•	Recommend that DisCom2 continue to aggressively pursue OC-192 in the Q machine timeframe and refocus on IP encryption in the long term
•	Be poised to take advantage of faster technology as it becomes available

Project Definition and Project Interaction
•	Both PSE and DisCom2 would benefit from working within the context of a comprehensive architectural vision for ASCI in general and comprehensive plan for usability
•	Suggest increased participation and more involvement in Grid Forum 
•	This is a major effort in grid activities and labs should be more external-looking
•	Need a technical user vision for the DRM and DFS/DCE interfaces (more usable, higher level interfaces)
•	Stuck in the “improving the old way of doing business” model and need to emphasize improving capabilities and ease of use

Other Points
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PSE

Milestone Satisfaction
•	Hit the milepost - passed all aspects 
•	The bar was set low and the investments tended to be modest 
•	Given the number of people dedicated to code debugging and tuning demonstration, much was accomplished
•	Good leverage of PathForward investments to capitalize on PSE technologies
•	Analysis tools and performance enhancement tools are conspicuously absent
•	Only funding for HPSS appears to be sufficient – funding could be reprioritized and result in substantially more value to other aspects (such as tools)

•	Would have helped committee if presentations had included a section specifically addressing the milepost

Milepost: Piece by Piece
•	Functionality
•	Code capability demonstrations (compilers work, link and load, run-time system operational) – Satisfactory
•	Find something positive to say
•	Satisfied demonstration as proposed - milestone would have been more meaningful if there had been performance measurement (scaling curves but no performance curves)

•	I/O system capability demonstration – Satisfactory
•	Supported Sierra code build using DCE/DFS
•	Designing a “speedometer” is non-trivial and useful for the community
•	Engineering standards for HPSS standards are much higher (true production standard)

•	Code debugging and tuning – Satisfactory (as far as they went but need follow-up) 
•	Debugging is a good job - TotalView is running
•	Tuning has nice research and work on HW counters but tools are not there yet
•	Lack of tools to measure efficiency conspicuous by their absence
•	What percentage of the 12T actually ran?
•	Will address inadequacies of milestone in a later section

•	Scale (Were codes selected truly representative of entire user base?)
•	Code capability demonstration – Satisfactory (Jobs ran at scale)
•	Find something positive 
•	Work remains on scalability
•	Little data presented
•	Did not describe effort required 
•	Milestone would have been more meaningful if there had been performance measurement
•	I/O system capability demonstration – Satisfactory
•	Impressive improvement in GPFS and MPI-IO performance
•	GPFS was significant fraction of investment - and it showed
•	HPSS is the largest investment and is providing valuable return
•	How much disk I/O bandwidth is needed and are the sites on track?
•	Code debugging and tuning – Satisfactory
•	Impressive to see TotalView running on 1536 processors
•	Tests for OpenMP at scale (Sphinx) went beyond the milestone
•	Commend PSE for hunting down and resolving problems
•	Some problems with execution (test left some things open) – Jim Browne was looking through presentation materials 
•	Presentations did not clearly address some parts of the milestone (tended to discuss side issues)

Next Generation Milestones
•	Focus on milestones that integrate capabilities with DisCom2, VIEWS, and joint Apps/PSE tasks such as frameworks and solvers
•	Consider a milestone for development of a comprehensive usability model for ASCI systems
•	What is the right set of tools?
•	Application dependent
•	Joint milestone with Apps teams?
•	PathForward Toolkit?
•	Continuous evolution of vendors, architecture models, etc means that planning is needed for evolving tools
•	Open source tools when possible
•	Insufficient effort and funding to take concepts in programs such as ZeroFault and implement
•	Consider a milestone for development of metrics for effectiveness of impact of PSE efforts
•	Consider milestones for increasing the effectiveness of use of modern multiprocessors
•	Efficiency
•	Tuning tools are conspicuous by their absence
•	Get more from microprocessor versus using more microprocessors

•	Codes fully representative of all ASCI codes?
•	Java?
•	Need to be able to explain in future if codes are/are not representative
•	Need more quantitative measures for debugging and tuning in the future
•	Joint performance-centric milestones for PSE and Apps in future are recommended
•	Outreach to users

Project Definition and Project Interaction
•	Both PSE and DisCom2 would benefit from working within the context of a comprehensive architectural vision for ASCI in general and comprehensive plan for usability
•	PSE does not have an obvious PSE vision

Other Points
•	Consider redefining the responsibilities for PSE
•	1/3 of the funding is being spent on tools
•	PSE personnel should work with external projects
•	Continue and expand with Ptools
•	Work with DOE/SC, ETCs, and the broader tools community