Volunteer Computing (VC) is a computing model that uses donated computing cycles on the devices such as laptops, desktops, and tablets to do scientific computing. BOINC is the most popular software framework for VC and it helps in connecting the projects needing computing cycles with the volunteers interested in donating the computing cycles on their resources. It has already enabled projects with high societal impact to harness several PetaFLOPs of donated computing cycles. Given its potential in elastically augmenting the capacity of existing supercomputing resources for running High-Throughput Computing (HTC) jobs, we have extended the BOINC software infrastructure and have made it amenable for integration with the supercomputing and cloud computing environments. We have named the extension of the BOINC software infrastructure as BOINC@TACC, and are using it to route *qualified* HTC jobs from the supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to not only the typically volunteered devices but also to the cloud computing resources such as Jetstream and Chameleon. BOINC@TACC can be extremely useful for those researchers/scholars who are running low on allocations of compute-cycles on the supercomputers, or are interested in reducing the turnaround time of their HTC jobs when the supercomputers are over-subscribed. We have also developed a web-application for TACC users so that, through the convenience of their web-browser, they can submit their HTC jobs for running on the resources volunteered by the community. An overview of the BOINC@TACC project is presented in this paper. The BOINC@TACC software infrastructure is open-source and can be easily adapted for use by other supercomputing centers that are interested in building their volunteer community and connecting them with the researchers needing multi-petascale (and even exascale) computing power for their HTC jobs.
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Software Challenges to Exascale Computing
Supercomputers are used to power discoveries and to reduce the time-to-results in a wide variety of disciplines such as engineering, physical sciences, and healthcare. They are globally considered as vital for staying competitive in defense, the financial sector, several mainstream businesses, and even agriculture. An integral requirement for enabling the usage of the supercomputers, like any other computer, is the availability of the software. Scalable and efficient software is typically required for optimally using the large-scale supercomputing platforms, and thereby, effectively leveraging the investments in the advanced CyberInfrastructure (CI). However, developing and maintaining such software is challenging due to several factors, such as, (1) no well-defined processes or guidelines for writing software that can ensure high-performance on supercomputers, and (2) shortfall of trained workforce having skills in both software engineering and supercomputing. With the rapid advancement in the computer architecture discipline, the complexity of the processors that are used in the supercomputers is also increasing, and, in turn, the task of developing efficient software for supercomputers is further becoming challenging and complex. To mitigate the aforementioned challenges, there is a need for a common platform that brings together different stakeholders from the areas of supercomputing and software engineering. To provide such a platform, the second workshop on Software Challenges to Exascale Computing (SCEC) was organized in Delhi, India, during December 13–14, 2018. The SCEC 2018 workshop informed participants about the challenges in large-scale HPC software development and steered them in the direction of building international collaborations for finding solutions to those challenges. The workshop provided a forum through which hardware vendors and software developers can communicate with each other and influence the architecture of the next-generation supercomputing systems and the supporting software stack. By fostering cross-disciplinary associations, the workshop served as a stepping-stone towards innovations in the future. We are very grateful to the Organizing and Program Committees (listed below), the sponsors (US National Science Foundation, Indian National Supercomputing Mission, Atos, Mellanox, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, San Diego Supercomputing Center, Texas Advanced Computing Center), and the participants for their contributions to making the SCEC 2018 workshop a success.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1849519
- PAR ID:
- 10116991
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Second Workshop, SCEC 2018 Delhi, India, December 13–14, 2018 Proceedings
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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