# Presentation: 922439

## STAR Off-line Computing Capabilitiesat LBNL/NERSC

- Doug Olson, LBNL
- STAR Collaboration Meeting
- 2 August 1999, BNL

## Outline

- Background of PDSF for STAR_[(http://](http://pdsf.nersc.gov/)__[pdsf](http://pdsf.nersc.gov/)__[.](http://pdsf.nersc.gov/)__[nersc](http://pdsf.nersc.gov/)__[.](http://pdsf.nersc.gov/)__[gov](http://pdsf.nersc.gov/)__[/)](http://pdsf.nersc.gov/)_
- NERSC
- PDSF history
- Present configuration of STAR cluster
- Primary activities at PDSF/NERSC

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## RHIC Computing Model

- Offline Computing at RHIC, Kumar et al. (ROCC), Feb. 1996

- Conceived
- late 1995

**BNL onsite**
- - main data center
- - 50% CPU
**Remote**
- - modest data
- - 50% CPU
- - leverage additional facilities

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## Implementation of RHIC Computing ModelIncorporation of Offsite Facilities

- T3E

- HPSS Tape store

- SP2

- Many universities, etc.

- Berkeley

- Japan

- MIT

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## NERSC

- One of the nations most powerful unclassified computing resources.
- NERSC is funded by the Department of Energy, Office of Science, and is part of Computing Sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
- Production facilities
- 1 Teraflop (late 1999), 3 Teraflops (late 2000)  (Cray & IBM)
- 600 Terabytes robotic tape storage (HPSS)
- Parallel Distributed Systems Facility (PDSF) linux farm (more later...)
- Large R&D program
- Adjacent to ESnet headquarters

- www.nersc.gov

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## Esnet Backbone, Late 1999

- http://www.es.net/pub/maps/ESnetBackboneMap18Jun99.jpg

- LBNL - ESNet: 612MbpsBNL - ESNet: 45Mbps (current,  does 0.6 MB/sec LBL/NERSC<->RCF)BNL - ESNet: 145Mbps (late 1999, sufficient for planned activities)

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## NERSC PDSF - Mar. 1999

- SunUltra 60

- 400 GB

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## Overview of PDSF for STAR

- Developed in response to RHIC computing plan
- Simulations and analysis capability for STAR
- at LBNL under control of STAR collaboration
- processor farm and disk space coupled to NERSC mass storage
- ESnet interface to RCF
- Goal of PDSF for STAR
- Provide scaleable system for simulations and downstream analysis for the STAR collaboration
- Long term: ~= STAR share of RCF cpu		~ 6K SPECint95, 40 TB/year robotic tape, 15 TB disk
- Buildup now funded by LBNL Nuclear Science Division and NERSC
- Expect DOE funding beginning in FY00

- via NERSC allocation

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## History of PDSF hardware

- Arrived from SSC (RIP), May 1997
- October ‘97
- 32 SUN Sparc 10, 32 HP 735
- 2 SGI data vaults
- January 1998
- added 12 single-cpu Intel (LBNL/E895)
- June 1998
- added SUN E450, 8 dual-cpu Intel (LBNL/STAR)
- October 1998
- added 16 single-cpu Intel (NERSC)
- added 500 GB network disk (NERSC)
- subtracted SUN, HP
- subtracted 160 GB SGI data vaults

- January 1999
- added 12 single-cpu Intel (NERSC)
- added 200 GB disk (LBNL/STAR)
- July 1999
- added 900 GB disk (LBNL/STAR)
- September 1999
- adding 18 dual-cpu Intel (LBNL/STAR)
- adding 1 TB network RAID disk (LBNL/STAR)
**Totals (Sept. 1999)**
**1.2 TB disk on SUN E450**
**1.5 TB network disk**
**1500 SPECint95**
**archival storage ****(via NERSC allocation of 600TB system)**

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## Comparison of RCF to PDSF(Oct. 1999)

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## PDSF Software

- STAR off-line environment
- Linux, Solaris/Sparc
- Packages
- AFS, CERNlib, DPSS, EGCS, Framereader, GNU, HPSS, itcl, Java, kai, LSF, Objectivity, Orbacus, Orbix, PSDF Login, Perl, pgi, pvm, Root, SSH, SUN Workshop, TCL, TK
- >250 software modules for Solaris/Sparc

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## Current PDSF staff

- 2.5 FTE NERSC + 0.5 FTE NSD
- Craig Tull - group leader
- Thomas Davis (1) - PDSF project lead
- Cary Whitney (1), John Milford (1/2)
- Dieter Best (1/4 NSD), Qun Li (1/4 NSD)

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## Supercomputer time for Gstar production

- FY99
- Used 250K hours of Cray T3E at PSC + NERSC
- Amortized over 4 months: ~ 1000 SPECint95
- FY2000
- Have requested 300K hours at NERSC on T3E and new IBM SP2 system.

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## STAR Activities at PDSF/NERSC

- Interactive s/w development on PDSF
- Individual data analysis (ROOT, Gstar, ...)
- now: 58 STAR users, 27 from LBL
- Gstar production (T3E, SP2 systems)
- Detector response simulation
- BFC reconstruction of simulated data
- full simulation, and embedding studies
- Mirror subset of real data for analysis

- Planned for FY2000

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999

## Summary

- Simulations/Analysis capability at LBNL for STAR is growing
- Oct. 99: 49% cpu, 85% disk of STAR @ RCF
- Currently 58 STAR users, 31 from outside LBNL
- PDSF receiving strong support
- ($, people) from LBNL Nuclear Science Division and NERSC
- In FY00, focus on:
- Simulation - detector response, reconstruction, embedding
- Analysis of real data
- Learn more about PDSF & become a user!http://pdsf.nersc.gov

- D. Olson, STAR Offline at NERSC

- 2 Aug 1999