Based at Argonne, this fast-growing network comprises several dozen institutions. NSF has already conducted one of its program reviews using the AccessGrid. Closer to home, SCD's Don Middleton suggests that the high-speed connection between the Mesa and Foothills Labs be used as a testbed for new collaborative technologies that increased bandwidth on the 'Net might allow in coming years. Frameworks-reusable collections of code are being explored as a way to simplify and speed up the creation of model implementation layers. NCAR is about to submit a three-year proposal to lead the development of an earth system model framework that could be used for multiple models.
Nobody has an easy answer.
It's already a challenge to carry out the community-service aspects of our big models without cutting into research, says Joe. Somehow we need a mechanism to support these models as facility resources. As for the retooling outlined in the HP strategic plan, one estimate is that the software engineering components could require several million dollars over each of five years. Many NCAR and UCAR groups are seeking grants to help in the transition . The topics include complex geophysical coding, data assimilation, collaboratories, and accessible visualization tools.