A publication of the Advanced Simulation & Computing Division, NA-121.2, NNSA Defense Programs
June 2008
NA-ASC-500-08—Issue 7
The Year So Far…
Editorial by Bob Meisner
The first half of this year has been one of significant success for the program in spite of the budget turmoil, achieved through the staunch determination of a world-class team spread across the labs. Your accomplishments continue to improve the way science and engineering are conducted, and I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize a few significant steps forward.
Congratulations to LANL for being the first on the planet to bring a general-purpose petaFLOPS machine to life. It is impossible to capture the magnitude of the challenges presented to the Roadrunner team and the lab in pulling this off. Suffice it to say that under extreme time, technical, and programmatic pressures, they did what many thought could not be done.
Though less flashy than a headline-grabbing supercomputer, the Tri-lab Linux Capacity Cluster procurement had its own set of unique complexities that made its achievement exemplary. What makes it stand out is the leadership and dedication of the team in building a cost-effective, tri-lab solution for the greater good of the program. As a result, for the first time since the dawn of ASCI, the labs will have a significant dedicated computational resource applied to the full spectrum of the production workload.
March saw the initiation of the New Mexico Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale, or ACES. This is the second center formed through a collaboration by Sandia and Los Alamos, the first being the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies. Born of the need to investigate innovation in high-end computing systems using cost-effective solutions, ACES is an icon that represents an entry point into the labs for academia and industry working with the ASC program at the New Mexico labs.
These accomplishments bring new excitement to the program because of their potential for advancing science and engineering on our way to predictive capabilities, not only for our stewardship mission, but also for other national needs. Congratulations to the hundreds of professionals that contributed to these successes. You make us all proud to be on the ASC team—nobody does it better.
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