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Input Sought on Need for Mid-Range Computing at Berkeley Lab

When the Department of Energy decided to move NERSC to Berkeley Lab in 1995, one of the related goals was to increase the role of computational science in other Lab programs. In 1997, NERSC, the Lab and DOE instituted a three-year program to provide "mid-range" computing resources to LBNL scientists interested in using supercomputers for data analysis and scientific simulations. The result was that Berkeley Lab scientists could apply for time on NERSC's Cray T3E supercomputer using an LDRD-like process independent from the national application process used to allocate more than 95 percent of the capacity of the Cray T3E. The number of hours allocated to LBNL users has increased from 60,000 to 191,500 over the past three years.

Now that the three-year agreement to provide this mid-range computing resource to the Lab is nearing an end, the Computing and Communications Services Advisory Committee (CSAC) is going to revisit the issue at its Aug. 11 meeting. Committee Chair Ali Belkacem is asking employees to provide their input to their respective CSAC representatives. Each Lab division is represented on the committee. A list of members with contact information is posted on the Web.

"CSAC was established to serve as an advisory committee to Computing Sciences, providing input from users across the Laboratory," said Chair Belkacem. "Many research areas are making significant advances through computational science and we want to ensure that the needs and perspectives of each division are fairly represented. We're particularly interested in hearing from scientists who have participated in this mid-range computing program at the Lab."