Functional requirements document for the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Scientific Computing Facilities (SCF) of the NASA/MSFC Earth Science and Applications Division, 1992

Five scientists at MSFC/ESAD have EOS SCF investigator status. Each SCF has unique tasks which require the establishment of a computing facility dedicated to accomplishing those tasks. A SCF Working Group was established at ESAD with the charter of defining the computing requirements of the individual SCFs and recommending options for meeting these requirements. The primary goal of the working group was to determine which computing needs can be satisfied using either shared resources or separate but compatible resources, and which needs require unique individual resources. The requirements investigated included CPU-intensive vector and scalar processing, visualization, data storage, connectivity, and I/O peripherals. A review of computer industry directions and a market survey of computing hardware provided information regarding important industry standards and candidate computing platforms. It was determined that the total SCF computing requirements might be most effectively met using a hierarchy consisting of shared and individual resources. This hierarchy is composed of five major system types: (1) a supercomputer class vector processor; (2) a high-end scalar multiprocessor workstation; (3) a file server; (4) a few medium- to high-end visualization workstations; and (5) several low- to medium-range personal graphics workstations. Specific recommendations for meeting the needs of each of these types are presented

Profiling I/O interrupts in modern architectures

Journal ArticleAs applications grow increasingly communication-oriented, interrupt performance quickly becomes a crucial component of high performance I/O system design. At the same time, accurately measuring interrupt handler performance is difficult with the traditional simulation, instrumentation, or statistical sampling approaches. One o f the most important components o f interrupt performance is cache behavior. This paper presents a portable method for measuring the cache effects o f I/O interrupt handling using native hardware performance counters. To provide a portability stress test, the method is demonstrated on two commercial platforms with different architectures, the SGI Origin 200 and the Sun LJltra-1. This case study uses the methodology to measure the overhead of the two most common forms o f interrupt traffic: disk and network interrupts. The study demonstrates that the method works well and is reasonably robust. In addition, the results show that disk interrupts behave similar on both platforms, while differences in OS organization cause network interrupts to behave very differently. Furthermore, network interrupts exhibit significantly larger cache footprints.

Metered energy consumption and analysis of energy conservation techniques in desktop PCs and workstations

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-100).This thesis investigates potential energy savings due to the application of power managed PCS, monitors, and workstations. The basis of this effort includes electric metering of such equipment at six preliminary and one primary location, a large business office in Boston, Massachusetts. Metering there occurred over an 8 week period, using an in-line metering device, and at a resolution of one minute intervals. The results of this study show that many problems exist in the field today which prevent any energy savings from being realized. These include both software and hardware incompatibilities. It was found that either the equipment was not enabled from the beginning; that various problems caused inadvertent disabling of the energy saving features, or that lack of knowledge about specific power management techniques caused the user to intentionally disable the features. Since this work began, the EPA's Energy Star Computers and Monitors Program updated their requirements such that energy saving features are now enabled when they are shipped from the manufacturer. All computers tested in this investigation were installed before the application of this condition, which was October 1, 1995. However, many problems exist other than those remedied by this requirement, including: computers which disengage from the network environment upon entering the lowest power management levels, various software incompatibilities, problematic methods of achieving power reduction, and little to no training of users or even prior negative experiences with power managed equipment There is a need for manufacturers to develop suitable or standard methods of achieving power management In addition, computer procurement employees or users must be taught about power management methods, and must have an opportunity to voice questions or concerns to manufacturers regarding power managed equipment. More research needs to be focused on network incompatibilities. Specifically, many computers are disconnected from their network upon engaging the lowest power level. This is due to either unacceptable power management methods or "stand-alone" power manageable computers which are placed on a network. Users purchasing computers intended for network use should be informed about whether the energy saving features are compatible with their type of network. This thesis is divided into two parts, the first for PCs and the second for workstations. The primary metering site for workstations was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which contains both Energy Star compliant and non-compliant machines. Opportunities for energy conservation in workstations are compared and contrasted to those of desktop PCs and monitors. In addition, current and future trends in workstation manufacturing and their impacts on energy conservation are explored.by Kristie L. Bosko.M.S

Experimental Evaluation of a Video Capture Board for Networked Workstations

This thesis examines the architectural issues in the design of a video capture board intended for use in multimedia videoconferencing. The major issues examined are: Control of reception and transmission of multimedia video streams, (i) Quality of service and service provision (ii) Compression requirements and solutions (iii) Data buffering and card connection strategies (iv) Handling multiple video streams Results of measurements for prototype boards designed and constructed at Penn are also given

Digital imaging technology assessment: Digital document storage project

An ongoing technical assessment and requirements definition project is examining the potential role of digital imaging technology at NASA's STI facility. The focus is on the basic components of imaging technology in today's marketplace as well as the components anticipated in the near future. Presented is a requirement specification for a prototype project, an initial examination of current image processing at the STI facility, and an initial summary of image processing projects at other sites. Operational imaging systems incorporate scanners, optical storage, high resolution monitors, processing nodes, magnetic storage, jukeboxes, specialized boards, optical character recognition gear, pixel addressable printers, communications, and complex software processes

The Computer Industry in East and West: Do Eastern European Countries Need a Specific Science and Technology Policy?

National science and technology (S&T) systems are mentioned, in politics as well as in science, as a condition for the competitiveness of domestic high technology industries. An active S&T policy has, therefore, great importance for governments. Eastern European countries see, in an active S&T policy, the key for the creation of a new computer industry, which collapsed with socialism. With an industrial economic analysis of the market segments: PC, workstation, mini and mainframe computer and supercomputers this hypothesis is rejected for Eastern Europe. It is shown that the Eastern European computer manufacturers are present only in the PC segment. The analysis of production conditions, competition axes used and the computer market structure shows further that domestic computer manufacturers are well positioned in the PC business and have no need for a national S&T system. They have quickly built up global supplier networks which enable them to use foreign S&T systems. Therefore, with the current conditions on the computer markets in Eastern Europe, setting up national S&T systems for computer technology is not required.

Commodity clusters: performance comparison between PCs and workstations

Workstation clusters were originally developed as a way to leverage the better cost basis of UNIX workstations to perform computations previously handled only by relatively more expensive supercomputers. Commodity workstation clusters take this evolutionary process one step further by replacing equivalent proprietary workstation functionality with less expensive PC technology. As PC technology encroaches on proprietary UNIX workstation vendor markets, these vendors will see a declining share of the overall market. As technology advances continue, the ability to upgrade a workstations performance plays a large role in cost analysis. For example, a major upgrade to a typical UNIX workstation means replacing the whole machine. As major revisions to the UNIX vendor`s product line come out, brand new systems are introduced. IBM compatibles, however, are modular by design, and nothing need to be replaced except the components that are truly improved. The DAISy cluster, for example, is about to undergo a major upgrade from 90MHz Pentiums to 200MHz Pentium Pros. All of the memory -- the system`s largest expense -- and disks, power supply, etc., can be reused. As a result, commodity workstation clusters ought to gain an increasingly large share of the distributed computing market