{"response":{"award":[{"abstractText":"A Parallel Reconfigurable Observational Environment (PRObE) supports research on future supercomputing architectures. PRObE provides a needed and unique infrastructure to the low-level systems research community to study scaling (number of threads, nodes, and processors per node) and other challenges facing future supercomputing architectures. This infrastructure fills a well known significant long standing research facilities gap in the nations capabilities by creating a very large shared resource for systems and low-level research that allows fault injection, power control, controlling the entire resource down to the hardware, and providing direct hands on control of the resource. \r\nThe unique capabilities of PRObE open up new opportunities for research and hands-on experimentation that is was previously not feasible in the academic community. Using PRObE the low level systems research community is developing an improved understanding of the systems-level challenges for high-end computing, and the creating effective techniques to address them. PRObE creates new research opportunities for the academic community that has the significant potential to have a transformative impact on future supercomputing architectures. \r\nPRObE provides an internship program and an annual summer school for hands-on training for visiting students on HEC systems using the Probe testbed. The proposed effort includes special attention to students from underrepresented groups, incorporating populations local to the New Mexico location.\r\nThe proposed infrastructure has the potential to facilitate the development of advances in basic knowledge required for the US to maintain its leadership positions in computing systems, data-intensive cloud computing, and data center automation.","activeAwd":"false","agency":"NSF","awardAgencyCode":"4900","awardee":"NMC, INC.","awardeeAddress":"4200 W JEMEZ RD STE 301","awardeeCity":"LOS ALAMOS","awardeeCountryCode":"US","awardeeDistrict":"03","awardeeDistrictCode":"NM03","awardeeName":"New Mexico Consortium","awardeePhone":"5054124200","awardeeStateCode":"NM","awardeeZipCode":"875442587","cfdaNumber":"47.070","coPDPI":["Timothy L Thomas (Former) thomas@phys.unm.edu"],"date":"09/23/2010","dirAbbr":"CSE","divAbbr":"CNS","estimatedTotalAmt":"10468754","expDate":"06/30/2017","fundAgencyCode":"4900","fundProgramName":"Special Projects - CNS, Special Projects - CCF, CISE Research Resources, CSR-Computer Systems Research, Networking Technology and Syst, CESER-Cyberinfrastructure for","fundsObligated":["FY 2010 = $4,633,688.00","FY 2011 = $1,715,543.00","FY 2012 = $2,158,401.00","FY 2013 = $1,961,122.00","FY 2015 = $1,669,488.00"],"fundsObligatedAmt":"12138242","histAwd":"false","id":"1042537","initAmendmentDate":"09/23/2010","latestAmendmentDate":"07/27/2015","managingPec":"736300","orgCodeDir":"05000000","orgCodeDiv":"05050000","orgLongName":"Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering","orgLongName2":"Division Of Computer and Network Systems","orgUrl":"http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=CNS","parentUeiNumber":"","pdPIName":"Gary Grider","perfAddress":"4200 W JEMEZ RD STE 301","perfCity":"LOS ALAMOS","perfCountryCode":"US","perfDistrict":"03","perfDistrictCode":"NM03","perfLocation":"New Mexico Consortium","perfStateCode":"NM","perfZipCode":"875442587","pi":["Gary Grider info@newmexicoconsortium.org"],"piEmail":"info@newmexicoconsortium.org","piFirstName":"Gary","piId":"269836583","piLastName":"Grider","poEmail":"","poName":"John Brassil","poPhone":"","primaryProgram":["01001011DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT","01001112DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT","01001213DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT","01001314DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT","01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT"],"progEleCode":"171400, 287800, 289000, 735400, 736300, 768400","program":"COMPUTER SYSTEMS, EXP PROG TO STIM COMP RES","progRefCode":"7354, 9150","projectOutComesReport":"
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The Parallel Reconfigurable Observational Environment (PRObE) was a seven year long  project, funded by the National Science Foundation. It set out to address the question of whether large scale government computer computer systems, slated for retirement, can be repurposed by a non-government entity and again used for disruptive research. With today’s computer systems’ rapidly increasing processing speeds, it is clear that such a resource can not be cost effectively used for scientific simulations, as that is the reason they are retired after only three to four years in the first place. However, there are research areas where experiments on these types of large systems are critical to progress in the field.

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 Low-level (close to the hardware) computer systems research is the perfect match. Disruptive experiments, such that would hamper the work of others on the same resource (rebooting a computer for example), are often required in this type of research. PRObE provided exactly this type of system, with some clusters consisting of more than 1,000 computers. For five years, the resource was available for researchers that laid the ground to many technologies that today drive what is popularly called “the cloud”, or cloud computing. Research areas specifically helped by this effort included operating systems, networking, file systems, resilient computing, and others.

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The experimental PRObE facility at the New Mexico Consortium in Los Alamos, New Mexico closed its doors for services on Dec 31, 2016. The project officially concluded on June 30th, 2017. During this time, PRObE received and repurposed thousands of computers from Los Alamos National Laboratory in a unique center without equal elsewhere in the world. PRObE, at peak capacity, provided around 1,500 fully operational computers in four clusters in New Mexico and at Carnegie Mellon University. The University of Utah was also a major collaborative partner. Research performed at the center resulted in 44 peer reviewed conference proceedings, 5 published journal articles, and numerous workshops, presentations, white-papers, technical reports, and graduate dissertations. Over 500 researchers requested access to the resources, and PRObE provided around 170,000,000 core hours of computation. Purchasing something similar from current cloud providers might cost on the order of $15M.

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Overall, the PRObE project provided a fantastic resource for a research community that did not have any testbeds at this scale. It proved that it is possible to forge collaborations between government, academia, and nonprofit organizations in a research community. Many researchers were able to perform research they would not otherwise have been able to do, and solid support was provided by the community throughout the project. The New Mexico Consortium is honored to have been part of this valuable project, and particularly the profound impact it had on research.

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\n\t\t\t\t \tLast Modified: 09/29/2017
\n\t\t\t\t\tModified by: Gary Grider

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","publicAccessMandate":"0","startDate":"10/01/2010","title":"Collaborative Research: PRObE - The NSF Parallel Reconfigurable Observational Environment for Data Intensive Super-Computing and High End Computing","transType":"Continuing Grant","ueiNumber":"TUMCX1C2C4B3"}],"metadata":{"offset":0,"rpp":25,"totalCount":1}}}