Exploring the hyper-grid idea with grand challenge applications: the DEISA-TeraGrid interoperability demonstration

A supercomputing hyper-grid spanning two continents was created to move a step towards interoperability of leading grids. A dedicated network connection was established between DEISA, the leading European supercomputing grid, and TeraGrid, the leading American supercomputing grid. Both grids have adopted the approach of establishing a common, high performance global file system, the wide-area version of IBM's GPFS. Teragrid's approach is based on a single site server solution under Linux, hosted by San Diego Supercomputer Centre, DEISA's approach is a multi-site server solution, with currently servers in France, Germany and Italy. These two grid-internal global file systems were interconnected over a dedicated, trusted network connection. During the Supercomputing Conference 2005, grand challenge applications were carried out both within DEISA and within TeraGrid, and results were written transparently to the combined global file system with physically distributed locations of the involved disk systems. Simulations were carried out in Europe and in America, and results were directly written to the respective remote continent, accessible for all participating scientists in both continents, and were then directly further processed for visualization in a third location, the SC05 exhibition hall in Seattle. Grand challenge applications used for the demo included a protein structure prediction and a cosmological simulation carried out at San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), US (www.sdsc.edu) and a Gyrokinetic turbulence simulation and also a cosmological simulation carried out at Garching Computing Centre of the Max Planck Society (RZG), Germany (www.rzg.mpg.de).