The U.S. Army Information Systems Selection and
Acquisition Agency, part of the Department of Defense
(DoD), has selected two collaborative teams, both
including NCSA, to provide state-of-the-art technology
to two of four resource centers planned by the DoD.
Awards for the other two resource centers are expected
early this summer. NCSA is a member of both proposal
teams.
NCSA is part of two university teams that are to provide the Programming Environment and Training (PET) for the centers. The university teams will work with Nichols Research Corporation (NRC) and each site to transfer state-of-the-art technology in a variety of computational technology areas (CTAs) of importance to DoD users.
The DoD initiated the High Performance Computing Modernization Program to bring DoD laboratories to a level comparable to that of the foremost civil and other government research and development agencies. The program focuses on the establishment of four Major Shared Resource Centers (MSRCs) to provide complete high-performance computing environments, support research and development, address computer and computational science, and provide education and training for users across the DoD community.
"This announcement is part of a historic reconvergence of the military and civilian sectors of our country," said NCSA Director Larry Smarr. "NCSA is proud to be an integral part of this process."
On May 1 NRC, a Huntsville, AL-based company that provides information systems and technical services for commercial entities, state governments, DoD, and other federal government clients, signed its second DoD contract for the High Performance Computing Modernization Program at the Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC), Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, OH. NRC and its university partners will supply hardware, applications and systems software, maintenance, and support. The contract is initially valued at $53.4 million with options that could increase its value to $157.9 million over its life. It calls for two upgrades to the initially installed systems and operations and maintenance service for eight years.
Six weeks before signing the ASC deal, NRC won an award for the modernization program at the Army Corps of Engineers'Waterways Experiment Station (CEWES) in Vicksburg, MS. That contract awarded NRC $42.2 million and could increase to $155.5 million over its eight- year life. It includes modernization of high- performance computing equipment and services at CEWES in support of defense department scientists and engineers across the nation.
"NCSA is looking forward to working with the DoD user community in building an advanced environment that will support workshops, training, and collaborative activity to maximize return on DoD's investment in the MSRCs," said Melanie Loots, associate director of NCSA's Applications Division. "While NCSA will be focused on the information technology transfer center, visualization, structural engineering, and nanoelectronics, NCSA will also participate in activities that cut across all computational technology areas."
Ohio State University leads the PET team at the ASC site. Jeff Huskamp will be directing the project during the introductory phases. Mississippi State University, under the direction of Joe Thompson, serves as the academic lead at the CEWES site. At both sites NCSA leads the information/communication transfer center and the scientific visualization and computational structural mechanics technology transfer centers (TTC). NCSA also leads the computational electronics and nanoelectronics TTC at the ASC site.
"I am excited to be coordinating the NCSA participation in this multiyear program and to see innovative opportunities for technology development by NCSA researchers supporting this partnership," said John Ziebarth, associate director of NCSA's Education and Outreach Division."As the nation enters the twenty-first century, computation and information technology will increasingly play a major role in advancements in all areas of science and engineering. Scientists and engineers across the nation, working with the DOD, can now expect to have the resources they will need to maintain the United States' global leadership."
The leads of the other TTCs at the ASC site are Mississippi State University in computational fluid dynamics; Ohio State University in computational chemistry and materials science, computational electromagnetics and acoustics, and climate, weather, and oceans; Syracuse University in forces modeling and simulation; and the Center for Research on Parallel Computation (CRPC) at Rice University in programming tools/emerging systems. At the CEWES site, the leads are Mississippi State University in computational fluid dynamics; CRPC in programming tools; Syracuse University in forces modeling and simulation; and Ohio State University in climate, weather, and oceans.
There is a focus on working with historically black colleges and universities and minority institutions led by Central State University at the ASC site and Jackson State University at the CEWES site.
These selections are two of four planned by the DoD. The DoD also plans to set up high-performance computer centers at the Naval Oceanographic Office at Stennis Space Center in Gulfport, LA, and at the Aviation Research Lab at the Army Research Lab in Aberdeen, MD.
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NCSA: The National Center for Supercomputing
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access / Summer 1996
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