What is AVIDD?

Note: The planned retirement of the AVIDD systems began on May 1 as originally scheduled, but portions of the system remain online. UITS retired AVIDD-T, AVIDD-N, and AVIDD-I on May 1, but delayed the retirement of AVIDD-B and AVIDD-O pending the installation of a powerful new replacement system based on Intel's X86-64 technology. If you use AVIDD-B or AVIDD-O, UITS encourages you to migrate to Big Red, Libra, or the TeraGrid.

Please contact the High Performance Systems group hps-admin@iu.edu for system specific questions. To get help migrating applications or with applying for a TeraGrid allocation contact the High Performance Applications group hpc@indiana.edu.

AVIDD (Analysis and Visualization of Instrument-Driven Data) is a distributed computing facility designed to process data generated by large scientific instruments. AVIDD opens new doors for research at Indiana University because of its novel design, addressing the full life cycle of data analysis including intake, storage, analysis, and visualization. The implementation of AVIDD is aimed at a great diversity of sciences, including the life sciences, geophysics, atmospheric sciences, physics, and chemistry. There are few, if any, similar efforts in existence today.

As of March 2003, most major components of the AVIDD facility are in place and operational. As with any experimental system, a considerable amount of effort is being devoted to development and integration of new software tools. At the same time we are discovering dramatic research benefits that this system will produce. For example, Dr. Alex Dzierba of Indiana University has data that were collected in 1995 from high-energy physics experiments but have not yet been analyzed for want of adequate computing facilities. These data will be analyzed using AVIDD.

There are three aspects of the AVIDD facility that are particularly forward-looking in meeting the coming needs of scientists:

  • Managing very large data sets. With a total of 10 TB of spinning disk, and close integration with IU's massive data storage system, scientists will easily be able to manage and analyze multi-TB data sets using the AVIDD facility.

  • Real-time data analysis. AVIDD provides facilities for analysis of nonscheduled, real-time data streams while also maintaining high overall usage levels of the computational systems. AVIDD will have the capability to respond to requests for analysis of incoming data streams in real time by preempting analysis tasks that are not time-sensitive in order. This is accomplished through a mix of kernel-level checkpointing (with LAM/MPI), application level checkpointing, and new features being added to the Maui scheduler at IU's request (IU is a charter member of the Maui Consortium).

  • Low-cost, distributed visualization environments. IU has developed three relatively low-cost 3D visualization environments, permitting the installation of immersive 3D visualization devices in several labs and shared research areas. Placing immersive 3D visualization environments in or next to research labs will enable scientists to interact with and analyze their data in ways far more valuable than is typically possible today.

Further details on the hardware comprising the AVIDD facility are provided below:

Computational component – AVIDD Linux clusters

The computational component of AVIDD consists of an integrated quartet of Linux clusters, tied together as a single computational resource, as follows:

  • Two identical IA32-based clusters, one located at IU Bloomington and one located at IUPUI. Each includes 208 2.4 GHz Prestonia processors.

  • One IA64-based cluster, containing 36 1.0 GHz McKinley processors.

  • One smaller, IA32-based cluster located at IU Northwest in Gary, containing 18 1.3 GHz PIII processors. This cluster is for instructional use at the IU Northwest campus. (This cluster was funded entirely via a Shared University Research grant from IBM It will play a particularly important role in the educational aspects of the AVIDD cluster, as it is located on a campus with a high percentage of students from traditionally underrepresented groups.)

The aggregate capacity of the entire system will be 1.1 TFLOPS, 0.5 TB RAM, and 10 TB disk space.

Massive Data Storage

The massive data storage equipment for AVIDD is being incorporated into IU's existing HPSS installation. Added equipment includes two IBM p640 servers, 1.7 TB of RAID disk, and six StorageTek 9940A drives. It will be possible to move 1 TB of data from disk cache into the Linux clusters in 2.5 hours.

Visualization

IU has developed and tested three separate types of display systems to be deployed as part of the AVIDD visualization component:

  • Small, portable systems with 3' x 4' passive stereo displays.

  • Wall displays, very similar in technology to the portable displays, but with ceiling mounted projectors. (These may be either rear or front projected.)

  • Larger, tiled display walls.

Two of the smaller portable systems have been completed, and prototypes of the other two displays have been tested. Parts for several additional displays have been ordered. A production agreement for the smaller, portable displays is being negotiated with a regional manufacturer.

AVIDD is a $3.25 million project funded in part by a grant of $1.8 million from the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program, grant CDA-9601632. Use of this system is/will be made available to the national research community as part of IU's participation in the NSF-funded Teragrid. IU's participation in the TeraGrid is supported in part by NSF grants #0338618, 0451237, and 050207. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

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Created March 10, 2003
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