Priority 2: Developing and Providing Advanced Services and Tools

For nearly 50 years, NCAR has provided a computational environment to satisfy the institution's overall mission of providing robust, reliable, accessible, innovative, and advanced services to the university community and the broader scientific community. NCAR provides classic computational services through its high performance computing production environment, mass storage, network connectivity, data analysis and visualization, research data stewardship, and data distribution. NCAR also advances atmospheric science by creating integrated software and data system services that are at the heart of today's state-of-the-art observing systems. NCAR provides classic computational services through its high performance computing production environment, mass storage, network connectivity, data analysis and visualization, research data stewardship, and data distribution. In addition, NCAR continually evaluates opportunities to provide services designed to enable Earth System science for the entire community of users such as TeraGrid integration, experimental computing systems, and an Earth system knowledge environment. NCAR continually improves its observational data products and services to increase overall functionality, accessibility, reliability, and ease of maintenance, and this work often has broad community impacts when the technologies are shared and distributed to outside users and agencies.

FY 2006 Accomplishments

Placed in production in early FY 2006, the IBM POWER5 supercomputer bluevista was the first step in a five-year plan to meet the strategic goal of a 25-fold increase in sustained computing capacity (over 2004 levels) by 2009. During FY 2006, the scientific community was engaged to assist in formulating and evaluating the system requirements that will meet the ongoing scientific objectives of the institution. NCAR then took the second step in the plan by executing the Integrated Computing Environment for Scientific Simulation (ICESS) procurement, which will support increasing simulation needs for at least the next 18 months.

To support NCAR's observational systems objectives during FY 2006, efforts included:

• Field Operations and Data Management (FODM) Integration of a sophisticated suite of proven tools that researchers can use to easily access and analyze massive stores of data
• The development of components that allow full internet accessibility of real-time data streams from Field Projects
• The creation of a flexible data acquisition system that can be utilized on a variety of ground-based or airborne platforms

Program Plan

For computing facilities, two significant increases in NCAR's computational capacity are planned. In early FY 2007, the first ICESS system will double NCAR's computing center capacity. By the beginning of FY 2009, the second ICESS system will then more than double that capacity, keeping the rate of computing capacity growth on schedule with the strategic plan.

In FY 2007, NCAR will continue to develop the next-generation user interface for its new metadata database tool and enhance its links to the Community Data Portal. NCAR continues to provide education for and improve the usability, efficiency, and stability of this new tool that accesses approximately 30 million data entries from experiments spanning 20 years.