TGQR 2010Q4 Report.pdf - Teragridforum.org

2) Given the emergence of Green technology for HPC, the TAC suggests that TAS should
recommend that energy usage be reported, thereby providing a framework to measure system
performance in terms of energy consumption. The best reporting units would be energy usage per
job and energy usage per core. While potentially costly to implement in current TG systems,
solicitations for future systems should make this a requirement.
3) The TAC feels that the POPS database containing information gathered during allocation
applications, can potentially provide a unique and useful source of data for TAS e.g. publications
made using past allocation resources. TAS should utilize this data and if necessary make
recommendations on the data that is recorded, format, and data collection procedures. For
example, should the POPS data be incorporated in the TGCDB.
4) It was pointed out that practically no existing TG reporting (annual reports etc.) can be cited in
the open literature. TAS should consider either a version of the auditor’s reports that is open to
the public and/or provide information that is citable within the context of XDMoD.
5) The TAC recommends that TAS needs to access data from the TGCDB and other sources as
needed for reporting on TG/XD.
6) It was pointed out that feedback from experienced users is a very powerful method for both
helping new users learn to use the TG/XD facilities and to help to monitor how such facilities are
operating on a daily basis. Thus a social network analogous to Facebook or at least a user list
serve should be developed. TAS should investigate the feasibility of such services and possibly
assist in setting up such mechanisms but not to take the lead or the principal responsibility for
establishing and maintaining these social networking mechanisms. As an initial step in providing
users with access to data such as this, TAS should explore the feasibility of mining help desk
tickets and their resolution from the resource providers to provide user’s with a query based
system to quickly find answers to their questions. Mining the tickets could also help monitor
system performance by looking for common problems across a given resource.
7) The interaction between computational and experimental work is important. A useful metric
of the importance of computational studies is the value that the work has to experimentalists.
This information should be actively sought after by TAS.
8) TAS should mine Advanced Support for TeraGrid Applications (ASTA) files for information
and problem specific expertise and support ASTA as indicated.
9) In general only traditional CPU usage is reported. TAS should help develop mechanisms to
monitor and audit memory, storage and visualization facilities. This could be done through
developing suitable application kernels to assess system performance and recommending
additional usage reporting for these facilities.
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