CLOUD

MOFFETT FIELD, CA -- NASA's Information Power Grid (IPG) team reached another major project milestone by demonstrating the use of grid services for remotely connecting to scientific instruments, as well as distributed, real-time access to instrument data. The purpose of these demonstrations was two-fold: to show that the IPG services and infrastructure can provide scientists and engineers with on-demand connectivity to high-data-rate instruments and an advanced collaboration environment; and to show that IPG resources can be used to store and access data collected from one or more remote instruments. The IPG is designed to take a large collection of dispersed and heterogeneous resources -- computing systems, storage systems, and scientific instruments -- and define a standard set of services for accessing those resources for research. NASA's Ames, Glenn, and Langley Research Centers, as well as its Jet Propulsion Laboratory are collaborating to develop infrastructure for the grid. The team demonstrated two scenarios. First, using the wind tunnel instrumentation system (called DARWIN/DREAM), the team showed that NASA instrumentation facilities can use IPG services and resources in order to: give the instrumentation facility access to large-scale computing and data systems; provide a standardized set of highly capable access and management services that do not have to be developed by the application developers; and provide wider access to instrumentation data and analysis systems through a widely deployed IPG. In the second scenario, using the UC San Diego, TeleScience for Advanced Tomography facilities, the team demonstrated a “use-model” where NASA researchers using remote, non-NASA facilities, could use NASA IPG services and other resources to both store and analyze data obtained at remote instrumentation facilities. All of the critical data paths for both demonstrations transferred data at 50 megabits per second or greater.