Synopsis
NSF is supporting construction of the Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF), a scalable, distributed, heterogeneous grid computing-communication-information system. Scheduled for commissioning in the fall of 2004, the ETF will provide for the seamless integration of high end computing platforms, large archival science and engineering data resources, cutting-edge visualization facilities, and research-enabling instruments and sensors. In the resulting state-of-the-art digital knowledge environment, researchers and educators will collaborate, create and promulgate new science and engineering knowledge across distance, time and fields of expertise.
The ETF is being implemented through a series of coordinated NSF investments that began in FY 2000 with the Terascale Computing System(TCS) and continued in FY 2001 with support of the Distributed Terascale Facility (DTF). In FY 2002, TCS and DTF resources were integrated via an extensible, high-speed optical backbone, thereby creating the Extensible Terascale Facility. Under the NSF ETF activity, current partners include Argonne National Laboratory, the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR) at the California Institute of Technology, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) and the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC).In this announcement, NSF is seeking proposals from organizations wishing to join the current partners in realizing the ETF. New partner organizations will share their existing science and engineering computing-communication-information resources with users via high bandwidth network connections to the ETF. Resources provided for sharing must clearly contribute to the ETF vision and must provide added scientific value to the national ETF user community. Examples of such resources include, but are not limited to, large shared data repositories or digital libraries, science and/or engineering research instruments, computational resources, and sensor networks that are engaged in collecting, archiving, and analyzing large quantities of experimental data.
Awards made will fund the high-speed networking connection of resources provided for sharing by new ETF partner organizations. Funding will not be provided for the creation and/or enhancement of resources to be connected to ETF.