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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY For more information about the Office of Science, go to Office of Science |
To DOE National Laboratories LAB 04-13
Operating/Runtime Systems
SUMMARY: The Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) of the
Office of Science (SC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), hereby announce its interest
in receiving proposals for research in the area of operating and runtime systems for
extreme scale scientific computation. Partnerships among universities, National
Laboratories, and industry are encouraged.
DATES: Researchers are requested to submit a letter of intent by March 26, 2004. This
letter should include the name(s) of the participating institution(s), the Principal
Investigator(s)/project director, the email address and address of the PI, the title of the
project, the amount of funds requested, and a two- or three-page abstract. Letters of intent
will be used to organize and expedite the merit review process. Failure to submit such
letters will not negatively effect a responsive proposal submitted in a timely fashion. The
letter of intent should be sent by E-mail to fjohnson@er.doe.gov, and the subject line
should state: Letter-of-Intent regarding Program Announcement LAB 04-13.
Formal proposals submitted in response to this announcement must be received by DOE
no later than 4:30 p.m., May 4, 2004. Electronic submission of formal proposals in PDF
format is encouraged.
ADDRESSES: Letters of Intent should be sent by E-mail to Dr. Frederick Johnson at
fjohnson@er.doe.gov, and the subject line should state: Letter-of-Intent regarding
Program Announcement LAB 04-13.
Formal proposals, referencing Program Announcement LAB 04-13, should also be
submitted by E-mail to: Dr. Frederick Johnson at fjohnson@er.doe.gov. If necessary,
proposals may be submitted on CD-ROM to Dr. Frederick Johnson, U.S. Department of
Energy, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, SC-31/Germantown
Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington DC 20585-1290. ATTN:
Program Announcement LAB 04-13.
When submitting proposals by U.S. Postal Service Express Mail, any commercial mail
delivery service, or when hand carried by the proposer, the following address must be
used: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research,
SC-31, 19901 Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874-1290, ATTN: Program
Announcement LAB 04-13.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Frederick Johnson, Office of
Advanced Scientific Computing Research, SC-31/Germantown Building, U.S.
Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC 20585-1290.
Telephone number and e-mail address are:
The Forum to Address Scalable Technologies for Runtime and Operating Systems
(FAST-OS) has conducted a series of workshops focused on issues associated with
operating and runtime systems for very large computing systems used for high end
scientific modeling and simulation. This workshop series was sponsored by the Office of
Advanced Scientific Computing Research of the DOE Office of Science. The most
recent workshop was held in July 2003, and the final report, together with other results of
the workshop series may be found at: http://www.cs.unm.edu/~fastos.
An interagency workshop, the Workshop on the Roadmap for the Revitalization of High-End Computing
was held in June of 2003. Section 5 of the workshop report addresses runtime and
operating systems. The charter of the researchers that produced this section was to
establish baseline capabilities required in the operating systems for projected High-End
Computing systems scaled to the end of this decade and determine the critical advances
that must be undertaken to meet these goals. The report is available at:
http://www.itrd.gov/hecrtf-outreach/20040112_cra_hecrtf_report.pdf.
Background: Operating and Runtime Systems (OS/R)
Operating and runtime systems provide mechanisms to manage system hardware and
software resources for the efficient execution of large scale scientific applications. They
are essential to the success of both large scale systems and complex applications. By the
end of this decade petascale computers with thousands of times more computational
power than any in current use will be vital tools for expanding the frontiers of science and
for addressing vital national priorities. These systems will have tens to hundreds of
thousands of processors, an unprecedented level of complexity, and will require
significant new levels of scalability and fault management. The overwhelming size and
complexity of such systems poses deep technical challenges that must be overcome to
fully exploit their potential for scientific discovery.
Applications require multiple services from OS/R layers, including: resource
management and scheduling, fault-management (detection, prediction, recovery, and
reconfiguration), configuration management, and file systems access and management.
Current and future large-scale parallel systems require that such services be implemented
in a fast and scalable manner so that the OS/R does not become a performance
bottleneck. The current trend in large-scale scientific systems is to leverage operating
systems developed for other areas of computing – operating systems that were not
specifically designed for large-scale, parallel computing platforms. Unix, Linux and
other Unix derivatives are the most popular OS’s in use for high end scientific
computing, and these all reflect a technological heritage nearly 30 years old with no
fundamental mechanisms to support parallel systems.
Without reliable, robust operating systems and runtime environments the computational
science research community will be unable to easily and completely employ future
generations of extreme systems for scientific discovery. The application research
community will miss important scientific opportunities in areas such as computational
fusion, nanotechnology, and computational biology that are on the threshold of rapid
advance through the innovative use of extreme-scale scientific computation. New
investments in both basic and applied research are required to maintain the creative pace
established by terascale computation for scientific discovery.
Background: High-End Computing Revitalization Task Force (HECRTF) and
Academic Research
During the past summer, several federal agencies with interests in high performance
computing participated in the HECRTF and developed a plan for future government
investments in high-end computing. As part of this plan a renewed emphasis has been
placed on coordination of federally-funded research in this area. As a major contributor
to the HECRTF activity, the Office of Science is a leading participant in the coordination
of research investments. The research activities described in this Announcement have
been coordinated with participating HECRTF research agencies, and this coordination
will continue throughout the lifetime of the research activities. Additional information on
the HECRTF may be found at:
http://www.itrd.gov/hecrtf-outreach/index.html.
The Opportunity and the Challenge
By the end of this decade extreme scale systems will be available that are based on a
variety of challenging architectures ranging from distributed memory clusters of
unprecedented scale to the systems resulting from the DARPA High Productivity
Computing Systems program that are likely to be based upon innovative architectural
concepts, such as PIMs, FPGAs, and complex memory hierarchies that have no analog in
today’s terascale systems. Systems with tens to hundreds of thousands of processors and
new architectural concepts will differ greatly in scale and complexity from today’s
systems, and this difference will place new and very difficult challenges on OS/R design
and implementation.
There are many fundamental questions in operating system and runtime research that
must be explored in order to enable scientific application developers and users to achieve
maximum effectiveness and efficiency on this new generation of systems, including (but
not limited to):
Technical challenges such as these represent an opportunity for basic and applied
research to provide new insights into mechanisms for harnessing the potential of next
generation extreme-scale systems.
Investment Plan of the Office of Science
The Secretary of Energy recently released a twenty year vision and plan for research
facilities in the Office of Science in the document, Facilities for the Future of Science: A
Twenty-Year Outlook. A copy of the plan may be found at:
http://www.sc.doe.gov/Sub/Facilities_for_future/20-Year-Outlook-screen.pdf. The plan
contains a prioritized list of new research facilities, and the number two priority is an
UltraScale Scientific Computing Capability (USSCC), which will increase by at least a
factor of 100 the computing capability available to support open scientific research and
which will reduce from years to days the time required to simulate complex systems of
interest to the Department. When fully realized, the computing capability of the USSCC
will enable computation-based scientific advances that are unachievable by current large-
scale computing systems. USSCC systems will place new and critical demands on
operating systems and runtime environments to support complex applications and enable
these systems to reach their full potential. The research supported by this announcement
is a critical step towards developing OS and runtime systems able to meet these needs.
Solicitation Emphasis
This announcement is focused on research and development of operating and runtime
systems which enable the effective management and use of extreme-scale systems
(petascale and above) for scientific computation. The overall goal of this announcement
is to stimulate research and development related to operating and runtime systems for
petascale systems the in 2010 timeframe. It is likely that these systems will include a
combination of commodity and custom components, with different systems reflecting
different degrees of customization. The research into runtime and operating systems must
be driven from the needs of current and future applications. The primary focus is on the
supporting the needs of existing and anticipated SC and other DOE applications;
however, the resulting systems should address issues related to the broader HEC code
base. An ultimate and perhaps idealistic goal would be to develop a unified runtime and
operating system that could fully support and exploit petascale and beyond systems and
autonomously adapt for performance, upgrades, security, and fault tolerance. The
activities supported by this announcement may be a combination of basic and applied
research, development, prototyping, testing and ultimately deployment.
Example Research Topics
Runtime and operating systems provide the glue that bind running applications to
hardware. The research activities supported by this activity need to bridge the gap
between new languages and/or programming models and next-generation hardware,
including interactions with novel architectures. Consequently, there are a wide variety of
research topics that are appropriate for this effort. A brief listing of candidate topics is
provided below, but research in other relevant areas and combinations of areas is
encouraged:
Community building
An important goal of this announcement is to foster the development of an active
research community in operating systems and runtime environments for high end
systems. In order to meet this goal the following are mandatory requirements for
awardees:
Frameworks and Novel Approaches
Operating system and runtime research often requires a large overhead of supporting
infrastructure code, such as device drivers, that must be developed before undertaking the
core ideas of the research. This may be alleviated if an existing OS framework, such as
Linux, K42, or Plan9, is chosen as a base of the research. Responses to this
announcement may choose to use an existing framework for their OS/Runtime research
or they may propose to develop a new framework as part of the research activity. Any
proposed new framework must be described and discussed at the community PI meetings.
Smaller novel approaches are also encouraged.
Testbed Strategy
Testbeds are essential to the future of the research sponsored by this announcement, and
the development of an effective testbed strategy is an important overall objective. Each
proposal should contain a section which discusses the characteristics of the test
environments necessary for the research and identify the time frames in which specific
testbed support will be required.
Collaboration
Researchers are encouraged to collaborate with researchers in other institutions, such as
universities, industry, non-profit organizations, federal laboratories and Federally Funded
Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), including the DOE National Laboratories,
where appropriate, and to include cost sharing wherever feasible. Additional information
on collaboration is available in the Application Guide for the Office of Science Financial
Assistance Program that is available via the Internet at:
http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/grants/Colab.html.
Program Funding
It is anticipated that up to $4 million annually will be available for multiple awards for
this program. Initial awards will be made late in Fiscal Year 2004 or early Fiscal Year
2005, in the categories described above, and proposals may request project support for up
to three years. All awards are contingent on the availability of funds and programmatic
needs. Annual budgets for successful projects are expected to range from $500,000 to
$1,500,000 per project although smaller projects of exceptional merit may be considered.
Annual budgets may increase in the out-years but should remain within the overall annual
maximum guidance. Any proposed effort that exceeds the annual maximum in the out-
years should be separately identified for potential award increases if additional funds
become available. DOE is under no obligation to pay for any costs associated with the
preparation or submission of proposals if an award is not made.
Submission Information
The Project Description must be 25 pages or less, exclusive of attachments. It must
contain an abstract or project summary on a separate page with the name of the principal
investigator, mailing address, phone, FAX, and email listed. The proposal must include
letters of intent from non-funded collaborators (briefly describing the intended
contribution of each to the research), and short curriculum vitae for the principal
investigator and any co-PIs.
The instructions and format described below should be followed. Reference Program
Announcement LAB 04-13 on all submissions and inquiries about this program.
Proposals from National Laboratories submitted to the Office of Science (SC) as a result
of this program announcement will follow the Department of Energy Field Work
Proposal process with additional information requested to allow for scientific/technical
merit review. The following guidelines for content and format are intended to facilitate an
understanding of the requirements necessary for SC to conduct a merit review of a
proposal. Please follow the guidelines carefully, as deviations could be cause for
declination of a proposal without merit review.
1. Evaluation Criteria Proposals will be subjected to scientific merit review (peer
review) and will be evaluated against the following criteria, which are listed in
descending order of importance:
2. Appropriateness of the proposed method or approach;
3. Competency of the researcher's personnel and adequacy of the proposed
resources; and
4. Reasonableness and appropriateness of the proposed budget.
The evaluation under the first criterion, Scientific and Technical Merit, will pay particular
attention to:
The evaluation will also include program policy factors such as the relevance of the
proposed research to the terms of the announcement, the uniqueness of the proposer's
capabilities, and prior performance on DOE funded work.
2. Summary of Proposal Contents
Formal proposals, referencing Program Announcement LAB 04-13, should also be
submitted by E-mail to: Dr. Frederick Johnson at fjohnson@er.doe.gov. If necessary,
proposals may be submitted on CD-ROM to Dr. Frederick Johnson, U.S. Department of
Energy, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, SC-31/Germantown
Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington DC 20585-1290. ATTN:
Program Announcement LAB 04-13.
3. Detailed Contents of the Proposal
Proposals must be readily legible, when photocopied, and must conform to the following
three requirements: the height of the letters must be no smaller than 10 point with at least
2 points of spacing between lines (leading); the type density must average no more than
17 characters per inch; the margins must be at least one-half inch on all sides. Figures,
charts, tables, figure legends, etc., may include type smaller than these requirements so
long as they are still fully legible.
3.1 Field Work Proposal Format (Reference DOE Order 5700.7C)
(DOE ONLY)
The Field Work Proposal (FWP) is to be prepared and submitted consistent with policies
of the investigator's laboratory and the local DOE Operations Office. Additional
information is also requested to allow for scientific/technical merit review.
Laboratories may submit proposals directly to the SC Program office listed above. A
copy should also be provided to the appropriate DOE operations office.
3.2 Proposal Cover Page
The following proposal cover page information may be placed on plain paper. No form is
required.
*The signature certifies that personnel and facilities are available as stated in the
proposal, if the project is funded.
Provide the initial page number for each of the sections of the proposal. Number pages
consecutively at the bottom of each page throughout the proposal. Start each major
section at the top of a new page. Do not use unnumbered pages and do not use suffices,
such as 5a, 5b.
3.4 Abstract
Provide an abstract of no more than 250 words. Give the broad, long-term objectives and
what the specific research proposed is intended to accomplish. State the hypotheses to be
tested. Indicate how the proposed research addresses the SC scientific/technical area
specifically described in this announcement.
3.5 Narrative
The narrative comprises the research plan for the project and is limited to 5 pages per
task. It should contain the following subsections:
Background and Significance: Briefly sketch the background leading to the present
proposal, critically evaluate existing knowledge, and specifically identify the gaps which
the project is intended to fill. State concisely the importance of the research described in
the proposal. Explain the relevance of the project to the research needs identified by the
Office of Science. Include references to relevant published literature, both to work of the
investigators and to work done by other researchers.
Preliminary Studies: Use this section to provide an account of any preliminary studies
that may be pertinent to the proposal. Include any other information that will help to
establish the experience and competence of the investigators to pursue the proposed
project. References to appropriate publications and manuscripts submitted or accepted for
publication may be included.
Research Design and Methods: Describe the research design and the procedures to be
used to accomplish the specific aims of the project. Describe new techniques and
methodologies and explain the advantages over existing techniques and methodologies.
As part of this section, provide a tentative sequence or timetable for the project.
Subcontract or Consortium Arrangements: If any portion of the project described
under "Research Design and Methods" is to be done in collaboration with another
institution, provide information on the institution and why it is to do the specific
component of the project. Further information on any such arrangements is to be given in
the sections "Budget and Budget Explanation", "Biographical Sketches", and
"Description of Facilities and Resources".
3.6 Literature Cited
List all references cited in the narrative. Limit citations to current literature relevant to the
proposed research. Information about each reference should be sufficient for it to be
located by a reviewer of the proposal.
3.7 Budget and Budget Explanation
A detailed budget is required for the entire project period, which normally will be three
years, and for each fiscal year. It is preferred that DOE's budget page, Form 4620.1 be
used for providing budget information*. Modifications of categories are permissible to
comply with institutional practices, for example with regard to overhead costs.
A written justification of each budget item is to follow the budget pages. For personnel
this should take the form of a one-sentence statement of the role of the person in the
project. Provide a detailed justification of the need for each item of permanent
equipment. Explain each of the other direct costs in sufficient detail for reviewers to be
able to judge the appropriateness of the amount requested.
Further instructions regarding the budget are given in section 4 of this guide.
* Form 4620.1 is available at web site:
http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/grants/Forms-E.html
3.8 Other Support of Investigators
Other support is defined as all financial resources, whether Federal, non-Federal,
commercial or institutional, available in direct support of an individual's research
endeavors. Information on active and pending other support is required for all senior
personnel, including investigators at collaborating institutions to be funded by a
subcontract. For each item of other support, give the organization or agency, inclusive
dates of the project or proposed project, annual funding, and level of effort devoted to the
project.
3.9 Biographical Sketches
This information is required for senior personnel at the laboratory submitting the proposal
and at all subcontracting institutions. The biographical sketch is limited to a maximum of
two pages for each investigator.
3.10 Description of Facilities and Resources
Describe briefly the facilities to be used for the conduct of the proposed research.
Indicate the performance sites and describe pertinent capabilities, including support
facilities (such as machine shops) that will be used during the project. List the most
important equipment items already available for the project and their pertinent
capabilities. Include this information for each subcontracting institution, if any.
3.11 Appendix
Include collated sets of all appendix materials with each copy of the proposal. Do not use
the appendix to circumvent the page limitations of the proposal. Information should be
included that may not be easily accessible to a reviewer.
Reviewers are not required to consider information in the Appendix, only that in the body
of the proposal. Reviewers may not have time to read extensive appendix materials with
the same care as they will read the proposal proper.
The appendix may contain the following items: up to five publications, manuscripts
(accepted for publication), abstracts, patents, or other printed materials directly relevant
to this project, but not generally available to the scientific community; and letters from
investigators at other institutions stating their agreement to participate in the project (do
not include letters of endorsement of the project).
4. Detailed Instructions for the Budget
4.1 Salaries and Wages
List the names of the principal investigator and other key personnel and the estimated
number of person-months for which DOE funding is requested. Proposers should list the
number of postdoctoral associates and other professional positions included in the
proposal and indicate the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) person-months and rate
of pay (hourly, monthly or annually). For graduate and undergraduate students and all
other personnel categories such as secretarial, clerical, technical, etc., show the total
number of people needed in each job title and total salaries needed. Salaries requested
must be consistent with the institution's regular practices. The budget explanation should
define concisely the role of each position in the overall project.
4.2 Equipment
DOE defines equipment as "an item of tangible personal property that has a useful life of
more than two years and an acquisition cost of $25,000 or more." Special purpose
equipment means equipment which is used only for research, scientific or other technical
activities. Items of needed equipment should be individually listed by description and
estimated cost, including tax, and adequately justified. Allowable items ordinarily will be
limited to scientific equipment that is not already available for the conduct of the work.
General purpose office equipment normally will not be considered eligible for support.
4.3 Domestic Travel
The type and extent of travel and its relation to the research should be specified. Funds
may be requested for attendance at meetings and conferences, other travel associated with
the work and subsistence. In order to qualify for support, attendance at meetings or
conferences must enhance the investigator's capability to perform the research, plan
extensions of it, or disseminate its results. Consultant's travel costs also may be
requested.
4.4 Foreign Travel
Foreign travel is any travel outside Canada and the United States and its territories and
possessions. Foreign travel may be approved only if it is directly related to project
objectives.
4.5 Other Direct Costs
The budget should itemize other anticipated direct costs not included under the headings
above, including materials and supplies, publication costs, computer services, and
consultant services (which are discussed below). Other examples are: aircraft rental,
space rental at research establishments away from the institution, minor building
alterations, service charges, and fabrication of equipment or systems not available off-
the-shelf. Reference books and periodicals may be charged to the project only if they are
specifically related to the research.
a. Materials and Supplies
The budget should indicate in general terms the type of required expendable materials
and supplies with their estimated costs. The breakdown should be more detailed when the
cost is substantial.
b. Publication Costs/Page Charges
The budget may request funds for the costs of preparing and publishing the results of
research, including costs of reports, reprints page charges, or other journal costs (except
costs for prior or early publication), and necessary illustrations.
c. Consultant Services
Anticipated consultant services should be justified and information furnished on each
individual's expertise, primary organizational affiliation, daily compensation rate and
number of days expected service. Consultant's travel costs should be listed separately
under travel in the budget.
d. Computer Services
The cost of computer services, including computer-based retrieval of scientific and
technical information, may be requested. A justification based on the established
computer service rates should be included.
e. Subcontracts
Subcontracts should be listed so that they can be properly evaluated. There should be an
anticipated cost and an explanation of that cost for each subcontract. The total amount of
each subcontract should also appear as a budget item.
4.6 Indirect Costs
Explain the basis for each overhead and indirect cost. Include the current rates.
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