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[[File:U.S. Department of Energy - Science - 391 009 010 (31308713210).jpg|thumb|[[Shyh Wang Hall]], which houses the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.]]
The '''National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC),''' is a high -performance computing ([[supercomputer]]) userNational User facilityFacility operated by [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]] for the [[United States Department of Energy]] [[Office of Science]]. As the mission computing center for the Office of Science, NERSC houses high performance computing and data systems used by 79,000 scientists at national laboratories and universities around the country. Research at NERSC's newestis focused on fundamental and largestapplied supercomputerresearch isin Cori,<ref>{{Cite[[Efficient energy webuse|url=http://www.nersc.gov/energy efficiency]], storage, and generation; Earth systems/cori/|title=Cori Crayscience, XC40and 2016|website=www.nersc.gov|language=en|access-date=2017-03-23}}</ref>understanding whichof wasfundamental rankedforces 5thof onnature and the [[TOP500]]universe. listThe oflargest world'sresearch fastestareas supercomputersare in NovemberHigh 2016.<ref>{{CiteEnergy web|url=https://www.top500.org/lists/2016/11/|title=NovemberPhysics, 2016Materials {{!}}Science, TOP500Chemical SupercomputerSciences, Sites|publisher=[[TOP500]]|language=en|access-date=2017-03-23}}</ref>Climate and Environmental Sciences, Nuclear Physics, and Fusion Energy research. NERSC's isnewest locatedand onlargest thesupercomputer mainis [[BerkeleyPerlmutter Lab(supercomputer)|Perlmutter]], campuswhich debuted in 2021 ranked 5th on the [[Berkeley, CaliforniaTOP500]] list of world's fastest supercomputers.
==History==
NERSC was founded in 1974 as the Controlled Thermonuclear Research Computer Center, or CTRCC, at [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]], (LLNL). The center was created to provide computing resources to the fusion energy research community, and began with a [[CDC 6600|Control Data Corporation 6600]] computer (SN-1). The first machine procured directly by the center was a [[CDC 7600]], installed in 1975 with a peak performance of 36 megaflop/s (36 million floating point operations per second). In 1976, the center was renamed the National Magnetic Fusion Energy Computer Center.
Subsequent supercomputers includedinclude a [[Cray-1]] (SN-6), which was installed in May 1978 and called the "c" machine,. installedIn in May 19781985, and in 1985 the world's first [[Cray-2]] (SN-1), which was installed as the "b" machine,. nicknamed "Bubbles" because of theThe bubbles visible in the fluid of itsthe uniqueCray-2's direct liquid cooling system. Inearned 1983,it the centernickname began providing a small portion of its resources to researchers outside the fusion community"Bubbles." As the center increasingly supported science across many research areas, it changed its name to the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center in 1990.
In 1983, the center began providing a small portion of its resources to researchers outside the fusion community. As the center increasingly supported science across many research areas, it changed its name to the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center in 1990.
In 1995, the Department of Energy (DOE) made the decision to move NERSC from LLNL to [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]]. A cluster of Cray J90 systems was installed in Berkeley before the main systems at Livermore were shut down for the move in 1996, thus ensuring continuous support for the research community. As part of the move, the center was renamed the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, but kept the NERSC acronym. In 2000, NERSC moved to a new site in Oakland to accommodate the growing footprint of air-cooled supercomputers. ▼
▲In 1995, the Department of Energy (DOE) mademoved theNERSC decisionfrom tothe moveLawrence NERSCLivermore fromNational LLNLLaboratory to [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]]. A cluster of [[Cray J90 ]] systems was installed in Berkeley before the main systems at Livermore were shut down for the move in 1996 , thusto ensuringprovide continuous support for the research community. As a part of the move, the center was renamed the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, but kept the NERSC acronym. In 2000, NERSC moved to a new site in Oakland to accommodate the growing footprint of air-cooled supercomputers.
In November 2015, NERSC moved back to the main Berkeley Lab site and is housed in [[Shyh Wang Hall]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/11/12/facility-for-computational-science/|title=Berkeley Lab Opens State-of-the-Art Facility for Computational Science {{!}} Berkeley Lab|date=2015-11-12|work=News Center|access-date=2018-02-08|language=en-US}}</ref> As with the move from LLNL, a new system was first installed in Berkeley before the machines in [[Oakland, California|Oakland]] were taken down and moved. ▼
▲In November 2015, NERSC moved back to the main Berkeley Lab site and is housed in [[Shyh Wang Hall]] , an energy-efficient supercomputer facility. <ref>{{cite web | url=https://cs.lbl.gov/news-media/news/2020/less-is-more-lbnl-breaks-new-ground-in-data-center-optimization/ | title=Less is More: LBNL Breaks New Ground in Data Center Optimization }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/11/12/facility-for-computational-science/|title=Berkeley Lab Opens State-of-the-Art Facility for Computational Science {{!}} Berkeley Lab|date=2015-11-12|work=News Center|access-date=2018-02-08|language=en-US}}</ref> The building was financed by the [[University of California]] which manages Berkeley Lab for the [[United States Department of Energy|U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)]]. As with the move from LLNL, a new system was first installed in Berkeley before the machines in [[Oakland, California|Oakland]] were taken down and moved . The utility infrastructure and computer systems are provided by the DOE.
==Computers==
The center names its major systems after scientists.
[[File:Cori-Cray_Supercomputer_at_NERSC.jpg|thumb|Cori-Cray Supercomputer at NERSC.]]
To reflect NERSC's mission to support scientific research, the center names its major systems after scientists. The center is located in Shyh Wang Hall, one of the nation's most energy-efficient{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}} supercomputer facilities. The building was financed by the [[University of California]] which manages Berkeley Lab for the [[United States Department of Energy|U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)]]. The utility infrastructure and computer systems are provided by DOE.
The newest supercomputer [[Perlmutter_Perlmutter (supercomputer)|Perlmutter]], is named in honor ofafter [[Saul Perlmutter]], an astrophysicist at Berkeley Lab who shared the 2011 [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] for his contributions to research showing that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. It is a [[Cray]] system based on the Shasta architecture, with [[Zen 3]] based [[Epyc|AMD Epyc]] [[Central processing unit|CPUs]] ("Milan") and [[Ampere (microarchitecture)|NVIDIA Ampere]] [[Graphics processing unit|GPUs]]. <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nersc.gov/systems/perlmutter/|title = Perlmutter}}</ref>
Another NERSC supercomputer is Cori, named after [[Gerty Cori]], a [[biochemist]] who was the first American woman to receive a [[Nobel Prize]] in science. Cori is a [[Cray XC40]] system with 622,336 Intel processor cores and a theoretical peak performance of 30 [[petaflop]]/s (30 quadrillion operations per second). Cori was delivered in two phases. The first phase—also known as the Data Partition—was installed in late 2015 and comprises 12 cabinets and more than 1,600 [[Xeon|Intel Xeon]] "Haswell" compute nodes. The second phase<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cori Intel Xeon Phi (KNL) Nodes |url=http://www.nersc.gov/users/computational-systems/cori/configuration/cori-intel-xeon-phi-nodes/ |access-date=2018-02-09 |website=National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center |language=en}}</ref> of Cori, installed in summer 2016,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cori Supercomputer Now Fully Installed at Berkeley Lab |url=http://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/nersc-center-news/2016/cori-supercomputer-now-fully-installed-at-berkeley-lab/ |access-date=2018-02-09 |website=National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center |language=en}}</ref> added 52 cabinets and more than 9,300 nodes with second-generation [[Intel Xeon Phi]] processors (code-named Knights Landing, or KNL for short), making Cori the largest{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}} supercomputing system for open science based on KNL processors.
[[File:Cori seal.jpg|thumb|NERSC's flagship supercomputer is Cori, a Cray XC40 system with a peak speed of 30 petaflop/s.]]
Another NERSC supercomputer is CORI, named in honor of [[Gerty Cori]], a [[biochemist]] who was the first American woman to receive a [[Nobel Prize]] in science. Cori is a [[Cray XC40]] system with 622,336 Intel processor cores and a theoretical peak performance of 30 [[petaflop]]/s (30 quadrillion operations per second). Cori was delivered in two phases. The first phase — also known as the Data Partition — was installed in late 2015 and comprises 12 cabinets and more than 1,600 [[Xeon|Intel Xeon]] "Haswell" compute nodes. It was customized to support data-intensive science and the analysis of large [[Data set|datasets]] through a combination of hardware and software configurations and queue policies.
*NERSC Aalso houses a 100200+ [[petabyte]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nersc.gov/users/storage-and-file-systems/hpss/about/|title=About|website=www.nersc.gov|language=en|access-date=2018-02-08}}</ref> [[High Performance Storage System]] (HPSS) installation for [[Archive|archival]] storage. In use since 1998, HPSS is a modern, flexible, performance-oriented [[mass storage]] system. NERSC was one of the original developers of HPSS, alongin withuse fivesince other1998. DOE labs and [[IBM]].▼The second phase<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nersc.gov/users/computational-systems/cori/configuration/cori-intel-xeon-phi-nodes/|title=Cori Intel Xeon Phi (KNL) Nodes|website=www.nersc.gov|language=en|access-date=2018-02-09}}</ref> of Cori, installed in summer 2016,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/nersc-center-news/2016/cori-supercomputer-now-fully-installed-at-berkeley-lab/|title=Cori Supercomputer Now Fully Installed at Berkeley Lab|website=www.nersc.gov|language=en|access-date=2018-02-09}}</ref> added another 52 cabinets and more than 9,300 nodes with second-generation [[Intel Xeon Phi]] processors (code-named Knights Landing, or KNL for short), making Cori the largest{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}} supercomputing system for open science based on KNL processors. With 68 active physical cores on each KNL and 32 on each Haswell processor, Cori has almost 700,000 [[Processor core|processor cores]]. The two phases of Cori are integrated via the Cray Aries interconnect, which has a dragonfly [[network topology]] that provides scalable [[Bandwidth (computing)|bandwidth]].
Cori features a Burst Buffer based on the Cray DataWarp technology. The Burst Buffer, a 1.5 PB layer of [[Non-volatile random-access memory|NVRAM]] storage, sits between compute node memory and Cori's 30-[[petabyte]] Lustre parallel scratch [[file system]]. The burst buffer provides about 1.5 TB/sec of [[Input/output|I/O]] bandwidth, more than twice that of the scratch file system. NERSC has also added software-defined [[wikt:networking|networking]] features to Cori to more efficiently move data in and out of the system, giving users end-to-end connectivity and bandwidth for real-time data analysis, and a real-time queue for time-sensitive analyses of data.
NERSC used to run a system called Edison, a [[Cray XC30]] named in honor of American inventor and scientist [[Thomas Edison]], which has a peak performance of 2.57 petaflop/s. Fully installed in 2014, Edison consists of 133,824 compute cores for running scientific applications, 357 [[terabytes]] of memory, and 7.56 petabytes of online disk storage with a peak I/O bandwidth of 168 [[Gigabyte|gigabytes]] (GB) per second. Edison was replaced by Perlmutter. In May 2019, the computer was shutdown and shipped back to Cray.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/nersc-center-news/2019/edison-supercomputer-to-retire-after-five-years-of-service/|title = NERSC's Edison Supercomputer to Retire after Five Years of Service}}</ref>
Other systems at NERSC include:
* PDSF, a networked [[distributed computing]] cluster designed primarily to meet the detector simulation and data analysis requirements of physics, astrophysics and nuclear science collaborations. PDSF is the longest continually operating [[Linux]] cluster in the world.
* Genepool, an Intel-based cluster dedicated to the computing needs of the DOE [[Joint Genome Institute]].
▲* A 100 [[petabyte]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nersc.gov/users/storage-and-file-systems/hpss/about/|title=About|website=www.nersc.gov|language=en|access-date=2018-02-08}}</ref> [[High Performance Storage System]] (HPSS) installation for [[Archive|archival]] storage. In use since 1998, HPSS is a modern, flexible, performance-oriented [[mass storage]] system. NERSC was one of the original developers of HPSS, along with five other DOE labs and [[IBM]].
NERSC facilities are accessible through the [[Energy Sciences Network]], or ESnet, which is also managed by [[Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory]] for the Department of Energy.
==Projects==
NERSC staff are leading a number oflead projects in computational science while also helping prepare the broader research community for the [[Exascale computing|exascale]] era. Examples are:
'''NESAP''': The NERSC Exascale Science Applications Program is a collaborative effort in which NERSC is partnering with code teams and library and tools developers to prepare critical applications to make the most effective use of Cori's manycore architecture. NESAP represents an important opportunity for researchers to prepare application codes for the new architecture and to help advance the missions of the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The NESAP partnership allows 20 projects to collaborate with NERSC, Cray, and [[Intel]] by providing access to early hardware, special training and preparation sessions with Intel and Cray staff. Eight of those 20 will also have an opportunity for a [[postdoctoral researcher]] to investigate computational science issues associated with energy-efficient manycore systems. ▼
'''Shifter''': NERSC is working to increase flexibility and usability of its [[High performance computer|HPC]] systems by enabling Docker-like [[Linux]] container technology. Developed by NERSC staff, Shifter is an [[open-source software]] tool based on [[Docker (software)|Docker]] containers that enables NERSC users to more easily analyze datasets from experimental facilities. Such containers allow an application to be packaged with its entire software stack - including some portions of the base [[Operating system|OS]] files - as well defining needed user [[environment variables]] and [[Entry point|application "entry point"]]. ▼
'''HPC4Mfg''' (High Performance Computing for Manufacturing): NERSC is one of three DOE supercomputing centers working to create an ecosystem that allows experts at DOE's national laboratories to work directly with manufacturing industry members to teach them how to adopt or advance their use of high performance computing (HPC) to address manufacturing challenges with a goal of increasing energy efficiency, reducing [[Environmental impact|environmental impacts]] and advancing [[clean energy]] technologies. The project is led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. ▼
▲'''NESAP''': The NERSC Exascale Science Applications Program is a collaborative effort in which NERSC is partneringpartners with code teams and library and toolstool developers to prepare critical applications to make the most effective use of Cori's manycore architecture. NESAP represents an important opportunity for researchers toResearchers prepare application codes for the new architecture and to help advance the missions of the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The NESAP partnership allows 20 projects to collaborate with NERSC, Cray, and [[Intel]] by providing access to early hardware, special training , and preparation sessions with Intel and Cray staff. Eight of those 20 projects will also have an opportunity for a [[postdoctoral researcher]] to investigate computational science issues associated with energy-efficient manycoremany-core systems.
==NERSC's user community== ▼In 2016, NERSC supported nearly 7,000 active users from universities, national labs and industry who used about 3 billion supercomputing hours. NERSC has users in 49 states across the U.S., as well as in 45 countries around the world.
▲'''Shifter''': NERSC is working to increase flexibility and usability of its [[High performance computer|HPC]] systems by enabling Docker-like [[Linux]] container technology. Developed by NERSC staff, Shifter is an [[open-source software]] tool based on [[Docker (software)|Docker]] containers that enables NERSC users to more easily analyze datasets from experimental facilities. Such containers allow an application to be packaged with its entire software stack - includingstack—including some portions of the base [[Operating system|OS]] filesfiles—as -well as well defining needed user [[environment variables]] and [[Entry point|application "entry point"]].
University researchers accounted for about half of all the computing time used (1.23 million) in 2016, followed by DOE labs (1.51 million), other government labs (157 million), industry (32 million) and non-profits (1 million).
▲'''HPC4Mfg''' (High Performance Computing for Manufacturing): NERSC is one of three DOE supercomputing centers working to create an ecosystem that allows experts at DOE's national laboratories to work directly with manufacturing industry members to teach them how to adopt or advance their use of high performance computing (HPC) to address manufacturing challenges with a goal of increasing energy efficiency, reducing [[ Environmental impact|environmental impactsimpact]] s and advancing [[clean energy]] technologies. The project is led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The top 10 research areas (in terms of computing time) are [[fusion energy]], [[materials science]], [[climate]], [[lattice QCD]], [[chemistry]], [[astrophysics]], [[high energy physics]], [[nuclear physics]], [[computer science]] and [[geosciences]].
▲==NERSC's user community and scientific impact==
Of the 129 universities using NERSC, the [[University of California, San Diego|University of California at San Diego]] logs the most [[Computer time|compute time]] (141 million hours) with [[University of Arizona]], [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], [[University of California, Berkeley|University of California Berkeley]], [[Princeton University]], [[University of California, Los Angeles|University of California Los Angeles]], [[University of Kentucky]], [[University of California, Irvine|University of California Irvine]], [[George Washington University]] and the [[University of Chicago]] rounding out the top 10.
In 2021 NERSC was acknowledged in more than 2,000 referenced scientific journal publications. Six Nobel Prize winning individuals or teams have used NERSC in their research.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}}
In 2022, NERSC supported nearly 9,000 users from universities, national labs, and industries and has users in 50 US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 45 countries. {{Citation needed|date=June 2023}} NERSC supported researchers from 514 colleges and universities, 26 Department of Energy National Laboratories, 52 organizations in industry, 31 small businesses, 115 other government labs, and 19 non-profit organizations.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}}
Geographically, 5,853 of NERSC's users are in [[North America]], 30 in [[South America]], 7 in [[Africa]], 335 in the [[Middle East]]/[[Asia-Pacific|Asia Pacific]] region and 662 in [[Europe]].
==References==
==External links==
*[{{official|http://www.nersc.gov/}} – NERSC main website]
*[http://www.nersc.gov/about/nersc-history/ NERSC history]
*[http://www.es.net/ ESnet]
[[Category:Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]]
[[Category:Science and technology in the San Francisco Bay Area]]
[[Category:Organizations based in Oakland, California]]
[[Category:Organizations based in Berkeley, California]]
[[Category:University and college laboratories in the United States]]
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