Imagine being a node operator for an Access Grid (AG) event when the network audio becomes distorted. What should you do? Could it be a multicasting issue?
Node operators can now detect networking problems on the Access Grid using the latest in a series of online tutorials.
Boston University, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and OSC (Ohio Supercomputer Center) are pleased to introduce "Access Grid Network Troubleshooting: A Guide for Technical Users," available on the NCSA WebCT server at webct.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8900.
This tutorial is intended for technical individuals who plan to operate an AG Node or for persons responsible for monitoring the network. It addresses the tools and methods used to determine if there is a multicast AG network problem and how to pinpoint the location of a multicast network failure. Node operators can find tips to work around identified problems to ensure successful AG events.
"Access Grid network problems are often difficult to troubleshoot,” said Shannon Schraegle, OSC Technology Specialist. “While writing this tutorial, I tried to put my previous experiences with multicast failures into a guide which will make it easier for other Node Ops to detect and report common breakdowns in the multicast network."
This tutorial and several other AG-related tutorials can be found by selecting “Access Grid In A Box Tutorials.”
This activity is sponsored by the Alliance Partners for Advanced Computational Services (PACS).>
About Boston University
Boston University, through the Center for Computational Science and the Scientific Computing and Visualization Group, is a regional leader in applications of parallel supercomputing, visualization, and networking. As a partner of the National Science Foundation-sponsored National Computational Science Alliance, Boston University's roles include: working with other partners to develop technologies needed to build an advanced distributed computing environment, coordinating education and outreach activities for the Alliance, and establishing MARINER, a regional center of high performance computing resources under the Alliance PACS. For more information, visit scv.bu.edu or ccs.bu.edu.
About NCSA
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a leader in developing and deploying cutting-edge high performance computing, networking, and information technologies. NCSA is a partner in the TeraGrid project, a National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative to build and deploy the world's largest, fastest, most comprehensive, distributed infrastructure for open scientific research. NCSA also leads the National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance), a partnership to prototype an advanced computational infrastructure for the 21st century that includes more than 50 academic, government, and industry research partners. The NSF Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program funds the Alliance. For more information, see www.ncsa.uiuc.edu.
About OSC
OSC (Ohio Supercomputer Center) is Ohio's high performance computing and networking center. The Center provides scientific computing, networking, educational outreach, and information technology resources to state and national high performance computing and networking groups. OSC empowers its academic, industrial, and government partners to make Ohio the education and technology state of the future. For more information, go to www.osc.edu.
