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SCCS Takes Decision to Install Additional Sun Microsystems Blackbox at SLAC

Growing demand for computing power spurred the decision to obtain a second Sun Microsystems Blackbox at SLAC. To meet significant amounts of streaming data from ATLAS and GLAST simulation and mock data challenges, as well as BaBar's final data, a second Blackbox has been secured adjacent to the first one, installed last year behind the electrical substation at Building 50.

The largely self-contained data center is an efficient way to boost SLAC's overall computing capacity and is quicker and easier than building additional building space.

"We needed the additional capacity this year," Scientific Computing and Commuting Services (SCCS) Assistant Director Chuck Boeheim said. "With the first Blackbox working out very well, we invested in a second to meet increasing need."

Unlike the first Black Box, this time SLAC employees bought the computers separately and installed the 262 processing units themselves. This decision saved a significant amount of money.

"Typically somebody will submit hundreds of jobs to our systems," Boeheim explained. "At any time there are 4,000–5,000 jobs in execution with backlogs of thousands more."

With the upgrade, scientists can run 1,048 more jobs simultaneously—each job being equivalent to the run of a program with a given set of input data.

SCCS plans to complete the electrical hookups to the Blackbox on April 15. The computers will go into operation later in the month after software installation, configuration and testing are completed.

About Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope
The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is a future space-based gamma-ray telescope, designed to explore the high-energy Universe. It will study astrophysical and cosmological phenomena such as active galactic nuclei, pulsars, other high-energy sources, and dark matter. GLAST is a joint venture of NASA, the United States Department of Energy, and government agencies in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Sweden.

On February 8, 2008 NASA announced it was seeking suggestions for a new name for GLAST that, "Will capture the excitement of GLAST's mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy."

GLAST includes two scientific instruments, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) and the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM). The LAT is an imaging gamma-ray detector which detects photons with energy from about 30 million electron volts (MeV) to 300 billion electron volts (GeV). The GBM consists of 14 scintillation detectors which detect bursts of photons from 8 thousand electron volts (keV) to 30 MeV.

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems (formerly Spectrum Astro) in Gilbert, Arizona built the spacecraft that will carry the instruments. It will travel in a low, circular orbit with a period of about 95 minutes. Its normal mode of operation will maintain its orientation so that the instruments will look away from the earth, with a "rocking" motion to equalize the coverage of the sky. The view of the instruments will sweep out across most of the sky about 16 times per day. The spacecraft can also maintain an orientation that points to a chosen target.

The construction of both instruments is complete. They have undergone environmental testing, being subjected to vibration, vacuum, and high and low temperatures to ensure that they can withstand the stresses of launch and continue to operate in space. They were integrated with the spacecraft at the General Dynamics facility in Gilbert, Arizona.

Data from the instruments will be available to the public through the GLAST Science Support Center web site. Software for analyzing the data will also be available. Scientists with plans for research will be able to apply to the Guest Investigator program.

On 7 February 2008, NASA's Alan Stern, associate administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters, launched a public competition, closing 31 March 2008, to re-name GLAST in a way that would "capture the excitement of GLAST’s mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy... something memorable to commemorate this spectacular new astronomy mission... a name that is catchy, easy to say and will help make the satellite and its mission a topic of dinner table and classroom discussion."

About Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SLAC research program centers on experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle physics using electron beams and a broad program of research in atomic and solid-state physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine using synchrotron radiation. The 3.2-kilometer (2.0-mile) long underground accelerator is the longest linear accelerator in the world, and is claimed to be "the world's straightest object." SLAC's meeting facilities also provided a venue for the homebrew computer club and other pioneers of the 1980s home computer revolution, and later SLAC hosted the first webpage in the U.S. The above-ground klystron gallery atop the beamline is the longest building in the United States.

Founded in 1962, the facility is located on 1.72 square-kilometers (426 acres) of Stanford University-owned land on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California—just west from the University's main campus. The main accelerator, a 3.2-kilometer-long RF linear accelerator, which can accelerate electrons and positrons up to 50 GeV, has been operational since 1966. It is buried 10 metres (30 feet) below ground and passes underneath Interstate 280. As of 2005, SLAC employs over 1,000 people, some 150 of which are physicists with doctorate degrees, and serves over 3,000 visiting researchers yearly, operating particle accelerators for high-energy physics and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) for synchrotron light radiation research.

In figure, A second Blackbox was recently added to expand on SLAC's computational power