Initiated the National HPCC Software Exchange

Objective: The National HPCC Software Exchange (NHSE) is being established to facilitate the development and distribution of software enabling technologies for high performance computing. The project has the following goals:

  • Promote wide availability of high-quality, public-domain software for high performance computers.
  • Promote software reuse.
  • Enlist active participation by HPCC Grand Challenge Teams from many government agencies and other research scientists, both in contributing to and in using the NHSE.
  • Promote collaboration and information sharing between universities, research laboratories, and industry.
  • Promote technology transfer and software capitalization.

    • Approach: The ESS Project will use existing and emerging software exchange technology to provide access to algorithms, applications, and software tools to the US user community via the Internet. NASA's HPCC Program, through the ESS Project, will also support the development of new and innovative ways to use the Internet in providing the national HPCC community the ability to find and retrieve the results of software development efforts wherever they are available. In conjunction with other Federal Agencies, the ESS project will support the establishment of a national, Internet based mechanism for publishing, archiving, and validating new algorithms, applications, and software tools.

    Accomplishments: NASA is the lead Agency in developing the National HPCC Software Exchange in conjunction with support from seven other HPCC Agencies. To support the NHSE, NASA has awarded a grant to the Center for Research in Parallel Computing at Rice University for the establishment of the necessary infrastructure, and the development of new software repository mechanisms, interfaces, search tools, and validation procedures to enable a scalable, national software sharing environment. The NHSE Principal Investigators are J.Dongarra/University of Tennessee and ORNL, G.Fox/Syracuse, K.Kennedy/Rice, J.Pool/Caltech, and R.Stevens/ANL. The prototype Software Exchange can be accessed through URL http://www.netlib.org/nse/home.html. Comments and suggestions can be sent to .

    Significance: By fostering sharing of ideas, as they are expressed through software products, the HPCC community is expected to be able progress more rapidly towards the goals of the HPCC Program than would otherwise be possible via current means of dissemination.

    Status/Plans: With continued support from NASA, and theoother Federal Agencies participating in the HPCC Program, the National HPCC Software Exchange will evolve from its prototype stage into a fully operational entity by the close of 1996.

    Point of Contact:

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    curator: Larry Picha