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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 55 records · Page 3

The use of price-based demand response as a resource in electricity system planning

Utilities have conducted IRP for decades to consider both supply- and demand-side resources to meet bulk power system needs. More recently, an increasing number of states are requiring regulated utilities to file plans that identify distribution system needs, including DERs that can avoid or defer certain types of traditional utility investments cost-effectively. Price-based demand response (DR) is an underutilized resource that could substantially contribute to load flexibility. We find that evaluation of price-based DR as a solution to meet identified electricity system needs is uncommon at both planning processes. Where price-based DR is considered as a solution, methodologies are often deficient in the characterization and treatment of this resource. Based on our analysis of utility filings and state requirements, this brief provides recommendations for improving consideration of price-based DR in the context of long-term planning for bulk power and distribution systems.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Stochastic Petri net analysis of a replicated file system

A stochastic Petri-net model of a replicated file system is presented for a distributed environment where replicated files reside on different hosts and a voting algorithm is used to maintain consistency. Witnesses, which simply record the status of the file but contain no data, can be used in addition to or in place of files to reduce overhead. A model sufficiently detailed to include file status (current or out-of-date), as well as failure and repair of hosts where copies or witnesses reside, is presented. The number of copies and witnesses is a parameter of the model. Two different majority protocols are examined, one where a majority of all copies and witnesses is necessary to form a quorum, and the other where only a majority of the copies and witnesses on operational hosts is needed. The latter, known as adaptive voting, is shown to increase file availability in most cases.

Bechta Dugan, Joanne↗

A fully unprivileged CernVM-FS

The CernVM File System provides the software and container distribution backbone for most High Energy and Nuclear Physics experiments. It is implemented as a file system in user-space (Fuse) module, which permits its execution without any elevated privileges. Yet, mounting the file system in the first place is handled by a privileged suid helper program that is installed by the Fuse package on most systems. The privileged nature of the mount system call is a serious hindrance to running CernVM-FS on opportunistic resource and supercomputers. Fortunately, recent developments in the Linux kernel and in the Fuse user-space libraries enabled fully unprivileged mounting for Fuse file systems (as of RHEL 8), or at least outsourcing the privileged mount system call to a custom, external process. This opens the door to several, very appealing new ways to use CernVM-FS, such as a generally usable “super pilot” consisting of the pilot code bundled with Singularity and CernVM-FS, or the on-demand instantiation of unprivileged, ephemeral containers to publish new CernVM-FS content from anywhere. In this contribution, we discuss the integration of these new Linux features with CernVM-FS and show some of its most promising, new applications.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Recent evolutions in the LTDP CDF project

In the latest years, CNAF (the national center of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics INFN dedicated to Research and Development on Information and Communication Technologies) has been working on the Long Term Data Preservation (LTDP) project for the CDF experiment, active at Fermilab from 1990 to 2011. The main aims of the project are to protect the most relevant part of the CDF RUN-2 data collected between 2001 and 2011 and already stored on tape at CNAF (4 PB), as well as to ensure the availability and the access to the analysis facility to those data over time. Lately, the CDF database, hosting information about CDF datasets such as their structure, file locations and metadata, has been imported from Fermilab to CNAF. Also, the Sequential Access via Metadata (SAM) station data handling tool for CDF data management, that allows to manage data transfers and to retrieve information from the CDF database, has been properly installed and configured at CNAF. This was a fundamental step in the perspective of a complete decommissioning of CDF services on Fermilab side. An access system has been designed and tested to submit CDF analysis jobs, using CDF software distributed via CERN Virtual Machine File System (CVMFS) and requesting delivery of CDF files stored on CNAF tapes, as well as data present only on Fermilab storage archive. Moreover, the availability and the correctness of all CDF data stored on CNAF tapes has been verified. This paper describes all these recent evolutions in detail, presenting the future plans for the LTDP project at CNAF.

Fornari, Federico↗

Analysis of the access patterns at GSFC distributed active archive center

The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) has been operational for more than two years. Its mission is to support existing and pre Earth Observing System (EOS) Earth science datasets, facilitate the scientific research, and test Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) concepts. Over 550,000 files and documents have been archived, and more than six Terabytes have been distributed to the scientific community. Information about user request and file access patterns, and their impact on system loading, is needed to optimize current operations and to plan for future archives. To facilitate the management of daily activities, the GSFC DAAC has developed a data base system to track correspondence, requests, ingestion and distribution. In addition, several log files which record transactions on Unitree are maintained and periodically examined. This study identifies some of the users' requests and file access patterns at the GSFC DAAC during 1995. The analysis is limited to the subset of orders for which the data files are under the control of the Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) Unitree. The results show that most of the data volume ordered was for two data products. The volume was also mostly made up of level 3 and 4 data and most of the volume was distributed on 8 mm and 4 mm tapes. In addition, most of the volume ordered was for deliveries in North America although there was a significant world-wide use. There was a wide range of request sizes in terms of volume and number of files ordered. On an average 78.6 files were ordered per request. Using the data managed by Unitree, several caching algorithms have been evaluated for both hit rate and the overhead ('cost') associated with the movement of data from near-line devices to disks. The algorithm called LRU/2 bin was found to be the best for this workload, but the STbin algorithm also worked well.

Johnson, Theodore↗

Optimal dynamic control of resources in a distributed system

The authors quantitatively formulate the problem of controlling resources in a distributed system so as to optimize a reward function and derive optimal control strategies using Markov decision theory. The control variables treated are quite general; they could be control decisions related to system configuration, repair, diagnostics, files, or data. Two algorithms for resource control in distributed systems are derived for time-invariant and periodic environments, respectively. A detailed example to demonstrate the power and usefulness of the approach is provided.

Shin, Kang G.↗

NASA EOSDIS Data Usage Metrics- Insight and Assessment

NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project collects Earth science data usage metrics on a daily basis through the ESDIS Metrics System (EMS). This includes metrics on distribution of data products, users, data volumes, and number of files, which are key parameters in evaluating system-level performance of any of the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) encompassed by NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS). EOSDIS data usage metrics illustrate the benefits of making NASA data openly available to the public and show a rapid growth in data distribution to a worldwide user community. In fact, each year since 2014 the EOSDIS has distributed over one billion data files of products from EOS satellite, airborne, and in situ observations. An assessment of the long-term trends of data usage metrics and user characterization provides insights into data usability.This study will focus on describing the EMS as a metrics collection tool and will provide a comprehensive analysis of EOSDIS data usage metrics over the last 10 years. This study will also characterize the product distribution metrics by various tools and services, such as Giovanni, the Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol (OPeNDAP), and subsets, to address how these tools/services have extended the usage of data in the EOSDIS collection. Data usage patterns based on discipline and study area will further assist in understanding how EOSDIS data user needs have evolved over time. Results from this study will provide useful information for the DAACs that can help them improve the functionality of their tools and services as well as more efficiently allocate the resources necessary for enhanced access and availability of their data products. Knowledge of these metrics may also benefit user discovery of data in the EOSDIS collection, promote research collaboration, and stimulate new ideas from work and research conducted using specific datasets and data collections.

Kafle, Durga N.↗

Distributed Virtual System (DIVIRS) project

As outlined in the continuation proposal 92-ISI-50R (revised) on NASA cooperative agreement NCC 2-539, the investigators are developing software, including a system manager and a job manager, that will manage available resources and that will enable programmers to develop and execute parallel applications in terms of a virtual configuration of processors, hiding the mapping to physical nodes; developing communications routines that support the abstractions implemented; continuing the development of file and information systems based on the Virtual System Model; and incorporating appropriate security measures to allow the mechanisms developed to be used on an open network. The goal throughout the work is to provide a uniform model that can be applied to both parallel and distributed systems. The authors believe that multiprocessor systems should exist in the context of distributed systems, allowing them to be more easily shared by those that need them. The work provides the mechanisms through which nodes on multiprocessors are allocated to jobs running within the distributed system and the mechanisms through which files needed by those jobs can be located and accessed.

Schorr, Herbert↗

Striped Data Analysis Framework

A columnar data representation is known to be an efficient way for data storage, specifically in cases when the analysis is often done based only on a small fragment of the available data structures. A data representation like Apache Parquet is a step forward from a columnar representation, which splits data horizontally to allow for easy parallelization of data analysis. Based on the general idea of columnar data storage, working on the [LDRD Project], we have developed a striped data representation, which, we believe, is better suited to the needs of High Energy Physics data analysis. A traditional columnar approach allows for efficient data analysis of complex structures. While keeping all the benefits of columnar data representations, the striped mechanism goes further by enabling easy parallelization of computations without requiring special hardware. We will present an implementation and some performance characteristics of such a data representation mechanism using a distributed no-SQL database or a local file system, unified under the same API and data representation model. The representation is efficient and at the same time simple so that it allows for a common data model and APIs for wide range of underlying storage mechanisms such as distributed no-SQL databases and local file systems. Striped storage adopts Numpy arrays as its basic data representation format, which makes it easy and efficient to use in Python applications. The Striped Data Server is a web service, which allows to hide the server implementation details from the end user, easily exposes data to WAN users, and allows to utilize well known and developed data caching solutions to further increase data access efficiency. We are considering the Striped Data Server as the core of an enterprise scale data analysis platform for High Energy Physics and similar areas of data processing. We have been testing this architecture with a 2TB dataset from a CMS dark matter search and plan to expand it to multiple 100 TB or even PB scale. We will present the striped format, Striped Data Server architecture and performance test results.

Gutsche, Oliver↗

Distributed Virtual System (DIVIRS) Project

As outlined in our continuation proposal 92-ISI-50R (revised) on contract NCC 2-539, we are (1) developing software, including a system manager and a job manager, that will manage available resources and that will enable programmers to program parallel applications in terms of a virtual configuration of processors, hiding the mapping to physical nodes; (2) developing communications routines that support the abstractions implemented in item one; (3) continuing the development of file and information systems based on the virtual system model; and (4) incorporating appropriate security measures to allow the mechanisms developed in items 1 through 3 to be used on an open network. The goal throughout our work is to provide a uniform model that can be applied to both parallel and distributed systems. We believe that multiprocessor systems should exist in the context of distributed systems, allowing them to be more easily shared by those that need them. Our work provides the mechanisms through which nodes on multiprocessors are allocated to jobs running within the distributed system and the mechanisms through which files needed by those jobs can be located and accessed.

Schorr, Herbert↗

DIstributed VIRtual System (DIVIRS) project

As outlined in our continuation proposal 92-ISI-. OR (revised) on NASA cooperative agreement NCC2-539, we are (1) developing software, including a system manager and a job manager, that will manage available resources and that will enable programmers to develop and execute parallel applications in terms of a virtual configuration of processors, hiding the mapping to physical nodes; (2) developing communications routines that support the abstractions implemented in item one; (3) continuing the development of file and information systems based on the Virtual System Model; and (4) incorporating appropriate security measures to allow the mechanisms developed in items 1 through 3 to be used on an open network. The goal throughout our work is to provide a uniform model that can be applied to both parallel and distributed systems. We believe that multiprocessor systems should exist in the context of distributed systems, allowing them to be more easily shared by those that need them. Our work provides the mechanisms through which nodes on multiprocessors are allocated to jobs running within the distributed system and the mechanisms through which files needed by those jobs can be located and accessed.

Schorr, Herbert↗

DIstributed VIRtual System (DIVIRS) project

As outlined in our continuation proposal 92-ISI-50R (revised) on NASA cooperative agreement NCC2-539, we are (1) developing software, including a system manager and a job manager, that will manage available resources and that will enable programmers to develop and execute parallel applications in terms of a virtual configuration of processors, hiding the mapping to physical nodes; (2) developing communications routines that support the abstractions implemented in item one; (3) continuing the development of file and information systems based on the Virtual System Model; and (4) incorporating appropriate security measures to allow the mechanisms developed in items 1 through 3 to be used on an open network. The goal throughout our work is to provide a uniform model that can be applied to both parallel and distributed systems. We believe that multiprocessor systems should exist in the context of distributed systems, allowing them to be more easily shared by those that need them. Our work provides the mechanisms through which nodes on multiprocessors are allocated to jobs running within the distributed system and the mechanisms through which files needed by those jobs can be located and accessed.

Schorr, Herbert↗

ISIS and META projects

ISIS and META are two distributed systems projects at Cornell University. The ISIS project, has developed a new methodology, virtual synchrony, for writing robust distributed software. This approach is directly supported by the ISIS Toolkit, a programming system that is distributed to over 300 academic and industrial sites. Several interesting applications that exploit the strengths of ISIS, including an NFS-compatible replicated file system, are being developed. The META project, is about distributed control in a soft real time environment incorporating feedback. This domain encompasses examples as diverse as monitoring inventory and consumption on a factory floor and performing load-balancing on a distributed computing system. One of the first uses of META is for distributed application management: the tasks of configuring a distributed program, dynamically adapting to failures, and monitoring its performance. Recent progress and current plans are presented. This approach to distributed computing, a philosophy that is believed to significantly distinguish the work from that of others in the field, is explained.

Birman, Kenneth↗

Videofile for Law Enforcement

Components of a videotape storage and retrieval system originally developed for NASA have been adapted as a tool for law enforcement agencies. Ampex Corp., Redwood City, Cal., built a unique system for NASA-Marshall. The first application of professional broadcast technology to computerized record-keeping, it incorporates new equipment for transporting tapes within the system. After completing the NASA system, Ampex continued development, primarily to improve image resolution. The resulting advanced system, known as the Ampex Videofile, offers advantages over microfilm for filing, storing, retrieving, and distributing large volumes of information. The system's computer stores information in digital code rather than in pictorial form. While microfilm allows visual storage of whole documents, it requires a step before usage--developing the film. With Videofile, the actual document is recorded, complete with photos and graphic material, and a picture of the document is available instantly.

Source record↗

Information Metacatalog for a Grid

SWIM is a Software Information Metacatalog that gathers detailed information about the software components and packages installed on a grid resource. Information is currently gathered for Executable and Linking Format (ELF) executables and shared libraries, Java classes, shell scripts, and Perl and Python modules. SWIM is built on top of the POUR framework, which is described in the preceding article. SWIM consists of a set of Perl modules for extracting software information from a system, an XML schema defining the format of data that can be added by users, and a POUR XML configuration file that describes how these elements are used to generate periodic, on-demand, and user-specified information. Periodic software information is derived mainly from the package managers used on each system. SWIM collects information from native package managers in FreeBSD, Solaris, and IRX as well as the RPM, Perl, and Python package managers on multiple platforms. Because not all software is available, or installed in package form, SWIM also crawls the set of relevant paths from the File System Hierarchy Standard that defines the standard file system structure used by all major UNIX distributions. Using these two techniques, the vast majority of software installed on a system can be located. SWIM computes the same information gathered by the periodic routines for specific files on specific hosts, and locates software on a system given only its name and type.

Kolano, Paul↗

Development of Secondary Archive System at Goddard Space Flight Center Version 0 Distributed Active Archive Center

The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) version 0 Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) has been developed to support existing and pre Earth Observing System (EOS) Earth science datasets, facilitate the scientific research, and test EOS data and information system (EOSDIS) concepts. To ensure that no data is ever lost, each product received at GSFC DAAC is archived on two different media, VHS and digital linear tape (DLT). The first copy is made on VHS tape and is under the control of UniTree. The second and third copies are made to DLT and VHS media under a custom built software package named 'Archer'. While Archer provides only a subset of the functions available with commercial software like UniTree, it supports migration between near-line and off-line media and offers much greater performance and flexibility to satisfy the specific needs of a data center. Archer is specifically designed to maximize total system throughput, rather than focusing on the turn-around time for individual files. The commercial off the shelf software (COTS) hierarchical storage management (HSM) products evaluated were mainly concerned with transparent, interactive, file access to the end-user, rather than a batch-orientated, optimizable (based on known data file characteristics) data archive and retrieval system. This is critical to the distribution requirements of the GSFC DAAC where orders for 5000 or more files at a time are received. Archer has the ability to queue many thousands of file requests and to sort these requests into internal processing schedules that optimize overall throughput. Specifically, mount and dismount, tape load and unload cycles, and tape motion are minimized. This feature did not seem to be available in many COTS pacages. Archer also uses a generic tar tape format that allows tapes to be read by many different systems rather than the proprietary format found in most COTS packages. This paper discusses some of the specific requirements at GSFC DAAC, the motivations for implementing the Archer system, and presents a discussion of the Archer design that resulted.

Sherman, Mark↗

Usage analysis of user files in UNIX

Presented is a user-oriented analysis of short term file usage in a 4.2 BSD UNIX environment. The key aspect of this analysis is a characterization of users and files, which is a departure from the traditional approach of analyzing file references. Two characterization measures are employed: accesses-per-byte (combining fraction of a file referenced and number of references) and file size. This new approach is shown to distinguish differences in files as well as users, which cam be used in efficient file system design, and in creating realistic test workloads for simulations. A multi-stage gamma distribution is shown to closely model the file usage measures. Even though overall file sharing is small, some files belonging to a bulletin board system are accessed by many users, simultaneously and otherwise. Over 50% of users referenced files owned by other users, and over 80% of all files were involved in such references. Based on the differences in files and users, suggestions to improve the system performance were also made.

Devarakonda, Murthy V.↗