SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “STORAGE AND NETWORKING SYSTEMS”

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.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 55 records · Page 3

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1996

Implementation of a Campuswide Distributed Mass Storage Service: the Dream Versus Reality

In 1990, a technical team at NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, began defining a Mass Storage Service to pro- wide long-term archival storage, short-term storage for very large files, distributed Network File System access, and backup services for critical data dw resides on workstations and personal computers. Because of software availability and budgets, the total service was phased in over dm years. During the process of building the service from the commercial technologies available, our Mass Storage Team refined the original vision and learned from the problems and mistakes that occurred. We also enhanced some technologies to better meet the needs of users and system administrators. This report describes our team's journey from dream to reality, outlines some of the problem areas that still exist, and suggests some solutions.

Prahst, Stephen↗

NASA NTRS1987

Computer Sciences and Data Systems, volume 2

Topics addressed include: data storage; information network architecture; VHSIC technology; fiber optics; laser applications; distributed processing; spaceborne optical disk controller; massively parallel processors; and advanced digital SAR processors.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1991

Data archiving

The viewgraphs of a discussion on data archiving presented at the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) Mass Storage Workshop is included. The mass storage system at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is described. Topics covered in the presentation include product goals, data library systems (DLS), client system commands, networks, archival devices, DLS features, client application systems, multiple mass storage devices, and system growth.

Pitts, David↗

NASA NTRS1993

Grand challenges in mass storage: A systems integrators perspective

Within today's much ballyhooed supercomputing environment, with its CFLOPS of CPU power, and Gigabit networks, there exists a major roadblock to computing success; that of Mass Storage. The solution to this mass storage problem is considered to be one of the 'Grand Challenges' facing the computer industry today, as well as long into the future. It has become obvious to us, as well as many others in the industry, that there is no clear single solution in sight. The Systems Integrator today is faced with a myriad of quandaries in approaching this challenge. He must first be innovative in approach, second choose hardware solutions that are volumetric efficient; high in signal bandwidth; available from multiple sources; competitively priced, and have forward growth extendibility. In addition he must also comply with a variety of mandated, and often conflicting software standards (GOSIP, POSIX, IEEE, MSRM 4.0, and others), and finally he must deliver a systems solution with the 'most bang for the buck' in terms of cost vs. performance factors. These quandaries challenge the Systems Integrator to 'push the envelope' in terms of his or her ingenuity and innovation on an almost daily basis. This dynamic is explored further, and an attempt to acquaint the audience with rational approaches to this 'Grand Challenge' is made.

Lee, Richard R.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Management and development of local area network upgrade prototype

Given the situation of having management and development users accessing a central computing facility and given the fact that these same users have the need for local computation and storage, the utilization of a commercially available networking system such as CP/NET from Digital Research provides the building blocks for communicating intelligent microsystems to file and print services. The major problems to be overcome in the implementation of such a network are the dearth of intelligent communication front-ends for the microcomputers and the lack of a rich set of management and software development tools.

Fouser, T. J.↗

NASA NTRS1986

A computer modeling methodology and tool for assessing design concepts for the Space Station Data Management System

A computer modeling tool is being developed to assess candidate designs for the Space Station Data Management System (DMS). The DMS is to be a complex distributed computer system including the processor, storage devices, local area networks, and software that will support all processing functions onboard the Space Station. The modeling tool will allow a candidate design for the DMS, or for other subsystems that use the DMS, to be evaluated in terms of parameters. The tool and its associated modeling methodology are intended for use by DMS and subsystem designers to perform tradeoff analyses between design concepts using varied architectures and technologies.

Jones, W. R.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Advanced satellite workstation: An integrated workstation environment for operational support of satellite system planning and analysis

A prototype integrated environment, the Advanced Satellite Workstation (ASW), is described that has been developed and delivered for evaluation and operator feedback in an operational satellite control center. The current ASW hardware consists of a Sun Workstation and Macintosh II Workstation connected via an ethernet Network Hardware and Software, Laser Disk System, Optical Storage System, and Telemetry Data File Interface. The central mission of ASW is to provide an intelligent decision support and training environment for operator/analysts of complex systems such as satellites. There have been many workstation implementations recently which incorporate graphical telemetry displays and expert systems. ASW is a considerably broader look at intelligent, integrated environments for decision support, based upon the premise that the central features of such an environment are intelligent data access and integrated toolsets. A variety of tools have been constructed in support of this prototype environment including: an automated pass planner for scheduling vehicle support activities, architectural modeler for hierarchical simulation and analysis of satellite vehicle subsystems, multimedia-based information systems that provide an intuitive and easily accessible interface to Orbit Operations Handbook and other relevant support documentation, and a data analysis architecture that integrates user modifiable telemetry display systems, expert systems for background data analysis, and interfaces to the multimedia system via inter-process communication.

Sutton, Stewart A.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Network accessible multi-terabyte archive

Features of the Rotary Storage System (RSS), developed by Metrum Information Storage, are presented in vugraph format. The RSS makes use of the T-120 Super-VHS media with 10.4 GB per cartridge. Other features of the RSS are as follows: (1) Very Large Data Store (VLDS) tape drives; (2) robots with on-line capacity to 6.2 TB; (3) bar code reader; (4) data management computer; and (5) network accessible.

Rybczynski, Fred↗

NASA NTRS2001

A Simple XML Producer-Consumer Protocol

There are many different projects from government, academia, and industry that provide services for delivering events in distributed environments. The problem with these event services is that they are not general enough to support all uses and they speak different protocols so that they cannot interoperate. We require such interoperability when we, for example, wish to analyze the performance of an application in a distributed environment. Such an analysis might require performance information from the application, computer systems, networks, and scientific instruments. In this work we propose and evaluate a standard XML-based protocol for the transmission of events in distributed systems. One recent trend in government and academic research is the development and deployment of computational grids. Computational grids are large-scale distributed systems that typically consist of high-performance compute, storage, and networking resources. Examples of such computational grids are the DOE Science Grid, the NASA Information Power Grid (IPG), and the NSF Partnerships for Advanced Computing Infrastructure (PACIs). The major effort to deploy these grids is in the area of developing the software services to allow users to execute applications on these large and diverse sets of resources. These services include security, execution of remote applications, managing remote data, access to information about resources and services, and so on. There are several toolkits for providing these services such as Globus, Legion, and Condor. As part of these efforts to develop computational grids, the Global Grid Forum is working to standardize the protocols and APIs used by various grid services. This standardization will allow interoperability between the client and server software of the toolkits that are providing the grid services. The goal of the Performance Working Group of the Grid Forum is to standardize protocols and representations related to the storage and distribution of performance data. These standard protocols and representations must support tasks such as profiling parallel applications, monitoring the status of computers and networks, and monitoring the performance of services provided by a computational grid. This paper describes a proposed protocol and data representation for the exchange of events in a distributed system. The protocol exchanges messages formatted in XML and it can be layered atop any low-level communication protocol such as TCP or UDP Further, we describe Java and C++ implementations of this protocol and discuss their performance. The next section will provide some further background information. Section 3 describes the main communication patterns of our protocol. Section 4 describes how we represent events and related information using XML. Section 5 describes our protocol and Section 6 discusses the performance of two implementations of the protocol. Finally, an appendix provides the XML Schema definition of our protocol and event information.

Smith, Warren↗

NASA NTRS2012

Modernization of B-2 Data, Video, and Control Systems Infrastructure

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC) Plum Brook Station (PBS) Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility, commonly referred to as B-2, is NASA s third largest thermal-vacuum facility with propellant systems capability. B-2 has completed a modernization effort of its facility legacy data, video and control systems infrastructure to accommodate modern integrated testing and Information Technology (IT) Security requirements. Integrated systems tests have been conducted to demonstrate the new data, video and control systems functionality and capability. Discrete analog signal conditioners have been replaced by new programmable, signal processing hardware that is integrated with the data system. This integration supports automated calibration and verification of the analog subsystem. Modern measurement systems analysis (MSA) tools are being developed to help verify system health and measurement integrity. Legacy hard wired digital data systems have been replaced by distributed Fibre Channel (FC) network connected digitizers where high speed sampling rates have increased to 256,000 samples per second. Several analog video cameras have been replaced by digital image and storage systems. Hard-wired analog control systems have been replaced by Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), fiber optic networks (FON) infrastructure and human machine interface (HMI) operator screens. New modern IT Security procedures and schemes have been employed to control data access and process control flows. Due to the nature of testing possible at B-2, flexibility and configurability of systems has been central to the architecture during modernization.

Cmar, Mark D.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Modernization of B-2 Data, Video, and Control Systems Infrastructure

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC) Plum Brook Station (PBS) Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility, commonly referred to as B-2, is NASA's third largest thermal-vacuum facility with propellant systems capability. B-2 has completed a modernization effort of its facility legacy data, video and control systems infrastructure to accommodate modern integrated testing and Information Technology (IT) Security requirements. Integrated systems tests have been conducted to demonstrate the new data, video and control systems functionality and capability. Discrete analog signal conditioners have been replaced by new programmable, signal processing hardware that is integrated with the data system. This integration supports automated calibration and verification of the analog subsystem. Modern measurement systems analysis (MSA) tools are being developed to help verify system health and measurement integrity. Legacy hard wired digital data systems have been replaced by distributed Fibre Channel (FC) network connected digitizers where high speed sampling rates have increased to 256,000 samples per second. Several analog video cameras have been replaced by digital image and storage systems. Hard-wired analog control systems have been replaced by Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), fiber optic networks (FON) infrastructure and human machine interface (HMI) operator screens. New modern IT Security procedures and schemes have been employed to control data access and process control flows. Due to the nature of testing possible at B-2, flexibility and configurability of systems has been central to the architecture during modernization.

Cmar, Mark D.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Understanding Customer Dissatisfaction with Underutilized Distributed File Servers

An important trend in the design of storage subsystems is a move toward direct network attachment. Network-attached storage offers the opportunity to off-load distributed file system functionality from dedicated file server machines and execute many requests directly at the storage devices. For this strategy to lead to better performance, as perceived by users, the response time of distributed operations must improve. In this paper we analyze measurements of an Andrew file system (AFS) server that we recently upgraded in an effort to improve client performance in our laboratory. While the original server's overall utilization was only about 3%, we show how burst loads were sufficiently intense to lead to period of poor response time significant enough to trigger customer dissatisfaction. In particular, we show how, after adjusting for network load and traffic to non-project servers, 50% of the variation in client response time was explained by variation in server central processing unit (CPU) use. That is, clients saw long response times in large part because the server was often over-utilized when it was used at all. Using these measures, we see that off-loading file server work in a network-attached storage architecture has to potential to benefit user response time. Computational power in such a system scales directly with storage capacity, so the slowdown during burst period should be reduced.

Riedel, Erik↗

NASA NTRS1993

Lost in space: Onboard star identification using CCD star tracker data without an a priori attitude

There are many algorithms in use today which determine spacecraft attitude by identifying stars in the field of view of a star tracker. Some methods, which date from the early 1960's, compare the angular separation between observed stars with a small catalog. In the last 10 years, several methods have been developed which speed up the process and reduce the amount of memory needed, a key element to onboard attitude determination. However, each of these methods require some a priori knowledge of the spacecraft attitude. Although the Sun and magnetic field generally provide the necessary coarse attitude information, there are occasions when a spacecraft could get lost when it is not prudent to wait for sunlight. Also, the possibility of efficient attitude determination using only the highly accurate CCD star tracker could lead to fully autonomous spacecraft attitude determination. The need for redundant coarse sensors could thus be eliminated at substantial cost reduction. Some groups have extended their algorithms to implement a computation intense full sky scan. Some require large data bases. Both storage and speed are concerns for autonomous onboard systems. Neural network technology is even being explored by some as a possible solution, but because of the limited number of patterns that can be stored and large overhead, nothing concrete has resulted from these efforts. This paper presents an algorithm which, by descretizing the sky and filtering by visual magnitude of the brightness observed star, speeds up the lost in space star identification process while reducing the amount of necessary onboard computer storage compared to existing techniques.

Ketchum, Eleanor A.↗

NASA NTRS2016

Technical Challenges and Lessons from the Migration of the GLOBE Data and Information System to Utilize Cloud Computing Service

The Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Data and Information System supports an international science and education program with capabilities to accept local environment observations, archive, display and visualize them along with global satellite observations. Since its inception twenty years ago, the Web and database system has been upgraded periodically to accommodate the changes in technology and the steady growth of GLOBEs education community and collection of observations. Recently, near the end-of-life of the system hardware, new commercial computer platform options were explored and a decision made to utilize Cloud services. Now the GLOBE DIS has been fully deployed and maintained using Amazon Cloud services for over two years now. This paper reviews the early risks, actual challenges, and some unexpected findings as a result of the GLOBE DIS migration. We describe the plans, cost drivers and estimates, highlight adjustments that were made and suggest improvements. We present the trade studies for provisioning, for load balancing, networks, processing, storage, as well as production, staging and backup systems. We outline the migration teams skills and required level of effort for transition, and resulting changes in the overall maintenance and operations activities. Examples include incremental adjustments to processing capacity and frequency of backups, and efforts previously expended on hardware maintenance that were refocused onto application-specific enhancements.

GLOBE↗

NASA NTRS2017

Technical Challenges and Lessons from the Migration of the GLOBE Data and Information System to Utilize Cloud Computing Service

GLOBE Data↗

NASA NTRS2004

Transitioning to Intel-based Linux Servers in the Payload Operations Integration Center

The MSFC Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) is the focal point for International Space Station (ISS) payload operations. The POIC contains the facilities, hardware, software and communication interface necessary to support payload operations. ISS ground system support for processing and display of real-time spacecraft and telemetry and command data has been operational for several years. The hardware components were reaching end of life and vendor costs were increasing while ISS budgets were becoming severely constrained. Therefore it has been necessary to migrate the Unix portions of our ground systems to commodity priced Intel-based Linux servers. hardware architecture including networks, data storage, and highly available resources. This paper will concentrate on the Linux migration implementation for the software portion of our ground system. The migration began with 3.5 million lines of code running on Unix platforms with separate servers for telemetry, command, Payload information management systems, web, system control, remote server interface and databases. The Intel-based system is scheduled to be available for initial operational use by August 2004 The overall migration to Intel-based Linux servers in the control center involves changes to the This paper will address the Linux migration study approach including the proof of concept, criticality of customer buy-in and importance of beginning with POSlX compliant code. It will focus on the development approach explaining the software lifecycle. Other aspects of development will be covered including phased implementation, interim milestones and metrics measurements and reporting mechanisms. This paper will also address the testing approach covering all levels of testing including development, development integration, IV&V, user beta testing and acceptance testing. Test results including performance numbers compared with Unix servers will be included. need for a smooth transition while maintaining real-time support. An important aspect of the paper will involve challenges and lessons learned. product compatibility, implications of phasing decisions and tracking of dependencies, particularly non- software dependencies. The paper will also discuss scheduling challenges providing real-time flight support during the migration and the requirement to incorporate in the migration changes being made simultaneously for flight support. This paper will also address the deployment approach including user involvement in testing and the , This includes COTS product compatibility, implications of phasing decisions and tracking of dependencies, particularly non- software dependencies. The paper will also discuss scheduling challenges providing real-time flight support during the migration and the requirement to incorporate in the migration changes being made simultaneously for flight support.

Guillebeau, P. L.↗

NASA NTRS1973

Simulated weightlessness in fish and neurophysiological studies on memory storage

Simulated weightlessness was used to study the different types of gravity responses in blind fish. It was found that a shift in the direction of low magnitude acceleration in weightlessness causes a rapid 180 deg turn in the blind fish, while a shift in the direction of the applied acceleration in the earth's gravitational field is not significant because of a higher acceleration magnitude threshold than during the zero g condition. This increased responsiveness seems to be explained by a combination of directional sensitivity with a Weber-Fechner relationship of increased receptor sensitivity at diminished levels of background stimulation. Neurophysical studies of the statocyst nerve of the gastropod Mollusc Pleurobranchaea Californica were undertaken in order to understand how complex otolith systems operate. Information storage was investigated on relatively simple neuronal networks in the mollusc Aplysia. Intracellular electrical stimulation of isolated neurons show that a manipulation of autoditonous rhymicity is possible. It was also found that glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation are involved in inherent rhymicity of Aplysis neurons.

Vonbaumgarten, R. J.↗

NASA NTRS1979

Object migration and authentication

The paper presents a mechanism permitting a type manager to fabricate a migrated object representation which can be entrusted to other subsystems or transmitted outside of the control of a local computer system. The migrated object representation is signed by the type manager in such a way that the type manager's signature cannot be forged and the manager is able to authenticate its own signature. Subsequently, the type manager can retrieve the migrated representation and validate its contents before reconstructing the object in its original representation. This facility allows type managers to authenticate the contents of off-line or network storage and solves problems stemming from the hierarchical structure of the system itself.

Gligor, V. D.↗