Feynman Computing Center Host to Newest Physics Computing Devices
Not too long ago, computing at Fermilab was characterized by giant, bulky hardware, cardboard cards punched full of holes, and noisy, troublesome machinery. Today, smaller, more reliable and sophisticated computers are in Fermilab's Feynman Computing Center. "So much has changed over the past five years," said Steve Ahlgrim (Res. Div./Compt. Dept.). "The complexity, integration, and management of different computer systems has become so complicated that if one system changes, probably so will other systems." The history of computing at Fermilab is the focus of this article, the second in a series of articles about the Feynman Computing Center.
Gerald Bellendir, (Res. Div./Compt. Dept.), noted that "We're embarking on a new computing era; there is great anticipation about the forthcoming changes in the computer field." He cited a recent event that marked the end of an era at Fermilab. "A bit of history occurred on Saturday, February 11, 1989, when three of the four Cybers in Wilson Hall were hauled off to a salvager." Ahlgrim described the scene on that day. "We brought over a 10-story crane, pulled three Cyber 175's out of Wilson Hall's eighth-story windows, and put the Cybers on a truck in the parking lot. We had to use a crane because the 175's were too large for the elevators."
Past events in Fermilab's computing history are more difficult to recall. Jeff Mack, (Res. Div./Compt. Dept.), remembers that "17 years ago, the Computing Department's central computer consisted of DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) PDP 10 systems and a handful of people in a humble portakamp near the Meson beamline. Eventually, we changed from PDP 10 as our central computer to the Cyber computing systems, and that was the beginning of our offline computing work done in a Control Data environment."
The first Control Data computer at Fermilab was a Cyber 6600 series, a large, slow, but state-of-the-art machine for that time. In the late '70s, the Lab replaced the 6600 series with Cyber 175 200-series machines. They were about equal to 24 VAX 780s in power. A few years later, Fermilab acquired a Cyber 875. In the meantime, DEC developed the VAX system and the PDP staff moved to the new VAX. "That was a big turning point for the Lab, and we're still seeing the results of the VAX architecture within the Laboratory and around the world today," Mack said.
More recently, the 1980s marked the rapid development of new computing systems at Fermilab. Early in the decade, the Computing Department recognized that the computing power of existing mainframes was inadequate. According to Charles (Chip) Kaliher, ACP (Advanced Computer Program) System Manager, "the price to buy computing power from mainframe computing engines on the market at that time was out of reach, compared to the amount of data that the Lab had to analyze." In response, the ACP group, headed by Tom Nash, was formed and charged with developing or finding a cost-effective solution that would allow the Lab to process data. The result of the group's efforts is the ACP system.
In addition to the ACP, the Lab required a more general purpose scientific computer. "Even before the new building was built, we knew that the VAX and the ACP's would incompletely meet our needs and that we had to find yet another high-performance computing engine," Bellendir said. The Department, guided by past Department Head Al Brenner and current Department Head Jeffrey Appel, launched an effort to acquire a new system. The Department's efforts culminated with the purchase of the Amdahl, which was installed in the unfinished Feynman Computing Center in May 1988. Fermilab has a number of experiments running on the first half of the Amdahl system, which is currently operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
As with past computing systems, Fermilab's new systems share the same mission: high-energy physics analysis. The key to successfully completing this mission is an ideal home: The Feynman Computing Center. In the new Center, "We have space for these systems to grow and we have better contact with the hardware," said Mack. Kaliher added that the new center meets space and design needs of the ACP system. "In Wilson Hall, the ACP's were newcomers in already limited space. We were wedged into one little comer on the seventh floor computer room. But since the move to the new building, we've added to the new system, and we can now organize and maintain the ACP's more effectively."
The challenge now facing the Computing Department is to make all of these systems not only work well by themselves, but to connect them in such a way that users can easily move about the different systems. Fortunately, the Department and Users have enough space in the Feynman Computing Center to build upon a successful past of high-energy physics computing at Fermilab.