NERSC Center Groups

For contact information, see Contact Us.

Center Administration

Control Room, Operations and ESnet Support

The Control Room, Operations and ESnet Support Group is responsible for the operation of all equipment in NERSC's High Performance Computing Department; maintenance and operation of the data storage system; and monitoring of computers, operation systems, and the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) communication networks. The group is available to assist researchers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Future Technologies

The Future Technologies Group performs research and development on infrastructure for scientific computing. They track developments in commercial technology relevant to HPC and identify software and technologiesthat may be important to NERSC in the 1-5 year timeframe.

Mass Storage

The Mass Storage Group is responsible for management, maintenance, and future planning and development of NERSC's data storage systems and distributed file systems. Their responsibilities include assessment and development of storage hardware and software as well as evaluation and integration of new storage technologies.

Networking, Security and Servers

The Networking team is responsible for NERSC's local area network infrastructure. They configure and maintain the routers and switches and work with ESnet to improve wide are network access to user sites. The Security team is responsible for NERSC's security configuration and for compliance with DOE and Berkeley Lab security requirements. They configure and operate intrusion detection systems and respond to security incidents. The Server team is responsible for the 24 by 7 support of the NERSC servers, which serve Web, NIM Account Management, Grid, Software Licensing, Email, Networking, Security and other services.

Scientific Computing Support

The Scientific Computing Group works on diverse scientific applications in the areas of Astrophysics, Atmospheric and Ocean Modeling, Data Intensive Computing, Material Sciences, Nanosciences, Numerical Linear Algebra and Parallel Programming Environments and Software Tools. Thier goal is to advance scientific computing by developing and enhancing applications in key disciplines, as well as developing tools and libraries for addressing general problems in computational science.

Systems Support

Advanced Systems: Jim Craw, Group Lead   [staff]

The Advanced Systems Group conducts path finding, charting, and vetting of new developments in high performance computer architecture and system technology to assess their usefulness in the NERSC computing environent. The group is also responsible for preparing advanced systems for production, and for managing, benchmarking, and beta testing these systems. Other services include operating system enhancement for production systems and intersystem performance evaluation.

Computational Systems: Jim Craw, Group Lead   [staff]

The Computational Systems Group is responsible for developing and managing NERSC's computational infrastructure. Their responsibilities include assessing and developing hardware and software, as well as overseeing the installation and configuration of new systems.

PDSF Systems: Shane Canon, Team Lead   [staff]

The PDSF Systems Group is responsible for developing and managing the PDSF's computing infrastructure. Their responsibilities include assessing and developing hardware and software, as well as overseeing the installation and configuration of new hardware.

User Services

The User Services Group is the user community's primary point of contact with NERSC. This group is responsible for problem management and consulting; help with user code optimization and debugging; strategic project support; documentation; online, remote, and classroom training; and third-party applications and library support. User Services also supplies user account and allocations management support; and maintains and makes enhancements to the NERSC Information Management (NIM) system, including database management, client server code, and PHP web front end.

Visualization Services

The primary focus of the NERSC Visualization Group is to provide visualization solutions to the NERSC user community. Visualization capabilities, which offer the ability to better understand complex phenomena "hidden" in scientific data, span the range from "know how" applied to off-the-shelf commercial software through advanced development to realize new solutions where none previously existed.