• Enterprise Systems
  • Titan (OS/390 System)
    • OS/390 System Hardware
    • OS/390 System Software
  • EOS (Unix)
  • Windows Server Services
  • Other Services

• Scientific Systems
• Helix Systems
• Helix Hardware
• Helix Software
• ALW System
• ALW Hardware
• ALW Software
• Networks

OS/390 System Hardware

The OS/390 facility is an integrated multiprocessor complex, interconnected by shared disk storage. There are two IBM 9672 model R44 systems, each with 2 processors. Each system has two gigabytes (GB) of memory and a complement of several hundred peripheral devices.

The peripheral devices include:

OS/390 System Software

OS/390 Operating System

Unix System Hardware

Compaq AlphaServer GS60

Compaq/Digital AlphaServer GS140

Compaq/Digital AlphaServers: 1000s, 1200s, and a 4100

Sun Enterprise 250 and 420-R servers

Unix System Software

Tru64 UNIX Operating System

Sun Solaris Operating System

Installed Software (commercial)

Windows Server operating systems applications can be hosted on a series of servers that are carefully managed and monitored by CIT on a 7x24 basis. These are HP Enterprise class servers and storage arrays. This facility provides a computing environment that has been proven suitable for mission-critical, enterprise-wide applications.

Hardware

Software

Windows operating systems including Server 2003

Major components of the Microsoft Server Suite

Microsoft’s Content Management Server application in a shared Web environment

OTHER SERVICES

Co-Location services—on-and off-site—for customer-owned servers

Central Email Service (CES) —e-mail services for the NIH community

NBARS, an OS/390-based service using TSM software, providing backup and recovery for distributed data

Disaster recovery program—disaster recovery facilities and services for "critical" applications that run on Titan and EOS

Search engine services for NIH Web sites using Google

The NIH Helix Systems manage high-performance computing systems for the NIH intramural scientific community. The staff provides training, documentation and consulting for the resources on these systems. The front-end SGI Origin 2400 system (with the network name helix.nih.gov) is used for many scientific applications as well as general purpose tasks, such as reading mail, transferring files and Web browsing.

Additional systems offer special computational capabilities that enable compute-intensive scientific applications to run faster or more efficiently. An SGI Origin 3400 (nimbus.nih.gov) augments helix by running specific scientific applications or user programs that require long execution times. The SGI systems run the IRIX operating system. The NIH Biowulf Cluster (biowulf.nih.gov) is a Beowulf parallel processing system that currently has over 2000 processors. Biowulf was built by members of the Helix Systems staff and runs the Redhat Linux operating system.

Helix Systems Hardware

The front-end SGI Origin 2400 system (helix) consists of 8 processors based on the MIPS R12000 chip. Each CPU has shared access to 6 GB of memory.

The back-end SGI Origin 3400 (nimbus) consists of 32 processors based on the MIPS R14000 chip. Each CPU has shared access to 16 GB of memory and 20 GB of swap space.

The Biowulf cluster consists of over 900 dual-processor 866 MHz, 1.4 GHz, 1.8 GHz, and 2.8 GHz nodes, most with 1 GB of memory and 8 GB of disk. Each node is connected to a fast Ethernet switch (100 Mb/s). For applications that can take advantage of more memory and higher network speeds, some nodes contain as much as 4 GB of memory and others are connected to a gigabit speed network.  

Helix Systems Software
http://helix.nih.gov/apps
http://biowulf.nih.gov/apps/

In addition to the standard Unix tools for software development, text formatting, and network communications, software packages include:

Scientific Applications

The Advanced Laboratory Workstation (ALW) System is a general-purpose, open, distributed computing system. All Advanced Laboratory Workstations are interconnected by the NIH campus-wide network, which they use to share resources and access services. The AFS file system provides distributed file services.

ALW System Hardware

Client workstations

ALW Application Software

Image processing

NIHnet

NIHnet is the NIH backbone network that interconnects the Institutes and Centers (ICs), local area networks (LANs), and the NIH Computer Center with the Internet, Internet2, HHS operating divisions, and other government agencies. It controls access between the ICs and between NIH and the outside world. Information carried by NIHnet includes biomedical, clinical, and administrative data. NIHnet is a wide area network (WAN) comprised of a physical infrastructure of cable, optical fiber, routers and switches; network management control systems, servers, and workstations. This infrastructure supports the NIHnet operation; wireless access points; and security control systems which include firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), content filtering systems, and virus detectors.

Internet

The Internet is a worldwide system of computer networks that allows computers from one network to connect to resources on other networks. The most widely used features of the Internet are the World Wide Web and electronic mail. NIHnet maintains physically and logically diverse connections to the Internet in order to ensure high availability.

Internet2 and Abilene

Internet2 is a consortium led by over 200 universities in partnership with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies. The Abilene network, created by Internet2, is a high performance backbone network that interconnects the NIHnet with universities and research centers at speeds which exceed the capability of the Internet.

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