German Gigabit Testbed Project (TIKSL)

The Deutsches Forschungsnetz (DFN) [German Research Network] has implemented various Gigabit Testbeds and provided support grants for projects to develop applications and infrastructure for the next generation science network in Germany. One such project, called TIKSL, which is the acronym for Tele-Immersion: Kollision Schwarzer Loecher [Tele Immersion: Collision of Black Holes] is a collaborative effort between the

• Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (AEI), Potsdam
• Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik (ZIB), Berlin
• Rechnumzentrum Garching (RZG), Garching

The TIKSL project, is focused on the development of remote and distributed visualization for numerical relativity projects (i.e. black hole collisions), based on the packages Cactus (simulation), Amira (visualization), and Globus (toolkit for distributed computing). Although the TIKSL project is mainly implementing their software with these packages, the tools and protocols they are developing are entirely generic.

The main goals of the TIKSL project are to provide, in the most generic way possible,

• remote start-up and control of simulations
• remote visualization
• distributed file I/O

TIKSL and Cactus

The TIKSL developers are working closely with the Cactus Team to develop the Cactus infrastructure for enabling the use of remote and distributed visualization, monitoring and steering. The TIKSL project has led to the following enhancements for Cactus:

• improved I/O layers providing
  • general downsampling (hyperslabs) of grid functions
  • streaming I/O capable of transfering simulation data either to a remote disk of through a network socket to a remote visualization package for a "live window" into a running simulation.
• addition of steerable parameters, which can be changed during a run to control the behaviour of a simulation (for example, changing IO parameters to add or remove fields, or increase the frequency of output).
• interfaces for controlling remote visualization and remote steering
• remote visualisation and remote steering thorns, such as thorn CactusConnect/HTTPD which provides basic simulation visualization, control and monitoring remotely from any web browser

TIKSL Showcase

• Live example of remote monitoring and steering of simulations
• Cactus Tutorial slides illustrating some features of Cactus developed through the TIKSL project.

TIKSL Links

• Official TIKSL web page
• For more information about this project please contact the TIKSL Team