Jetstream – performance, early experiences, and early results

Abstract

Jetstream is a first-of-a-kind system for the NSF - a distributed production cloud resource. The NSF awarded funds to create Jetstream in November 2014. Here we review the purpose for creating Jetstream, present the acceptance test results that define Jetstream’s key characteristics, describe our experiences in standing up an OpenStack-based cloud environment, and share some of the early scientific results that have been obtained by researchers and students using this system. Jetstream offers unique capability within the XSEDE-supported US national cyberinfrastructure, delivering interactive virtual machines (VMs) via the Atmosphere interface developed by the University of Arizona. As a multi-region deployment that operates as a single integrated system, Jetstream is proving effective in supporting modes and disciplines of research traditionally underrepresented on larger XSEDE-supported clusters and supercomputers. Already, researchers in biology, network science, economics, earth science, and computer science have used Jetstream to perform research – much of it research in the “long tail of science.”