SC2003 - Technical Overview

The SC2003 Technical Program is the centerpiece of the conference’s scientific content. This is where we hope to "Ignite the Imagination" of attendees.

This starts with our invited presentations, including the Keynote by Donna Cox. (Note that the keynote is open to exhibitors and exhibits-only pass holders as well as technical program attendees – don’t miss this great talk!) Also, the popular State-of-the-Field talks continue this year, with topics ranging from biology through engineering to networks.

The refereed Technical Papers will present the highest-quality research in a variety of areas. This year, 60 papers were selected from 207 submissions in such areas as algorithms & programming models; computer/communication systems & input/output; Grid computing & networking; performance analysis & tools; and software systems & visualization/collaboration.

Tutorials will also be high quality, but aimed at teaching the theory and practice of supercomputing. The unprecedented number of submissions this year resulted in a wide variety of topics taught. We are particularly excited this year by the inclusion of hands-on tutorials, letting attendees try out what they’ve learned on classroom workstations or their own laptops.

Posters, which are also selected from dozens of submissions, provide a forum for ideas and results in high-performance computing and networking that are not yet developed into a full paper. These posters will be on display Tuesday through Thursday, including a reception on Tuesday evening.

For the more practical-minded, there will be invited Masterworks talks focusing on real-world projects in the areas of renewable energy and earth systems, HPC infrastructure, life sciences, and new technologies.

Several day-long Workshops will examine special areas in great depth. The Grid2003 workshop – the latest in the Grid Computing Workshop series – hosts a refereed set of presentations on distributed computation. (Note that there is an extra registration fee for this meeting.) Other workshop topics include PetaFLOPS Programming and HPC I/O.

Some areas are just too big – or controversial – to be covered by one speaker, so we will also have Birds-of-a-Feather sessions to encourage discussions and Panels to debate the issues. Highlights this year include sessions on several ongoing studies of supercomputing and the all-new Battle of the Network Stars.

SC2003 will also mark the return of SC Global, the first (and, so far, only) truly global conference. SC Global will use the collaboration capabilities of the Access Grid – itself an outgrowth of high-performance networking research – to link sites around the world into activities, including the SC Global Showcase. 17 sites on 4 continents will be making presentations, and three dozen other sites on five continents are expected to join as Satellite Sites. This year, submissions were peer-reviewed for both content merit (artistic, scientific, or both) and technical feasibility. The selected submissions ranged from systems for engineering design to projects in Native American art. All attendees – including exhibitors and exhibits-only visitors – are welcome to attend SC Global sessions.

Finally, there will be a bit of competition in the Bandwidth Challenge, HPC Challenge, Best Paper, Best Student Paper, Best Poster and Gordon Bell Prizes, as well as recognition of major accomplishments by the Sidney Fernbach and Seymour Cray awards. All of these will be awarded in a special plenary session on Thursday.

Charles Koelbel, SC2003 Technical Program Co-Chair
Barbara Horner-Miller, SC2003 Technical Program Co-Chair