Harnessing supercomputers to respond to evolving crises in real time
Supercomputers came on the scene more than 50 years ago, and their evolution is occurring at lightning speed. Emerging applications spur that evolution, from top-secret modelling of nuclear explosions in the 1960s to the current needs for predicting climate change or understanding the physics of our Universe. The ability to use supercomputers to predict and respond to incidents having a significant environmental, social and economic impact in real time as they unfold is within reach. Software solutions and efficient management of resources are needed. The 11-partner consortium of the EU-funded VESTEC project has proven the feasibility and usefulness of harnessing Europe’s supercomputers to support urgent real-time decision-making in crisis management.
Innovative Big Data fusion, data reduction and data analytics
A tremendous amount of high-velocity, real-time data can be accessed from the field to detect and monitor incidents such as forest fires or space weather events. These include sources such as social media and sensors. Data fusion techniques were developed to assimilate them. VESTEC’s innovative data reduction techniques significantly reduce both processing and storage demands and enable efficient and rapid presentation of the most essential information to decision makers. “For uncertainty estimation, we also create multiple different forecast simulations at the same time. These ensembles can then reveal additional features such as the most likely path of a forest fire within the next hour,” explains Andreas Gerndt of the German Aerospace Center and project coordinator. Perhaps the most exciting project outcome is interactive supercomputing, using multiple supercomputer resources simultaneously. It enables the integration of these high-performance Big Data analytics into running simulations to continuously and in real time enhance the accuracy of predictions and models of emerging, time-critical phenomena. Further, Gerndt adds that “different simulations such as of weather and fire conditions can be combined and analysed on the fly.”
Judicial use of supercomputing resources will enhance support
It is not easy to suspend the work of supercomputers when an urgent request for decision support occurs. VESTEC has proposed and demonstrated the value of reserving some resources on the most powerful supercomputers in Europe. If multiple supercomputers offer resources at the same time for the same incident, the impact is even greater, enabling efficient and transparent scheduling and interactive supercomputing.
Wildfires, mosquito-borne diseases, space weather – and pandemics
VESTEC demonstrated the general applicability of the solutions in three highly relevant and different use cases: wildfires, solar wind (which has a major impact on our critical infrastructure) and mosquito borne diseases, increasingly problematic due to climate change. The innovative approach for visualising Big Data to find the most dominant mosquito hotspots was warmly welcomed by experts in the field. The relevance of such a platform to further pandemics cannot be underestimated. According to Gerndt, “the German Minister for Health has presented a vision for a ‘pandemic radar’ that would include all diverse data sources and have one visual analytics dashboard. The VESTEC system with its uncertainty estimation to assess several possibilities of how the crisis might develop could become the backbone of it.” The successful demonstration of the significant impact VESTEC solutions can have on Europe’s environmental, social and economic well-being should help open the doors of high-performance computing centres for their implementation.
Keywords
VESTEC, supercomputer, Big Data, pandemic, simulations, supercomputing, crisis management, high-performance computing, space weather, wildfires
