What is NASA doing to ensure that Columbia stays up-to-date and state-of-the-art?
Thigpen: We’re right in the middle of a NAS technology refresh, where we’re looking at what the next generation of system is going to be. Basically there are three technologies that are very promising that we are looking at right now. Within the next month, probably, we should make a decision on where that is going to go. We’re looking at a follow-on, basically, to Columbia, with the Columbia technology. We’re also looking at IBM’s next technology, which is the POWER Series computer. We’re looking at the POWER6, which is coming out this year. And then we’re also looking at a more standard cluster based on the Xeon processor. That would be a Quad-Core processor, and those look real promising right now. NTB: What about security? I would think one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers would be a very attractive target for hackers and spies. How do you protect a system like that from unwanted intruders? Thigpen: We’re pretty much attacked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We have multip
