Concepts for scaling the processing capability of the MODIS data processing System (MODAPS)

The current MODIS processing system (MODAPS), an 80 processor SGI Origin 2000 has proven effective in generating over 500 GB/day of MODIS science products. However its high per processor cost limits the computational resources available for reprocessing these science products. Based on previous missions, the production system should have at least 6 times the capacity needed to keep up with daily production rather than the 2.5 times provided by the current architecture. This paper describes ongoing prototyping studies with clusters of Linux based workstations connected to the central SGI Origin server. A cluster of many inexpensive workstations for swath-based processing connected to a large central server for holding intermediate products and producing global gridded products benefits from both the scalable I/O of the central host, and the cost savings per processor of the commodity workstations