NAMD is a parallel, object-oriented molecular dynamics code designed for high-performance simulation of large biomolecular systems. It is our hope that this project serves as an inspiration for other Grid users to bring their projects to the grid.
How to compile NAMD ?
You don't have to worry about it as the application binary is already available on the Sungrid compute utility. All you have to do is , check-out NAMD from the application catalog, create a data resource and run NAMD ! If you insist on compiling it or you need assistance in compiling NAMD on a solaris box, jeevan's blog can help you out.
How to run NAMD on Sungrid ?
If you are familiar with the sungrid, here is what is take to run the app on sungrid.
- > Place all the input data files in a directory named "data".
A
sample can be found
here .
- > Mention the number of slots you would like to run namd on in the data/slots.in file.
- > Zip the data directory and upload it as NAMD_data resource.
- > Checkout NAMD from the Application Catalog.
- > In the jobs tab, edit the NAMD catalog job and point the NAMD_data resource to the newly created namd resource.
- > Run the job and download the output.
- > Download the NAMD sample data resource from here
- > Create a Data Resource with the downloaded zip file.
- > Checkout NAMD from the Application Catalog.
- > In the Jobs Tab, edit the NAMD Job and point the "NAMD_data" resource to the one created above.
- > Save and Run the Job.
What kind of performance do you get for NAMD on the sungrid? At $1/cpu-hr, it would appear that a big simulation could get very expensive, very quickly. Have you found the sweet spot for NAMD, in terms of the optimal number of processors to use for a particular system size? I would love to use the grid, but I need some idea of what the cost might be to simulate the system I study (~28,000 atoms). Currently, running on 24 CPUs, it requires about 8 hrs to simulate 0.5 ns. Thanks in advance.
Posted by dylan on October 25, 2007 at 11:55 AM PDT #