Maine CyberInfrastructure Gap

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Maine CyberInfrastructure Gap

• EPSCoR Cyberinfrastructure Workshop
• Lexington, Kentucky
• Oct. 15-16, 2007

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The CI Gap in Maine

• Two Questions to be answered
• How big is the CI gap in Maine?
• Network Infrastructure
• Compute Resources
• How can we close it?

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(No Transcript)
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In a NutshellWheres the Network?
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Network Infrastructure

• State Level View
• No National Carrier in Maine
• At least not north of Portland
• Verizon selling off assets to FairPoint
• Primarily small local TelCos with
• A strong desire to help foster RE in the state
• Little ability to make large capital investments
• Minimal knowledge of advanced network technologies

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Network Infrastructure

• The University has teamed with private research
  institutions in Maine to attempt to fill the gap
• State Government has stepped up to the plate
• Contributed almost 5 M toward RE network
• NIH awarded 250K to connect Maine IDeA/INBRE
  sites

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Maines Facilities-based Optical Network
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Maines Compute Resources

• The good news
• World class cluster supercomputer

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More good news

• Every middle schooler has a laptop

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More good news

• Active group of computer modeling-based
  researchers
• Linkages between research and education
• Investments in equipment allow us to almost stay
  on the curve for processing power

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And of course, the bad news

• Operation costs are difficult to cover
• Power
• Cooling
• System administration
• Repairs
• Sharing resources is difficult
• Many small clusters with their own administrator
  (or a researcher also doing system
  administration)
• Ownership
• Networking

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The CI Gap for Maine

• Maine needs optical network connectivity to a
  national RE backbone to maximize potential
• 50 - 80 miles from Maines southern border to
  closest US regional (NEREN) or national (I2/NLR)
  optical network
• 50 - 70 miles from Maines eastern border to
  closest CANARIE PoP (Fredericton)
• Maine is part of the thruway, not the end of the
  road

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The CI Gap for Maine

• Pockets of computation
• Sharing is difficult
• Network
• Ownership
• Security
• Keeping data safe
• Warm fuzzy feelings at being able to touch a
  machine
• Nobody wants to pay operations costs, so everyone
  pays too much.

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Closing the gap (its not all money)

• Network bandwidth, remote must be as responsive
  as local.
• Nobody wants to pay operations costs, so everyone
  pays too much.
• The price of the hardware is not the cost of the
  system.
• Economy of scale can get much more bang for the
  buck.