E-Research Infrastructure?

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E-Research Infrastructure?

• Markus.Buchhorn_at_anu.edu.au
• Head, ANU Internet Futures
• Grid Services Coordinator, GrangeNet
• Leader, APAC Information Infrastructure Program
• (PhD Mt Stromlo 1988-1992)

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A gentle (and fast!) overview

• Themes
• What does e-Research mean?
• What kind of infrastructure is involved?
• How is it being developed?
• What are the problems?

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e-Research infrastructure

• The use of IT to enhance research
• and education!
• Access resources transparently
• Make data readily available
• Make collaboration easier
• Is it The Grid ?
• No, and yes the Grid is a tool in the kit
• Who funds it? The Govt when building for a
  large community
• NCRIS (SIIMNRF), ARC, eResearch-CoordCtee

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ANU Internet Futures

• A cross-discipline, cross-campus applied
  research group
• e-Research infrastructure development
• Objectives
• To investigate and deploy advanced Internet-based
  technologies that support university research and
  education missions.
• Bring research-edge technologies into production
  use
• Engage with APAC, GrangeNet, ARIIC/SII, ,
  Internet2, APAN, TERENA,
• A strong focus on User Communities
• Identify common requirements

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What does Grid mean?

• Analogy with the power grid
• A standard service (AC, 240V, 50Hz)
• A standard connection
• A standard user interface
• Users do not care about
• Various generation schemes
• Deregulated market
• Power auctions
• Synchronised generators
• Transmission switching, fail-over systems
• Accounting and Billing

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What does Grid mean in IT?

• Transparent use of resources
• Distributed, and networked
• Multiple administrative domains
• Other peoples resources become available to you
• Various IT resources
• Computing, Data, Visualisation, Collaboration,
  etc.
• Hide complexity
• It should be a black box, one just plugs in.

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What are the bits in eRI?
Applications and Users
Grid, Middleware Services Layer
(Advanced) Communications Services Layer
Network Layer (Physical and Transmission)
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Whats in that middle bit?
Applications and Users
Computing
Data
Middle-ware
Collaboration
Instruments
Visualisation
(Advanced) Communications Services Layer
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Networks

• Physical networks are fundamental to link
  researchers, observational facilities, IT
  facilities
• Demand for high-(and flexible) bandwidth to every
  astronomical site
• Universities, observatories, other research
  sites/groups
• GrangeNet, AARNet3, AREN, Big city focus
• Today remote sites have wet bits of string, and
  station wagons
• At least 1-10Gigabit links soon-ish (SSO, ATCA,
  Parkes, MSO).
• Getting 10-20Gigabits internationally right now,
• including to the top of Mauna Kea in the next
  year or so
• Canada, US, NL, are building/running some
  40Gb/s today
• e-VLBI, larger detectors, remote control,
  multi-site collaboration, real-time data
  analysis/comparisons,
• Burst needs, as well as sustained.
• Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) allows for
  a lot more bandwidth (80? at 80Gb/s)

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Common Needs - Middleware

• Functionality needed by all the eRI areas
• Minimise replication of services
• Provide a standard set of interfaces
• To applications/users
• To network layer
• To grid services
• Can be built independently of other areas
• A lot of politics, policy issues enter here

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Common Needs - Middleware - 2

• Authentication
• Something you have, something you know
• Somebody vouches for you
• Certificate Authorities, Shibboleth,
• Authorisation
• Granularity of permission (resolution, slices, )
• Limits of permission (time, cycles, storage, )
• Accounting
• Billing, feedback to authorisation

Collectively called AAA
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Common Needs - Middleware - 3

• Security
• Encryption, PKI,
• AAA, Non-repudiation
• Firewalls and protocol hurdles (NATs, proxies,)
• Resource discovery
• Finding stuff on the Net
• Search engines, portals, registries, p2p mesh,
• Capability negotiation
• Can you do what I want, when I want
• Network and application signalling
• Tell the network what services we need (QoS,
  RSVP, MPLS, )
• Tell the application what the situation is
• And listen for feedback and deal with it.

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The Computational Grid

• Presume Middleware issues are solved
• Probably the main Grid activity
• Architectural Issues
• CPUs, endian-ness, executable format, libraries
  non-uniform networking Clusters vs SMP, NUMA,
• Code design
• Master/Slave, P2P Granularity (Fine-grained
  parallelism vs (coarse) parameter sweep)
• Scheduling
• Multiple owners Queuing systems Economics (How
  to select computational resources, and
  prioritise)
• During execution
• Job Monitoring and Steering Access to resources
  (Code, data, storage, )
• But if we solve all these
• Seamless access to computing resources across the
  planet.
• Harness the power of supercomputers, large-gtsmall
  clusters, and corporate/campus desktops
  (Campus-Grid)

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Computing facilities

• University computing facilities, within
  departments or centrally.
• Standout facilities.
• The APAC partnership (www.apac.edu.au)
• Qld QPSF partnership, several facilities around
  UQ, GU, QUT
• NSW ac3 (at ATP Everleigh)
• ACT ANU - APAC peak facility, upgraded in 2005
  (top 30 in the world)
• Vic VPAC (RMIT)
• SA SAPAC (U.Adelaide?)
• WA IVEC (UWA)
• Tas TPAC (U.Tas)
• Other very noteworthy facilities, such as
  Swinburne's impressive clusters. There are bound
  to be others, and more are planned.

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Data Grids

• Large-scale, distributed, federated data
  repositories
• Making complex data available
• Scholarly output and scholarly input
• Observations, simulations, algorithms,
• to applications and other grid services
• in the most efficient way
• Performance, cost,
• in the most appropriate way
• within the same middleware AAA framework
• in a sustainable and trustworthy way

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Data Grid 101
Directories AAA, Capabilities Workflows, DRM,
Content Archive Interface
Presentation
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Data Grid Issues

• Every arrow is a protocol, Every interface is a
  standard
• Storage hardware, software file format
  standards, algorithms
• Describing data metadata, external
  orthographies, dictionaries
• Caching/replication Instances (non-identical),
  identifiers, derivatives
• Resource discovery Harvesting, registries,
  portals
• Access security, rights-management (DRM),
  anonymity authsn. granularity
• Performance delivery in appropriate form and
  size, user-meaningful user interface
  (Rendering/presentation by location and
  culture)
• Standards, and the excess thereof
• Social engineering Putting data online is
• An effort needs to be easier, obvious
• A requirement! but not enforced lacks
  processes
• Not recognised nor rewarded
• PAPER publishing is!

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Data facilities

• In most cases these are inside departments, or
  maybe central services on a university.
• ANU/APAC host a major storage facility (tape
  robot) in Canberra that is available for the RE
  community to make use of
• Currently 1.2Petabytes peak, and connected to
  GrangeNet and AARNet3.
• It hosts the MSO MACHO-et-al data set at the
  moment, and more is to come.
• To be upgraded every 2 years or so factor of
  2-5 in capacity each time
• If funding is found, each time. Needs community
  input.
• Doesnt suit everyone (yet)
• Mirror/collaborating facilities in other cities
  in AU and overseas being discussed
• Integration with local facilities
• VO initiatives all data from all observatories
  and computers
• Govt initiatives under ARIIC APSR, ARROW, MAMS,
  ADT

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Collaboration and Visualisation

• A lot of intersection between the two
• Beyond videoconferencing - telepresence
• Sharing not just your presence, but also your
  research
• Examples Multiple sites of
• Large-scale data visualisation, computational
  steering, engineering and manufacturing design,
  bio-molecular modelling and visualisation,
  Education and training
• Whats the user interface?
• Guided tour vs independent observation
• Capability negotiation, local or remote rendering
• (Arbitrary) application sharing
• Tele-collaboration (Co-laboratories)
• Revolve around the Access Grid
• www.accessgrid.org

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Access Grid Nodes

• A collection of interactive, multimedia centres
  that support collaborative work
• distributed large-scale meetings, sessions,
  seminars, lectures, tutorials and training.
• High-end, large-scale tele-collaboration
  facilities
• Or can run on a single laptop/PDA
• Videoconferencing dramatically improved
• But not the price
• Much better support for
• multi-site, multi-camera, multi-application
  interaction
• Flexible, open design
• Over 400 in operation around the world
• 30 in operation, design or construction in
  Australia
• 4 at ANU

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(No Transcript)
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AccessGrid facilities

• University hosted nodes are generally available
  for researchers from any area to use,
• you just need to make friends with their hosts.
• Qld JCU-Townsville, CQU-several cities, UQ, QUT,
  CQU, SQU, GU (Nathan, GoldCoast)
• NSW USyd, UNSW(desktop), UTS
• ACT ANU (4, one at Mt Stromlo. SSO has been
  suggested)
• Vic UMelb (soon), Monash-Caulfield, VPAC (by
  RMIT), Swinburne (desktop), U.Ballarat (desktop)
• SA U.Adelaide (1 desktop and 1 room), Flinders
  (soon), UniSA (planning)
• WA UWA (IVEC)
• Tas UTas (soon)
• NT I wish!
• Another 400 around the world.Development by
  many groups, Australia has some leadership
• Accessgrid-l_at_grangenet.net

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Visualisation Facilities

• Active visualisation research community in
  Australia
• OzViz'04 at QUT 6-7 Dec 2004.
• Major nodes with hard facilities include
• ANU-VizLab,
• Sydney-VisLab,
• UQ/QPSF-VisLab,
• IVEC-WA,
• I-cubed (RMIT),
• Swinburne,
• etc.

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Online Instruments

• Remote, collaborative access to unique / scarce
  instruments
• Telescopes, Microscopes, Particle accelerators,
  Robots, Sensor arrays
• Need to interface with other eRI services
• Computation analysis of data
• Data for storage, comparison
• Visualisation for human analysis
• Collaboration to share the facility

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So, in summary

• Transparent use of various IT resources
• Research and education processes
• Make existing ones easier and better
• Allow new processes to be developed
• Are we there yet?
• Not even close!!
• But development in many areas is promising
• In some situations, the problems are not
  technical but political/social
• Some of the results already are very useful
• Astronomy needs to help the processes, to help
  Astronomy!