eResearch Infrastructure

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e-Research Infrastructure
Dr Evan ArthurActing Group ManagerInnovation
and Research Systems Group
Coordination Committee on Science and
TechnologyCanberra, 12 March 2004
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The Talk will

• outline policy context of initiatives associated
  with the Government's agenda for strengthening
  Australian research capacity
• focus on e-Research Infrastructure

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Policy context (1)

• Australian research publications are about 2.8
  of the worlds output
• Need to increase the efficiency of our innovation
  system strategic use of precious resources
• Retain a focus on the economic and social returns
  of public investment in research

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Policy context (2)

• need for strategic investment in research
  infrastructure and
• need for accessing this infrastructure
• focus on e-Research Infrastructure

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Strategic investments through Backing Australia's
Ability (BAA)

• Research a big ticket item
• BAA has provided
• 3 billion for science innovation
• 585m extra for research infrastructure
• 740m extra for research grants
• 246m for systemic infrastructure

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Focus on e-Research Infrastructure

• In the future large components of the research
  endeavour will simply not occur
• unless researchers have access to infrastructure
  such as high speed communications and high
  capacity computing resources
• Dr Evan Arthur _at_ Educause 2003

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Essential elements of Australia's e-Research
Infrastructure Strategy

• Robust communications network
• Distributed high performance computing
• Accessible data and information repositories
• Accessible research facilities and instruments
• Middleware

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Strategic Initiatives

• the Australian Research and Education Network
  (AREN)
• the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing
  (APAC)
• the Australian Research Information
  Infrastructure Committee (ARIIC) and
• the development of a strategic framework for
  middleware collaboration and coordination.

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Australian Research and Education Network (AREN)

• provides a high bandwidth communications network
  to enable researchers to access remote
  instruments and data repositories and
  opportunities for collaborative research.
• 69 million provided to date for
• a multiple gigabit fibre network connecting all
  Australian universities and major research
  facilities
• the NextGen network and
• dual 10 Gbps fibre trans-Pacific network
  connections to the US.

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AREN Backbone
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Nextgen Networks
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Dual 10 Gbps Research Trans-Pacific Network
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Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing
(APAC)

• comprised of partner consortia involving 27
  universities and the CSIRO
• APAC Phase 1 established a partnership and APAC
  National Facilities during 1999-2003 (19.8m)
• APAC Phase 2 will enable APAC and its partners to
  develop GRID computing in Australia over
  2004-2006 (29m)

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Australian Research Information Infrastructure
Committee (ARIIC)

• is developing a holistic approach to research
  information infrastructure and scholarly
  communication issues
• A priority for ARIIC is the creation of a
  coherent approach to the development of
  institutional data and information repositories,
  including issues such as standards,
  authentication and interoperability
• 22m committed over 2003-2006

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ARIIC Projects

• Meta Access Management System, Macquarie
  University
• Towards an Australian Partnership for Sustainable
  Repositories, Australian National University
• The Australian Research Repositories Online to
  the World (ARROW), Monash University and
• Australian Digital Thesis Program Expansion and
  Redevelopment, University of New South Wales.

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A Strategic Framework for Collaborative
Middleware Development

• to encourage collaborative and coordinated
  development of middleware as appropriate across
  research funding programmes
• to provide standard community tools and services
  for knowledge management, knowledge sharing,
  collaboration and interoperability between
  applications, computing resources, institutions,
  and individuals across the e-Research
  infrastructure