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Role of e-infrastructure in supporting European Research . Kimmo Koski March 11 th , 2011 Oslo. Themes. European Landscape in ICT support for research Nordic position Central or distributed support model How to prepare for 2015 and beyond. Landscape for supporting research in ICT.
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Role of e-infrastructure in supporting European Research Kimmo Koski March 11th, 2011 Oslo
Themes • European Landscape in ICT support for research • Nordic position • Central or distributed support model • How to prepare for 2015 and beyond
Landscape for supporting research in ICT Some trends
The Complex and ConfusingEuropeane-InfrastructureLandscape YOU NAME IT…
Synergy in services Benefits obtained case by case No need to solve all at the same shot, addressing a group of communities can be very valuable, too Picture: originally from EC, modified by Kimmo Koski
CASE CSC: EU projects’ portfolio (total volume in PMs) Project area HPC grid linguistics data biomedical applications network policywork
CASE CSC: EU projects’ portfolio (total volume in PMs) Project area HPC grid linguistics data biomedical applications network policywork environmental
From infrastructure to research driven projects Policy work: e-IRG, e-Infranet Ice2sea MMM@HPC Science specific problem Science specific problem Emphasis to build trust Community: Elixir, Claricle, ENVRI, BioMedSci Training, user interface: HPC-Europa2 General e-Infrastructures TOP PRIORITY ACTION: Moving from horizontal projects to support vertical activities and research driven projects, but maintaining the presence and role in the relevant e-Infrastructure layers Application development: CRESTA middleware: NDGF, EGI data: EUDAT, ODE, APARSEN HPC: PRACE, DEISA, EGI Network: GN3
Critical times for European e-infrastructure • Will PRACE funding be sustainable after the first round (business model)? • Will financial national contribution in EGI allow self sustained organization in a long run? • Will there be EU-project flagships for emerging areas, such as data, software development, education and training, green ICT and cloud services? • Can we build trust between researchers and service providers such as national centers? • How can we efficiently collaborate in providing e-infrastructure and related services in Europe?
Different support systems in different countries • Finland centralized, critical mass • Sweden and Norway distributed, local matching funding • Denmark coordinates through research groups, direct researcher involvement in e-infrastructure decisions • Common nominators: NDGF, joint work in EGI and e-IRG, commonalities in ESFRI-participation, 3/5 included in PRACE etc. • Need to respect national decisions and note that history has an impact to the system • Joint services with distributed resourcing possible • Requirement to fit together with the national system
Nordic opportunities • Green ICT and datacenters, cloud computing • Excellent education system • Resource profiling – do we all want to repeat the same services? • Collaboration in Research Infrastructures (both ESFRI and existing RIs)
Role in HPC • Worth thinking about: • How many Nordic projects have got resources from PRACE? • How many even applied? • What is the reason? • No need? • Too good local resourcing? • Software does not scale? • Something else? • Can we risk not getting the high-end resources timely due to time consuming peer review and uncertainties to succeed • Major training and scalable software development challenge -> should be done together
Finnishcompetitiveedge – as a country(Fits to Norway orNordic, too…) • Modern and reliableinfrastructure (national powergrid, roads, airlineconnections, data networks) • World classeducationsystem and competences on ICT & energy • Steadyeconomical and politicalconditions • Cheapenergy (www.energy.eu) and stronglyincreasing CO2 –freecapacity • Coolclimate and waterresources • No majorearthquakes (4.1 biggestever) • No majorstormsorotherdangerousnaturalphenomena • EuropeanGateway to Russia Kajaani paper mills & hydro & bio energy
CASE Finland: next generation supercomputing • Major investments • 25 MEUR funding granted for investment in HPC, medium range and data management • 30 MEUR investment in Datacenter (Kajaani) • Operation costs on top of that (in CSC budget) • Installations in phases during 2012-2014 • Procurement started, decisions expected autumn 2011
Characteristic for Finnish model • Services centralized in the national center (CSC) • Productivity • Quality • Cost efficiency • Strong support organization • Technical and scientific support • Multidisciplinary • Diverse fields (computing, connections, contents) • Short way to decision making • Limited Company (Ltd.) • Short path to the Ministry of Education • Functional distribution of work • Cooperation between CSC and institutions of higher learning
It is not that simple… • Both central and distributed models have their strengths and challenges • Matching funding, areal support, distance to customers, overhead in repeating services, competence development in universities etc. • History has an impact • Ability to agree how to divide work is a key issue
Distributed model • Overhead in providing services, but impact in involving local users and training local people • Slower decisions, but high commitment after that • Overlaps in investments, but possibility to add local co-funding • Requires typically lot of committees and strategy papers, but that can also be useful sometimes .
Infrastructure is evolving: can we afford to renew all every four years? Cray XT 2008
Some proposals • Focus on balanced services, e-infrastructure at large, including training and education • Invest in more efficient management and utilization of data • Find successful ways to build trust in ICT between research and service providers • What to do: research • How to implement it: service provider • Explore work distribution in Nordic level • Selected projects, well-defined targets, clear benefits • More efficient utilization of European resources • Active Nordic participation • Joint presence
Spring is almost here! You can already see deer walking in the fields…