Introduction

1. Introduction

2. Expression of Interest Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow (lead), Heriot-Watt, St. Andrews, Stirling, Strathclyde • wide variety of disciplines • computing-enabled research • portals • training • accounting • infrastructure management • distributed computing provision • three-year project • approximately £5m from SFC • comparable equipment resources from partners ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

3. Objectives • Added Value: a grid-enabled software infrastructure, providing added value to institutional hardware • Integration:integrated with existing projects in the UK, Europe and internationally • Leverage: standardised middleware will be exploited • Virtual Communities: nurture and support • Outreach and Training: reach new research communities (Scottish companies will also be able to benefit) ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

4. Development Plans • Pilot phase: prototype grid service (www.scotgrid.ac.uk) • Boost: R&D at NeSC (www.nesc.ac.uk) • Prototype: e-infrastructure in operation for four years • Growth: supportfor growing number of activities • Evolution: technology development required • Challenges: • Grid accessible to non-computing researchers • development of discipline-specific portals • information management • integration of different authentication systems ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

5. Institutional Resources • Substantial investments in computing resources • ScotGrid will integrate these Dundee: £1m life sciences HPC facility (currently 200 processors, > 100TB), upgrade planned Edinburgh: £2m Computing and Data Facility (ECDF) planned Glasgow: £1m dedicated grid facility (first components arrived this week) 1 MSI2k, 100 TB Stirling: £850k in central servers Aberdeen, Heriot-Watt, St. Andrews and Strathclyde are supportive ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

6. Accounting and Monitoring • Ensure fairness and balance of the institutional resources between the different research communities • Effective distributed accounting provides the basis by which partners can have confidence in resource sharing and in additional resource provision and consumption • Annual ScotGrid accounts provided to SFC will enable each partner institute to determine their usage charges, providing a basis for long-term sustainability via research grants and the rolling equipment programmes in each university ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

7. SFC Support • Institutional equipment investments are comparable to the support required from SFC for staff to develop and realise the full potential of ScotGrid • In addition, support will be needed for meetings, travel, etc • The full economic cost over three years, starting July 2007, is estimated at around £5m • Project Management: (1.2 FTE) A dedicated project director plus a fraction of the PI to coordinate the complex technical developments and specialised discipline requirements • System Management: (4 FTE) Local technical management of the key facilities forming part of ScotGrid • Grid Operation: (6 FTE) A distributed team of technicians to achieve agreed levels of service across the entire ScotGrid infrastructure • Accounting Support: (1 FTE) Development of accounting support to ensure fair and well-managed use of ScotGrid facilities • Portal Development: (4 FTE) A team of specialists to develop the specialised portals required by client disciplines • Training and Outreach: (2 FTE) A team of specialists to determine the development and training needs of client disciplines ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

8. Sustainability • There is a long-term demand for a Grid over the next ten years • Medium-term sustainability will depend upon close co-operation • The project is designed to be fully inclusive • The ScotGrid resource will help sustain the leading position Scotland has in e-Science and Grid research, and ensure that the Scottish research community is well positioned for future research funding opportunities • continued support via grant applications for new research growing out of the project and from the rolling equipment programmes in each University • A summary report of research income generated and/or supported using the infrastructure will be compiled in 2009 to enable SFC and the partners to determine the most appropriate sustainable funding model from 2010 and beyond ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

9. SFC feedback (17/7/06) • The proposal was considered outwith the discussion of proposals to the SRDG periodic competition • The Panel considered that the proposal met a strategic need for Scotland • It would be ideally suitable for consideration for funding under the Enhancing Excellence (pooling) funding stream of SRDG • Two key issues for the proposal: (i) what parts of infrastructure are provided already at the UK level (ii) be clear on the pan-Scottish dimension ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

10. SFC further feedback (26/7/06) A. need to understand the relationship and synergy with the Informatics Pooling bid B. Highlight the "service" aspects of the ScotGrid proposition C. The outcome of the proposal would be for assessment next year D. Institutions involved should consider how they can contribute E. Scottish Enterprise could be involved particularly in knowledge transfer and core technology aspects F. Approach Abertay w.r.t. their formal training (linked to informatics pooling) G. New senior appointments in this area should be considered to build up the area of Grid research ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

11. A further set of points were identified: 4. Industrial liaison should be incorporated - testbed encouraged 5. A gap analysis should be performed 6. Investigate Grid-associated studentships 7. Service existing research pooling efforts 8. An overview document should be prepared 9. Indicate how many users are anticipated ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

12. Broader Issues a. Technical issues should be discussed (in the appendices) b. International review committee will judge c. Develop links with co-funders (e.g. Research Councils) d. EPSRC must be approached re: supporting academic investments. (PPARC are already aware). ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

13. Benefits Establishment of a Research e-Infrastructure leading to: • Expansion in terms of partners and services • Robust operations and management procedures • Interoperability with other national and international e-infrastructures • Integration of key data sources • Improved understanding of data provenance • Improved and measured ScotGrid reliability • Supported research across a range of domains • Access by non-Grid focused researchers • Service definitions for a sustainable infrastructure • Industrial partners testing/utilising Grid services ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

14. Timeline In terms of defining a timeline: i. need to identify contacts at all Institutes ii. SFC (David Gani) will meet with partners on November 6th iii. focus on enhanced service aspects and identifying the core Grid technologies • Three meetings currently planned: • Today Edinburgh • November 6th Glasgow • End-December TBC Internal aim (for discussion): appendices by the end of the year proposal by SFC-requested timescale ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

15. Summary • Expression of Interest submitted at end of May 2006 • Draft proposal developed up to mid-May 2006 was used to guide internal discussions • Received prompt, positive feedback to EoI from SFC in July • Need to build collaboration and review draft proposal in light of SFC feedback and today’s inputs ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

16. Grids and Business – key points • Trust - Not used to sharing resources • Security - Sensitive data with sensitive applications • Business models – what can be charged for as a service • Guaranteed QoS – Service Level Agreements • Accounting - tracking resources usage in multi-admin context • Standards – to encourage long-term investment • Applications – need to support legacy applications • Portability – across multiple platforms and implementations • Open source support – robust reference implementation • Software license management – how to generate revenue in a grid context EGEE-II provides an excellent framework for collaborating with business on these subjects Talk Title

17. Background

18. News: First Meeting of ScotGrid Partners to develop Pan-Scottish Grid News: Glasgow prepares with new Grid servers ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

19. Monday Wednesday ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

20. Accounting • Past CPU performance • 3,061,049 CPU hours • 383,858 completed jobs. • > 100 users, >30 VOs • Need to: • Publish data automatically • Agree the conversion rates • £: [CPU, disk, manpower] • Agree internal charging June 2002 June 2006 ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

21. ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

22. PP Grid Overview • Aim: by 2008 (full year’s data taking) • CPU ~100MSi2k (100,000 CPUs) • Storage ~80PB • - Involving >100 institutes worldwide • Build on complex middleware being developed in advanced Grid technology projects, both in Europe (Glite) and in the USA (VDT) • Prototype went live in September 2003 in 12 countries • Extensively tested by the LHC experiments in September 2004 • 197 sites, 13,797 CPUs, 5PB storage in September 2005 • Today: 177 active sites, 28,574 CPUs, 45PB storage ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

23. Middleware www.glite.org • 15 Baseline Services for a functional Grid • Scottish (and National) Grid Service will rely upon gLite components • This middleware (now at v3.0) builds upon VDT (Globus and Condor) and meets the requirements of all the low-level, basic scientific use cases: • Green (amber) areas are (almost) agreed as part of the shared generic middleware stack by each of the application areas • Red are areas where generic middleware competes with application-specific software. ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

24. Middleware Generic User Services ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

25. What was ? • Glasgow/Edinburgh/Durham/ (Dundee) Project • Compute-intensive jobs performed at Glasgow and Durham • Data-intensive jobs performed at Edinburgh • First applications using the Grid. Meeting real requirements of Grid applications: currently Particle Physics, Bioinformatics, Computing Science, Electrical Engineering • Glasgow leading R&D in Grid Data Management, Security, Portals • Edinburgh leading User Training, R&D in Networking and Storage • Management part of a worldwide Grid infrastructure through GridPP and EGEE ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

26. What are the Grid challenges? 2. Software efficiency 1. Software process 3. Deployment planning 4. Link centres 10. Policies 5. Share data Data Management, Security and Sharing 9. Accounting 8. Analyse data 7. Install software 6. Manage data ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

27. ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

28. Summary • ScotGrid is part of an evolving National and International Grid • NGS, EGEE and OMII-UK are important partner organisations • Deployment, middleware and application support will each raise issues for ScotGrid • External developments place constraints on the hardware and software • Timeline is ~right for spin-off ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

29. Planning…

30. Work Plan • We are developing a more detailed work plan… • International leadership of the participating departments, their proven ability to collaborate successfully, their needs for large-scale computing, and their stated intentions to exploit a Scottish Grid • Each discipline has its own application needs, pressing timescales, and expectations of large-scale computing • The project will provide the framework needed for synergy and economies of scale • Deployment plans to: • expand the user base • include new provider sites • create a training programme • enhance current service provision and establish user support • This will be integrated with the work of the UK and European Grid services • A top-down approach will draw on institutional strengths and strategic plans for computing • A bottom-up approach will focus on requirements of each discipline, building unified services across Scotland ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

31. Stakeholders ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

32. Project Management ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

33. Risk analysis ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

34. Middleware:Baseline Services ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

35. External Relations ScotGrid Introductory Meeting

36. Management Need a Shadow Management Structure(to prepare proposal) ScotGrid Introductory Meeting