APAN: An Agricultural Research Collaboration in Asia Pacific

1. An activity for agricultural research and educational collaboration in Asia Pacific region by Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) Akira Mizushima/MAFFIN <goddila@maffin.ad.jp> Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries research network, Japan

2. Abstract • The Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) and its activities especially in agricultural areas are introduced. • APAN has two aims. • One is the provision of high performance network links for research and education throughout the Asia-Pacific area. • The other is to accelerate research and educational activities in the area, utilizing the APAN infrastructure. • There are two activity areas under the APAN committee, the highest decision-maker of the consortium. These are; • the Technology Area • the User Community Area • The Agriculture Working Group (AG-WG) is one of the most active working group in the User Community Area.

3. Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Network in Japan

4. Outline of MAFFIN Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries research network (MAFFIN) links all research institutes (29 headquarters and 52 branches) in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Japan by ATM (1 - 12Mbps) and links to Internet by ATM (45Mbps). MAFFIN is in Tsukuba Office, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Council. There are the Research Computing System, the Network Library System and the Network Information System. The Research Computing System offers using applications, developing databases and high-end programming environments. the Network Library System offers the union catalog in AFFR, the literature database and the full text databases.

5. MAFFIN Agropedia System hierarchy Agropedia: Agro-Encyclopedia Installed - 2000.2 Renewal - 2001.3 Other Database Users OPAC Database Services CC, COINS, etc Internet Service Education Current Research Information System E-mail, News, WWW Service for Institutes Seminar Distance Leaning Gateway Data Processing Division MAFFIN Web Center Server (Publishing for Research Information) Molecular Biology, Simulation, etc Fortran, C, etc 計算 資源 Login Server (Web Inter face) Satellite Data Processing System Data provide System Library Information System Literature Bibliography Internet Archive Mirror System FAO -WAICENT IRRI Genome DB Gene resource Weather Statistics Satellites, GIS Parallel SMP Super Computer Vector Super Computer PC Cluster Server NFS File Server (1.3TB + 1.8TB) Tape Storage (120TB) Backup System File Storage System for Computer Center / Research Information Center Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Network

6. What's APAN? APAN is a non-profit international consortium established on 3 June 1997. APAN is intended to be a high-performance network for research and development on advanced applications and services. APAN provides advanced networking environment for research community, and promotes international collaboration.

7. Background • One of the most urgent requirements for the Asia-Pacific research community is to progress the establishment of high-speed network services for research and development in advanced networking applications and services. • This requirement was recognized at the APEC Symposium for Realizing the Information Society Field of R&D Activities in March 1996 and the APEC Test bed Forum in June 1996. • The benefits envisaged from providing a high speed research network to link Asia and other continents' networks include availability of advanced networking for test bed and other applications. • As a result, the Members have agreed to work towards setting up an APAN to provide open networking services for research and development of advanced applications and services.

8. APAN Members Primary Members - Australia - Japan - Korea - Singapore - USA Associate Member - Malaysia - China Affiliate Member - CGIAR Liaison Members - Canada - Europe Other Members - Hong Kong - Indonesia - Thailand - Philippines

9. Map of Network Topology

10. Countries JP-AU JP-CN JP-HK JP-ID JP-KR JP-MY JP-LK JP-PH JP-SG JP-TH JP-VN JP-US KR-SG KR-US MY-SG SG-US Network RWCP-ACSys AI3(CSTNET) SINET(CERNET) AI3(HKUST) AI3(ITB) APII AI3(USM) AI3(UC) MAFFIN(PHNET) AI3(SICU) APII AI3 AI3(AIT) SINET(NECTEC) AI3(IIT) IMNet-HPIIS APII Kornet Pubnet TEMAN (SingaREN) SingaREN Bandwidth(Mbps) 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 8 1.5 1.5 0.75 1.5 2 1.5 1.5 2 1.5 73 2 2 20 2 14 Availability Now 1999-2000 1999-2000 Now Now Now 1999-2000 2000(?) Now 2000(?) Now 1999-2000 Now Now 1999-2000 Now Now Now Now Now Now AUP Research & Education Research & Education Research & Education Research & Education Research & Education APII Project Research & Education Research & Education Research & Education Research & Education APII Project Research & Education Research & Education Research & Education Research & Education High Performance Research APII Project Cache Non-commercial Research Research & Education APAN Link Information 1999.10.1 apan-sec

11. APAN Organization Committee Secretariat Allocation/User Service Committee Engineering Team/NOC Travel Support Technology Area User Community Area Cache IPv6 Network Storage Multicast Measurement Multimedia Satellite Internet Television QoS Agriculture Astronomy (pending) BioInformatics Digital Library Earth Monitoring Education Grid Medical Informatics Global Design & Manuf.

12. APAN Committee & WG Meetings • 1997 • Tokyo, Japan, 2-3 June • 1998 • Tsukuba, Japan, 2-5 March, with IWS98 • Seoul, Korea, 1-3 July, with KRNET98 • 1999 • Osaka, Japan, 19-21 February, with IWS99 • Canberra, Australia, 21-24 September • 2000 • Tsukuba, Japan, 15-17 February, with IWS2000 • Beijing, China, 22-25 August

13. Agriculture Working Group (AG-WG) • Founded in March 2, 1998 at Tsukuba • Most active group in user User Community Area • Related Working Groups • Earth Monitoring • BioInformatics • Education • Digital Library

14. Purpose of AG-WG • The promotion of the international cooperation research which utilizes APAN circuit • The sharing of research information resources • The support of the APAN project beginning • The promotion of national AG-WG, the agricultural information research group forming and the activation • The introduction and the introduction of the new information science technology Current members: Australia, China, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippine, Singapore, Thailand and IRRI/CGIAR * Bold character established National AG-WG.

15. Activity phase of AG-WG Anytime Anywhere, Research Collaborative Environment Phase III Collaboration tools and Middle ware Sharing, Archiving, Distribution Gene resource Soil, Vegetation Earth observation Bibliography Statistics Phase II Genome, DNA Environment Meteorological Education, Training materials etc. Cooperation with Technology area and other Application WGs etc. Domestic Network Each countries Domestic Network Phase I APAN TransPAC vBNS, Internet2

16. APAN Bio-Mirror • Node AU, CN, JP, KR, MY, SG, TH, US • Data • Biological Sequence Databases • GenBank,EMBL,DDBJ • Protein Biosequence Databases • SWISS-PROT, TrEMBL, PIR • Other Databases • Include BLOCKS, ENZYME, PROSITE, REBASE. • Current data size: about 23 GB • Daily update (about 1 GB/month)

17. Cont’d APAN Bio-Mirror Needs for Bio-Databases • Biological Sequence Database • Database catalogs • An example of SwisProt record • Background of bio-database • Data flow • Major demand for bio-database • Rice Genome research • Homology search

18. Cont’d APAN Bio-Mirror Bio-Mirrors for providing Bio-DB • Troubles in getting a database • Growth of databases, Data size and update frequency of DNA database • Benefits • Getting robust mirrors of databases • Reducing network traffic • Keeping standard databases to be updated • Providing network beginners with an easy introduction of mirrors.

19. Wild Turkey Digital Asset Mobilization Project of the CGIAR: Archiving, sharing and distribution of agricultural information CGIAR

20. Cont’d Wild Turkey Purpose 1. Make IRRI information products accessible to national agricultural research systems regionally, in Asia, and globally via information systems at MAFFIN through APAN, initially; later: via additional mirror sites around the world. 2. Develop an inventory of digital information assets of IRRI and of sister centers in the CGIAR, stimulating the development of standards to facilitate sharing and mobilization of information where appropriate. 3. Enable the information resources, including scientists, of IRRI and of the CGIAR to be available for use in the development and especially the delivery of advanced course materials via distance learning in agricultural disciplines. In so doing this the project will seek to develop technical capacity for 1 generating and delivering and 2 using such materials effectively

21. Cont’d Wild Turkey The sharing of the gene resource databases of the rice through APAN • RICE: The most important cropper in Asia region • The development of the crossing road search system by the Web interface • The participating gene banks IRRI, Japan, Thailand, China

22. Cont’d Wild Turkey Mirroring: The digital contents of CGIAR

23. Cont’d Wild Turkey Distance LearningThe interactive remote video conference e.g. IRRI/Philippines <--> DoA/Thailand Without APAN (via CGnet) With APAN

24. WAICENTMirroring What’s is WAICENT • The World Agricultural Information Centre • FAO's strategic program on information management and dissemination. • WAICENT provides access to FAO's data and information to millions of users per month from around the world.

25. Cont’d WAICENTMirroring Present Situation Japan Korea Philippines Thailand WAICENT Rome Other Counties Malaysia Indonesia Singapore Australia

26. WAICENTMirroring Cont’d Example performance: Indonesia - FAO Ping to www.fao.org ping statistics -- 29 packets transmitted, 25 packets received, 13% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 853.210/896.093/1006.551/45.223 ms >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> traceroute to www.fao.org (193.43.36.7), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 router (167.205.206.197) 0.823 ms 0.576 ms 0.556 ms 2 ITB-Unpad-Pasca.ITB.ac.id (167.205.207.81) 2.437 ms 2.279 ms 2.233 ms 3 indonesia-bandung-wavelan.ITB.ac.id (167.205.207.1) 2.680 ms 2.599 ms 2.594 ms 4 ai3-indonesia-ether.ITB.ac.id (167.205.23.2) 3.108 ms 3.088 ms 3.066 ms 5 bsdi3-ne0.ai3.net (202.249.47.33) 3.643 ms 3.603 ms 3.590 ms 6 202.249.47.81 (202.249.47.81) 502.979 ms 503.217 ms 502.948 ms 7 bay2.ai3.net (202.249.47.24) 503.969 ms 503.770 ms 503.740 ms 8 cisco6.nara.wide.ad.jp (203.178.140.225) 507.173 ms 504.862 ms 504.863 ms 9 cisco2.otemachi.wide.ad.jp (203.178.136.85) 523.230 ms * 522.555 ms 10 cisco1.otemachi.wide.ad.jp (203.178.137.33) 522.929 ms 522.368 ms 522.413 ms 11 cisco4.otemachi.wide.ad.jp (203.178.138.114) 684.802 ms 702.444 ms 731.720 ms 12 210.132.94.69 (210.132.94.69) 651.611 ms 690.399 ms * 13 203.181.96.165 (203.181.96.165) 658.117 ms * 663.247 ms 14 tr-ote2.kddnet.ad.jp (203.181.96.150) 687.739 ms 669.187 ms 644.626 ms 15 border5-hssi1-0.Sacramento.cw.net (204.70.120.5) 684.813 ms 650.297 ms 690.777 ms 16 core6.SanFrancisco.cw.net (204.70.4.89) 676.879 ms 689.990 ms 680.774 ms 17 mci-bbn-hay2.core6.bbnplanet.net (206.157.77.18) 664.559 ms 660.372 ms 665.480 ms 18 * p3-3.paloalto-nbr1.bbnplanet.net (4.0.1.218) 674.928 ms 716.532 ms 19 p2-0.nyc4-nbr2.bbnplanet.net (4.0.2.202) 793.054 ms 770.074 ms 779.710 ms 20 p8-0-0.london2-cr2.bbnplanet.net (4.0.5.134) 860.682 ms * 810.362 ms 21 s0-1-0.amsterdam1-cr1.bbnplanet.net (195.16.160.73) 814.034 ms * 851.396 ms 22 s0-1.faoun.bbnplanet.net (195.16.168.14) 864.048 ms 872.985 ms 852.613 ms 23 193.43.36.7 (193.43.36.7) 874.429 ms 866.353 ms 896.239 ms

27. Cont’d WAICENTMirroring Step - I WAICENT mirror Japan Korea Philippines Thailand Data WAICENT Rome APAN Tokyo XP Other Counties Malaysia Indonesia Singapore Australia

28. Cont’d WAICENTMirroring Step - II WAICENT mirror WAICENT mirror WAICENT mirror WAICENT mirror Japan Korea Philippines Thailand WAICENT Rome APAN Tokyo XP Other Counties DANTE ? WAICENT mirror STAR TAP Malaysia Indonesia Singapore Australia WAICENT mirror WAICENT mirror WAICENT mirror WAICENT mirror

29. ANDESAsia- Pacific Network for Disaster Mitigation using Earth Observation Satellite

30. Cont’d ANDESAsia- Pacific Network for Disaster Mitigationusing Earth Observation Satellite The objective of this project is to detect and inform disasters in Asia-Pacific region as soon as possible by using satellite data and high-capacity network systems. The following four study themes are executed: such as the study on • Real time Archiving: to develop a real time archiving and delivering system of satellite data • Forest Fire: to detect fire and create fire risk map • Agricultural Disaster: to detect flood and create drought risk map • Heavy rain: to evaluate the data of Tropical Rain Measuring Mission (TRMM).

31. ANDESAsia- Pacific Network for Disaster Mitigation using Earth Observation Satellite Cont’d DMSP-OLS NOAA-NGDC TransPAC STARTAP NOAA NCAR AIT/TH APAN vBNS IMnet NREN NOAA MAFFIN Asia Pacific countries Processing, Archiving Distribution NASA TRMM

32. Pisces Supply of DMSP Data For Asian Pacific Earth Monitoring Applications in APAN

33. Cont’d PiscesSupply of DMSP Data For Asian Pacific Earth Monitoring Applications in APAN • The U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) operates a series of day-night and dawn-dusk satellites equipped with earth and space environment sensors. Premiere earth observation sensors include the Operational Line scan System (OLS)and the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI). • OLS can be used to monitor fires, heavily lit fishing boats, power conditions in cities, and tropical storm systems. • SSMI data can be used to monitor tropical storms and rainfall rates. • The U.S. Air Force limits direct access to DMSP data. The NOAA NGDC serves as the long term archive for DMSP data and provides access to the data for civil and environmental applications. • Under this project, NGDC will supply DMSP data of the Asian Pacific region to MAFFIN, CRISP, SEA-START and other potential users with APAN membership and connectivity.

34. Eco-DB Searching & sharing Ecosystem-data through WWW: Establishment of infrastructure and its application to other Agro-Ecosystem studies and practices Background Fact data on Gas and Energy exchange over various ecosystems are needed to reveal the Global Change and to develop Models for climate estimation and application. However, the limited access to the data is serious problem. Thus, we have been Providing the fact database Developing the infrastructure using World Wide Web

35. Cont’d System diagram of the Ecosystem Database Eco-DB Eco-DB Cont’d Local Network Internet User Host Data Picture Quality Control Web Browser Netscape IE Web page Graph Numerical data DB server Web server Data Action Query Numerical Data Graphic data Documentation PC+Windows NT Firewall system

36. Eco-DB Cont’d Observation sites in the Ecosystem Database Inner-Mongolia, Semi-arid Area Alaska, Arctic tundra ・Rice field ・Lotus field ・Soybean field ・Grassland ・Kushiro mire Sardinia, Mediterranean Macchia California, Chaparral (SDSU) Arizona, FACE/wheat (USDA)

37. Present Issues and Agenda of AG-WG • Way to start up research collaborations • Still personal-based incentives • Poor inland network infrastructure • Good connectivity between centers • Does not facilitate communication between centers and clients • Computer literacy • Too much priority on hardware • Unstable funds • Voluntary NGO-like activities

38. Muito obrigado! Thank you very much! Contact: Akira Mizushima/MAFFIN goddila@maffin.ad.jp