[CAnet - news] The Future Role and Architecture of R&E networks

For more information on this item please visit the CANARIE CA*net 4 Optical Internet program web site at http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/list.html
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[Here are two excellent web sites looking at the future of research networking and the role campuses and regional networks (NRENs in Europe, RONs in the US and ORANs in Canada).  Increasingly we are seeing a greater demand for "virtual" NRENs (RONs or ORANs) built around specific communities of interest which traverse network domains as well as political and geographical boundaries. Many of the virtual NRENs directly connect up facilities on campuses and research institutions with their own lightpath networks. Good examples of course new type of "virtual" NRENs include the LHC grid linking the various Tier 1 sites around the world to CERN, UltraScience Net, the Canadian architectural APN (Articulated Private Network) called Eucalyptus, the DEISA OPN (optical private network) in Europe, CAVEwave, Optiputer and TeraGrid, etc etc. More examples can be seen at my recent presentation to MERIT "Future Challenges for Regional and Campus Networks" at http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/recent/MICHnet_June_22_2006.ppt
National and global R&E networks initiatives are now increasingly critical to support the needs of this new generation of virtual research communities for both business and research applications.  The EARNEST program in Europe provides an excellent overview of the issues facing the EU, GEANT and the NRENs (ORANs or RONs) with respect to these issues.  The upcoming campus cyberinfrastructure workshop in the US will also be looking at these issues -- BSA]


Overview of EARNEST progrm
http://www.terena.nl/activities/earnest/ws1/programme1.html


In the period from 1 March 2006 until 31 August 2007, and as part of the GN2 (GEANT2) project, a Foresight Study will be carried out into the evolution of research and education networking in Europe. The Foresight Study will provide inputs for initiatives that could help to keep the evolution of European research networking at the forefront of worldwide developments, and enhance the competitiveness of the European Research Area. It will prepare the ground for the planning of the development of research and education networking infrastructure and services after the completion of the GN2 project, at the local, national, European and intercontinental level.

EU policy perspective on future of R&E networks - some excerpts

http://www.terena.nl/activities/earnest/ws1/presentations/jansen-EC-and-EARNEST.ppt


Large (future) Infrastructure Facilities need to be connected
Campus Networking is new challenge (1:10:100)
How will NRENs involve and serve the academic communities in the future?
Intelligence in Networks will be moving from the organisation to the institutions and to the users. High learning curve requires transformation of NRENs from service providers to service enablers or service integrators.
Advanced services everywhere for everyone (grid, dynamic configuration and allocation etc..)
More services require new business models for NRENs 
A Virtual Research Community (VRC) is a group of researchers, working together effectively through the use of information and communications technology.
Within the community, researchers can collaborate, communicate, share resources, access remote equipment or computers and produce results as effectively as if they, and the resources they require, were physically co-located. 
Example: European Institute of Technology

Increasingly Social Sciences and Humanities will use, process, store digital resources and will create VRC’s 
But without the necessary ICT background or skills
New intermediary “breed” will (have to) emerge with the expertise to join-up services to enable communities to function, as well as collaboration facilitators and managers who are able to translate the requirements into functional specifications 
Are NREN’s willing to take up this challenge and to move the stack of services they provide.
Are the NRENs prepared to move the technologies into a wider set of communities and begin to change cultures and behaviours.?


Technical and Business challenges facing NRENs, ORANs, RONs

http://www.terena.nl/activities/earnest/ws1/presentations/maglaris-gn2-and-its-relation-to-Earnest.ppt



Net@EDU Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working
Group: 
http://www.educause.edu/CampusCyberinfrastructure%28CCI%29WorkingGroup/1
0288

This year's meeting will be the first workshop for the new Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CCI) Working Group.  The workshop will have two main goals.

First the group will review the "four pillars of cyberinfrastructure" to set the context and develop a roadmap of the issues we will be addressing.

>From this initial discussion, the group will draft a prioritized list 
>on
which the CCI working group should focus over the next few years. Included in this discussion should be suggested mechanism(s) to gather input from the research community as the CCI Working Group considers each of these topics.

Finally, by the end of the day, a schedule for regular meetings, discussions, conference calls should be proposed and discussed as the basis for our work plan. We will allocate 2 hours of our meeting for this section.

The balance of the workshop will focus on what has come to be identified as the most pressing and also most common issue in the space of cyberinfrastructure for academic IT leaders: demand on data centers to address the growth of high performance computing clusters and the migration of academic researchers back to central IT to support this unprecedented growth.  This growing problem is one of the largest, most complex and most expensive areas of concern for IT in higher education today.

The growth of high performance computing clusters and peripheral equipment on university campuses has become a critical infrastructure issue.  Advances in technology are now providing faculty with access to clusters sizes that cannot comfortably fit into local university department of research lab space.  Large sized clusters are also putting pressure on the delivery of effective and efficient power and cooling to service these clusters.  This is a high priority and very active issue on campuses throughout the country and the suggestion has been made that the CCI working group take-up this issue at its earliest opportunity and provide some guidance and recommendations to the community in this area.

The plan will be to utilize the part of the morning and the afternoon workshop time to address the problem of university data centers and the associated issues surrounding this topic.  The goal of the data centers discussion will be to identify the drivers, issues and responses associated with university data centers, develop potential models to address this problem and outline possible roadmaps to the future.  There will be a limited number of short background presentations to frame the data center problem with the remainder of the morning and part of the afternoon focused on detailed group discussions to develop the strategies and potential data center business models for universities and other higher education institutions.

The outcome of these discussions will recommend to the university community several potential business models and methods as to how higher education institutions can address these critical university data center problems and infrastructure issues.  The models and recommendations from this workshop should be in a format that can be presented to the full Educause community at the October meeting in Dallas.


For more information on the Net@EDU Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working
Group: 
http://www.educause.edu/CampusCyberinfrastructure%28CCI%29WorkingGroup/1
0288


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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those  of the CANARIE board or management.


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