National Grid Service Enabling Collaboration Edinburgh 09 March 2010

1. National Grid ServiceEnabling CollaborationEdinburgh 09 March 2010

2. UK e - Infrastructure get common access, tools, information, Users HPCx nationally supported services, through NGS + HECtoR Regional and HEIs Campus grids Community Grids Integrated internationally LHC VRE, VLE, IE ISIS TS2

3. Key areas • Adoption of open standards • Provide access to wide range of resources • Integrating HEI resources and researchers • Community-led support programmes • Promote and facilitate training

4. Focus • We Don’t do everything • Focus on • Access to computational resources • Access to data storage • Data movement and management • Emphasis on • Open standards • International standards • Collaboration

5. NGS Member Institutions, March 2010

6. Diverse User Community www.ngs.ac.uk 25 member institutes 33 heterogeneous resources 15,000 processing cores > 75 applications • In the last 12 months • 4,629,127 CPU hrs used • 888,862 jobs ran • 2nd largest e-Science CA • 22,121 certificates issued • 4,911 active currently

7. Collaborations SAGA

8. Grid: EGI • EGI.eu Office in Amsterdam (March) • Information catalogs, AAA, • Metadata/data catalogs, • File replication, file transfer • Job brokering • Interfaces and portals • ...

9. Supporting Institutes

10. Membership • Campus Champion • Liaison between HEI/research organisation and NGS • Infrastructure Members (representation on Collaboration Board) • NGS Interfaces – monitored, certified, accountable • Affiliate • Maintains control over permitted users • Partner • Supporting access by a significant body of NGS users • Publish a service level description (SLD) detailing the services offered • Eligible for brokering of resources

11. Membership Programme Goals: • Increase the range and depth of services and resources that NGS can offer to its users • Provide leadership and sources of best practice to sites needing to put their resources “on the Grid” • Create communities able to exploit the connected resources for interdisciplinary research • Common point of contact for trusted brokering of services. Remove NxN agreements for sharing/brokering resources

12. Why join? • Institutions have a mission to support their own users • Increasing dependence on computation & data, and growing need to collaborate beyond the institution • Access to NGS ‘honest’ brokering service • Access to NGI. • Common voice on European e-infrastructure • Growing need to illustrate ‘green’ credentials which are easily demonstrated by commitment to efficient usage of currently owned resources through ‘grid’

13. Best Practice • NGS well placed for this role • Supported role to enable National Engagement • Collaborative activity not tied to 1 institution • Coordination connected to National Facilities • Push an integration agenda, not specific field • Track record (RCUK international review) • Opportunities • Growing recognition of role • NGI, BBSRC + The Genome Analysis Centre, GridPP, BADC ... • Even better with your experience/expertise/services • Application expertise

14. Supporting Collaboration • “Grid” accounting • Support a person, group, project, institution ... • A “Virtual Organisation” • Share or exchange resources • NGS acts as “honest broker” • Standard interfaces give some future-proofing • Opportunities • Support research collaborations (proven tools) • Load balancing • Value added tools with broad application • see next page ...

15. Outsourcing • Standard interfaces • Simplify and reduce barrier to moving work • Avoid lock in and reduce barriers to moving • Allow 3rd part providers to offer services • NGS “honest broker” role • Opportunities • Sharing resources through common interfaces • Trading/buying/selling via NGS mediation • “commercial” services through standard interfaces • E.g. cloud , data storage, training...

16. Impact • Improve accessibility to local resources • Widen accessibility to local resources • Use once Use anywhere • Share/Trade/Buy/Sell resources • Brokering, monitoring, accounting of services • Facilitate collaboration nationally and internationally

17. What does the NGS offer? • Access to central support services for e-infrastructure • Helpdesk • Training • Application support • Central services e.g. CA, MyProxy, WMS, Information provider, resource discovery, etc • Certification process to ensure resource providers deliver service against SLD/standard interfaces • Common interfaces enable brokering of resources • Ease of access for end users • Ability to trade: buy/sell compute time across institute resource • Ability to link to international resources: International project participation • Ability to share data/migrate data/buy data services at other institutes for resilience/backup/

18. Services • SARoNGS • WMS • HERMES Data Client • Application Hosting Environment (AHE) • Monitoring • Accounting Direct access GSI-SSH terminal MEG NGS Portal/ Applications Repository

19. Support and Training National helpdesk Campus Champion NGS Road Shows Online tutorials and practicals Local & national training events

20. Case Studies and Documentation • Specific + “Generic” • Site neutral, topical, expert • Freely available, professionally produced • Exploit NGS interfaces and services (it works) • Opportunities • Support local outreach • Exploit NGS documentation • Publicise your/our achievements

21. Events • Community Conferences • CCPb, Bioinformatics, NGS UF/IF, road shows

22. Research to Service

23. Questions? www.ngs.ac.uk Dr Andrew Richards andrew.richards@stfc.ac.uk

24. Case Studies Note (to delete): CD suggests case studies highlighting different benefits of NGS, e.g. increased speed (burglary), more complex calculations/simulations (dinosaurs), novel technologies and interoperability (GENIUS), variety of services and interoperability with other resources (GENIE)… They all have applied benefits and impact on people/UK

25. Predicting Crime • Nick Malleston, Leeds University • burglary rates • agent-based predictive models • vary environmental factors, predicts burglar’s behaviour adapted Java program to run across Grid NGS speeds things up - 2.5 years of results in under a week

26. Dinosaur locomotion Karl Bates, University of Manchester • muscle activation patterns in dinosaurs • NGS allows increased model sophistication

27. Oceans and Climate Andrew Price, GENIE project, Southampton • thermohaline circulation in oceans • integrates component earth models • future climate prediction • 5 yrs computations in 3 months • integrates NGS and other resources • NGS hosts database • users share simulations, metadata

28. Cerebral blood flow GENIUS project http://wiki.realitygrid.org/wiki/GENIUS • processes 2D MRI images, recreates 3D vasculature map • visualise and steer the model in real time • advanced resource reservation • utilize international federated grid of supercomputers

29. ESFRI Projects • European Strategic Forum for Research Infrastructure • “bottom up” list of (~30) pan-European RI • Strong support from EC • Opportunities • Signposts for the future • Ensure UK access to key RI • ELIXIR, BBMRI, ICOS, HiPER, XFEL, CLARIN, DARIAH ... • EC support – in connection with EC e-Infrastructure