CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

Role of e-infrastructure in supporting European

Research

Kimmo KoskiMarch 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

CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

Landscape for supporting research in ICT

Some trends

CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

The Complex and Confusing European e-Infrastructure Landscape

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)

Prace 1IP15%

Deisa23%

HPC Europa 2

5%

EGI-Inspire25%

ODE4%

APARSEN6%

ELIXIR1%

Clarin1%

MMM@HPC7%

ICE2SEA1% GN3

6%

e-Infranet3%

e-IRGSP33%

EC projects portfolio 01.2011

PMs = 568

HPC

Project area

grid

data

bio medical

linguistics

applications

network

policy work

CASE CSC: EU projects’ portfolio (total volume in PMs)

Prace 1IP8%

Prace 2IP17%

HPC Europa 23%

EGI-Inspire 14%EUDAT

20%ODE2%

APARSEN3%

e-BioMedSci7%

CLARICLE3%

ENVRI10%

MMM@HPC4%

ICE2SEA1%

GN33%

Me-W3%

e-Infranet1%

e-IRGSP32%

EC projects portfolio maximum scenario 01.2012NOTE! All projects will not be funded

PMs = 980

HPC

Project area

grid

data

bio medical

linguistics

applications

network

policy work

environmental

From infrastructure to research driven projects

Network: GN3

HPC: PRACE, DEISA, EGI

data: EUDAT, ODE, APARSEN

middleware: NDGF, EGI

Application development: CRESTA

Training, user interface: HPC-Europa2

Policy w

ork: e-IRG

, e-Infranet

Community: Elixir, Claricle, ENVRI, BioMedSci

Ice2sea MMM@HPC

Science specific problem

Science specific problem

General e-Infrastructures

Emphasis to build trust

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

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?

CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

Nordic position

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

CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

Datacenter example

Finnish competitive edge – as a country(Fits to Norway or Nordic, too…)

Modern and reliable infrastructure (national power grid, roads, airline connections, data networks)

World class education system and competences on ICT & energy

Steady economical and political conditions

Cheap energy (www.energy.eu) and strongly increasing CO2 –free capacity

Cool climate and water resources

No major earthquakes (4.1 biggest ever)

No major storms or other dangerous natural phenomena

European Gateway to Russia

Kajaani paper mills & hydro & bio energy

1919

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

CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

Central vs. Distributed

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 weafford to renew all every four years?

Cray XT2008

Users adapt quickly: Example from CSC supercomputer history

CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

How to prepare for future, 2015 and beyond

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

CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

Spring is almost here!

You can already see deer walking in the fields…