UK e-Science Programme

‘e-Science is about global collaboration in key areas of science, and the next generation of infrastructure that will enable it.’

John Taylor Director General of Research

Councils Office of Science and Technology

‘[The Grid] intends to make access to computing power, scientific data repositories and experimental facilities as easy as the Web

makes access to information.’

Tony Blair, 2002

Neil GeddesPPARC Director, e-Science

UK e-Science Programme

First Phase: 2001 –2004

• Application Projects– £74M– All areas of science

and engineering• Core Programme

– £15M + £20M (DTI)– Collaborative

industrial projects

Second Phase: 2004 –2006

• Application Projects– £96M– All areas of science

and engineering• Core Programme

– £16M + ?– Core Grid Middleware– Data Curation– Industrial projects

UK e-Science Projects:

First PhaseParticle Physics and Astronomy

(PPARC) - Mission Critical• GRIDPP • ASTROGRID • Grid-1D

Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPSRC) – Pilots, new ways of working

• Comb-e-Chem• DAME • DiscoveryNet • GEODISE • myGrid • RealityGrid

Natural Environment Applications (NERC) -Deployment + exemplar• Climateprediction.com • GODIVA Oceanographic Grid • e-Minerals Molecular Environmental Grid • NERC DataGrid • GENIE

UK e-e-Science Projects:

First phase

Medical Applications (MRC) - Exemplars

• Biology of Ageing (with BBSRC)• Sequence and Structure Data • Molecular Genetics • Cancer Management (with PPARC)• Clinical e-Science Framework

• Neuroinformatics Modeling Tools

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences (BBSRC)• Biomolecular Grid • Proteome Annotation Pipeline • High-Throughput Structural Biology • Global Biodiversity

SuperJANET4

UK Grid for Particle Physics

GridPP www.gridpp.ac.uk

LHCb

ATLAS

CMS

CMS

Phase-2: 25 TFLOP++ UK Grid for Particle Physics

UK “Core Programme”

•UK e-Science Grid and e-Science Institute•Training programme, Research seminars•www.nesc.ac.uk

•Network of e-Science Centres•Core e-Science grid•Regional expertise•Grid resources (+Access Grid)•Industrial projects

•Support for e-Science Projects•Grid Support Centre•Grid Network Team•National certificate Authority

•Development of Generic Grid Middleware•Grid Grand Challenge Projects (IRC’s)•Outreach and International Involvement

•DTI’s GO programme

Cambridge

Newcastle

Edinburgh

Oxford

Glasgow

Manchester

Cardiff

SouthamptonLondon

Belfast

DL

RAL Hinxton

Industrial Involvement

Over 80 UK companies participating

Over £30M industrial contributions

IT CompaniesSun, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, SGI, HP, Fujitsu, Cisco

Major End User CompaniesRolls Royce, Data Systems and Solutions, BAESystems, Shell, Siemens, GSK, Astra-Zeneca, Pfizer, Merck, Schlumberger, BT, …

SME’sNAG, Cybula, Compusys, Mesophotonics, Fluent, Epistemics, Mirada, ….

Phase 2

• From Prototype to production– Integration of Particle Physics/Core programme/other

grids• UK Grid = ? TFLOP + 10 TFLOP HPC• Enabling Grids for E-science in Europe (EGEE)• -> Production system for LHC

– Grid Operations Centre, CA, Security Operations, Network Monitoring

• e-Science Institute• Core Middleware engineering

– Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute

• National Data Curation Centre• e-Science Exemplars/New Opportunities • Medium/long term Computer Science research• Outreach and International involvement

UK e-Science Grid(s)UK e-Science Grid(s)

UK e-Science Production Grid(s)(SLA’s)

UK e-Science Production Grid(s)(SLA’s)

CoreGridSupport

CoreGridServices

Campus Grid

Campus Grid

Cam

pus

Grid

Inter campus (VO) Grid

Almost by definition, a successful Grid or e-Infrastructure will only “own” a small part of the available (intgerated) resources

Looking Beyond 2006

• Persistent UK e-Science Research Grid• Integrated with international grids• Grid Operations/Support Centre• Core Infrastructure

• UK Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute• National e-Science Institute• UK Digital Curation Centre• AccessGrid Support Service• e-Science/Grid collaboratories Legal Service • International Standards Activity

Access PoliciesStill a developing area• GridPP

– Authentication• Anyone in a collaborating institute can get a UK certificate• Any valid (DataGrid) cert can authenticate to the resources on GridPP

– Authorisation• Authority to use the resources is controlled by local policy

– Based on the users Virtual Organisations (experiments) » LCG access policy

– Resources construct local authorisations based on VO’s they choose to allow/support

» Not fully yet there» Must include accounting in future

Access Policies -2

• Core e-Science Grid– Authentication

• The UK CA Policy document says....– "The e-Science CA issues certificates for e-Science activities

funded by the UK Research Councils. The CA will issue personal, server and service certificates.“

– Authorisation• Core grid nodes

– Any scientists have access via a UK Digital Certificate.» At the start it will be on a first come basis.» More formal policy if demand is overwhelming (e.g.

HPCX)• Other resources Currently informal

– Definite commitment in future – SLA for production Grid

Issues• Greatest barriers to wide-scale e-infrastructure are not (only)

technical, but human and bureaucratic. – Natural resistance among system managers, group leaders,

Institute Heads etc to "give away" resources to people outside their institutions.

• Manifests itself in very rigid security and acceptable use policies – E.g. only users who attend the helpdesk in person and sign a form can be

given access– This paranoia is enhanced by legitimate concerns about hackers.

• Complicated by project based funding for many resources– Often you are simply not allowed to share the resources by the

agency which paid for them.

• Much privacy, IPR and data protection legislation, tends to inhibit openess in general, and filesharing mechanisms in particular.– “Collaborative projects are good for scientific advance, but bad for

making money by capturing IPR.”

Simple ExampleTeraGyroid prize winning demo at SC2003

• Grid linked UK Supercomputers and remote visualisation centres– UK CSAR (Manchester U.) + HPCX (Daresbury Lab.) – US ETF (Illinois, Pittsburgh, San Diego)

• Allowed scientists to interact with the computer models as they evolved in real time.– Lattice Boltzmann fluid flow calculations

• Demo’d for 72 hours !• Won a prize

• Can not do it right now !

Conclusions

• UK e-Science programme now in it’s 3rd year• Broad take up across science and industry• Moving from prototype to Production

• There is demand for common tools/services• Common goals help to drive access + sharing• Real issues around security and IPR

– Sometimes connected to current lack of robustess