e-Infrastructure
Networking
David Salmon
Topics
• e-Infrastructure funding
– What has Janet been doing ?
• Emerging Issues
– Some practicalities
• Broader discussion questions...
– input & issues from community ?
Janet – e-Infrastructure networking
• £26M
With HEFCE
Breakdown
• £10M
Contribution to Janet6 backbone
• £12M
Network provision within “classic” Janet community,
including key locations which may need additional fibre access
• £4M
“Industry connection”
e-Infrastructure Strategic Sites
• Potential fibre / capacity requirements
• Work with organisations to understand requirements
• Build cases for provision
• If approved, integrate provision with deployment of Janet6
Gathering strategic requirements
• Immediate focus on sites mentioned..
• Generic approach
– Senior research management
– Senior infrastructure management
• Strategic view – 5+ years
• Quantitative
• Patterns of use
– Locations, data volumes -> net capacities
• Challenging !
Patterns of use
• Data movement – working patterns
– How much – data volume ?
• Beware Bytes vs. bits !
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How quickly ?
How often ?
Where to ?
National & International
• Network engineers need bit-rates !
• Working with research communities to understand
emerging/evolving requirements
Norwich Bioinformatics Cluster
• The Genome Analysis
Centre - TGAC
• The Sainsbury Laboratory
• John Innes Centre
• Institute for Food Research
• University of East Anglia
• Norwich Research Park
Hinxton Genome Campus
• European Molecular Biology Laboratory - European
Bioinformatics Institute
• The Sanger Centre
• Babraham Institute
Exeter & locale
• Met Office
• University of Exeter
• Weather & Climate research
• Monsoon HPC – NERC & M.O.
Further South-West ?
• Plymouth
– University
• Falmouth
– University
– Environmental Sustainability
Institute
– Exeter & Plymouth campus
elements too
• Goonhilly
– Radio Astronomy Interest
– CUGA consortium
Results
• Visits undertaken – first phase
• Collating & chasing input !
• Document cases for approval
• Within next week or two
Expectations ?
• Janet provision
– meet acute needs in shorter term
– broader provision within Janet6
– mechanisms
• IP capacity to host organisation
• some point to point services
e-Infrastructure projects funded
• HPC
– 5 regional consortia
– National facility – Hector / Archer
– Dirac
• Particle physics
• NERC
• STFC
– RAL
– Daresbury
• will engage to discuss requirements & evolution
Some implications
Throughput challenges
• Infrastructures can deliver very high capacities
• Realising high-throughput end-to-end will take some
effort
• Can’t just take systems “out of the box” and expect
to get full line-rate data-transfers
• This needs to be communicated & understood more
widely
• Janet & NREN community needs to work more
closely with research communities to understand
and solve issues.
Achievable Throughput
• What is realistic ?
– Challenge:
1Gbit/s, 24hr ~= 10TBytes
• Holistic approach
– End systems - Hardware & Software - Both ends !
– Local networks
– Wide area networks
• Highlight successful examples
– Technical case studies
• Janet role ?
– Co-ordination/collaboration
– Advice & troubleshooting support ?
Network structure implications ?
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Large research communities
International/global overlays or private networks
Particle physics - LHC OPN (LHCONE)
Radio Astronomy – eVLBI, LOFAR, (SKA...)
Future – Bioinformatics ?? ELIXIR
Campus implications ?
point to point services (lightpaths)
more complex multi-homing – routing/switching issues
Industry ?
• Existing Janet policy
– Supporting collaborative R&D
– Business and Community Engagement (BCE)
• Evolution - more needed ?
• e-Infrastructure
– “Open and accessible Janet”
Connecting Industry – meaning ?
• Network connections ?
• Access to community systems & resources
connected to Janet ?
• Access to Janet community knowledge &
expertise ?
– Mix of all three...
• BIS & HPC Consortia views ?
Conclusion & seed discussion issues ?
• Throughput performance
– Your views on what Janet should be doing ?
• Services multiplying
– Campus issues & implications
– Advice or information required ?
• Other points ?
– Janet supporting research