The UK e-Science Programme
A View from the National e-Science Centre
Malcolm Atkinson
Director of NeSC
Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow
CANARIE 7
Toronto
29th November 2001
Contents
What is e-Science?
What do we expect from the Grid?
The UK e-Science Programme
NeSC’s Role & Structure
The Road ahead
What is e-Science?
An acceleration of a trend?
A sea change in scientific method?
A new opportunity for science?
Accelerating Trend
More and More data
Instrument resolution doubling /12 months
Instrument and telemetry speeds increasing
Storage capacity doubling / 12 months
More and More Computation
Computations available doubling / 18 months
Analyses and simulations increasing
Faster networks
Raw bandwidth doubling / 9 months
These Integrate
More interplay between computation and data
More collaboration among scientists
More international collaboration
Sea Change in Scientific Method
In Silico discovery
Exploration of data and models predicts results
Verified by directed experiments
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Combinatorial chemistry
Gene function
Protein Structure, …
Shared Resources
Researcher’s Workbench 
Laboratory team 
Multi-national network of labs + modellers 
Public instruments, repositories and simulations
1.
2.
3.
Prior test against data and models
Experimental Procedures
Sanity check on results against data and models
But …
Skilled scientists and computer scientists
Roughly static in number
Diminishing in available attention for any task
Distributed systems remain hard

E.g. component failures and latency are always with us
Important data still in documents
More subjects experiencing the
Data deluge
Analysis avalanche
Simulation bonanza
Collaboration growth
Must therefore find general solutions
And make technology easier to use
The New Behaviour
Shared Infrastructure
Intrinsically distributed
Intrinsically multi-organisational
Multiple uses interwoven
Shared Software
A new attempt at making distributed computing
economic, dependable and accessible
Scientists from all disciplines share in its design and use
Immediate benefit
Faster transfer of ideas and techniques between
disciplines
Amortisation of development, operation and education
Not Just Scientists
Engineers
They already travel the same path
Finance, economy, politics, …
We can expect best use of data and models to
guide the decisions that affect our lives
Medicine
See above
Industry
See above
The UK Office of Science & Technology
Has this extension firmly in mind
Several Assumptions
The Technology is Ready
Not true — its emerging
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Joining in the task of building middleware
Of Advancing Standards
Of Developing Dependability
The Scientists / Engineers want this
Not universally true

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Addressed by Pilot projects and Demonstrators
Addressed by The e-Science Institute
One Size Fits All
Not true
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Addressed by a minimum set of composable virtual services
But starting with Globus
It’s only for “big” science
No — “small” science collaborates too!
We know how we will use grids
No — Disruptive technology
Contents
What is e-Science?
What do we expect from the Grid?
The UK e-Science Programme
NeSC’s Role & Structure
The Road ahead
e-Science and the Grid
‘e-Science is about global collaboration in key
areas of science, and the next generation of
infrastructure that will enable it.’
‘e-Science will change the dynamic of the
way science is undertaken.’
John Taylor
Director General of Research Councils
Office of Science and Technology
From presentation by Tony Hey
UK e-Science Initiative (1)
£120M 3 Year Programme to create the next
generation IT infrastructure to support e-Science
and Business
SR2000 – Funded UK e-Science Grid and Grid
Support Centre, e-Science Application research
projects and industrial collaboration
SR2002 – Bidding for additional funding to extend
scope of e-Science programme
Essential that UK plays a leading role in Global
Grid development with the USA, EU and Asia
From presentation by Tony Hey
UK e-Science Initiative (2)
£120M Programme over 3 years
£75M is for Grid Applications in all areas of
science and engineering
£10M for Supercomputer upgrade
£35M for development of ‘industrial strength’
Grid middleware

Require £20M ‘matching’ funds from industry
Prof. Tony Hey
Director of the Core Programme
From presentation by Tony Hey
UK Grid Network
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Newcastle
Belfast
Manchester
DL
Cambridge
Hinxton
Oxford
Cardiff
RAL
London
Southampton
From Tony Hey 27 July 01
SuperJanet4, June 2002
Scotland via
Glasgow
20Gbps
10Gbps
2.5Gbps
622Mbps
155Mbps
Scotland via
Edinburgh
WorldCom
Glasgow
WorldCom
Edinburgh
NNW
NorMAN
YHMAN
Northern
Ireland
MidMAN
WorldCom
Manchester
WorldCom
Leeds
EMMAN
WorldCom
Reading
WorldCom
London
EastNet
TVN
South Wales
MAN
WorldCom
Bristol
External
Links
WorldCom
Portsmouth
LMN
SWAN&
BWEMAN
LeNSE
Kentish
MAN
From presentation by Tony Hey
Access Grid
Access Grid Nodes
Technology Developed by Rick Stevens’ group
at Argonne National Laboratory
Access Grid will enable informal and formal
group to group collaboration
Distributed lectures and seminars
Virtual meetings
Complex distributed grid demos
Uses MBONE and MultiCast Internet
Technologies
From presentation by Tony Hey
Grid Middleware R&D
£16M funding available for industrial
collaborative projects
£11M allocated to Centres projects plus
£5M for ‘Open Call’ projects
- approved £0.5M ‘Centre’ project with
Imperial College Sun Centre of Excellence
Set up two Task Forces
- Database Task Force (Chaired by Norman
Paton from Manchester Centre)
- Architecture Task Force (Chaired by
Malcolm Atkinson, Director of NeSC)
From presentation by Tony Hey
IRC ‘Grand Challenge’ Project
Equator: Technological
innovation in physical and
digital life
AKT: Advanced Knowledge
Technologies
DIRC: Dependability of
Computer-Based Systems
MIAS: From Medical Images
and Signals to Clinical
Information
From presentation by Tony Hey
e-Healthcare Grand Challenge
Funding £0.5M projects to give Grid
dimension to these IRCs
Funding £2M Joint IRC projects with
MIAS on e-Healthcare application
Example: Breast cancer surgery
– normalization of mammography and
ultrasound scans
- FE modelling of breast tissue
 Deliver useful clinical information to
surgeon ensuring privacy and security
From presentation by Tony Hey
UK e-Science Projects
£75M for e-Science application ‘pilots’
- spans all sciences and engineering
Particle Physics and Astronomy (PPARC)
- £20M GridPP and £6M AstroGrid
Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPSRC)
- funding 6 projects at around £3M each
Biology, Medical and Environmental Science
- projects with total value of £20M
will be announced soon
From presentation by Tony Hey
Particle Physics and Astronomy
e-Science Projects
GridPP
links to EU DataGrid, CERN LHC Computing
Project, US GriPhyN and PPDataGrid Projects,
and iVDGL Global Grid Project
AstroGrid
links to EU AVO and US NVO projects
From presentation by Tony Hey
EPSRC e-Science Projects (1)
Comb-e-Chem:Structure-Property Mapping
Southampton, Bristol, Roche, Pfizer, IBM
DAME: Distributed Aircraft Maintenance
Environment
York, Oxford, Sheffield, Leeds, Rolls Royce
Reality Grid: A Tool for Investigating
Condensed Matter and Materials
QMW, Manchester, Edinburgh, IC,
Loughborough, Oxford, Schlumberger, …
From presentation by Tony Hey
EPSRC e-Science Projects (2)
My Grid: Personalised Extensible
Environments for Data Intensive in silico
Experiments in Biology
Manchester, EBI, Southampton, Nottingham,
Newcastle, Sheffield, GSK, Astra-Zeneca, IBM,
Sun
GEODISE: Grid Enabled Optimisation and
Design Search for Engineering
Southampton, Oxford, Manchester, BAE, Rolls
Royce
Discovery Net: High Throughput Sensing
Applications
Imperial College, Infosense, …
From presentation by Tony Hey
Comb-e-Chem:Structure-Property
Mapping
Goal is to integrate structure and property
data sources within knowledge environment to
find new chemical compounds with desirable
properties
- Accumulate, integrate and model extensive
range of primary data from combinatorial
methods
- Support for provenance and automation
including multimedia and metadata
Southampton, Bristol, Cambridge
Crystallographic Data Centre, Roche
Discovery, Pfizer, IBM
From presentation by Tony Hey
MyGrid e-Science Workbench
Goal is to develop ‘workbench’ to support:
Experimental process of data accumulation
Use of community information
Scientific collaboration
Provide facilities for resource selection, data
management and process enactment
Bioinformatics applications
Functional genomics, pattern database annotation
Manchester, EBI, Newcastle,Nottingham,
Sheffield, Southampton
GSK, AstraZeneca, Merck, IBM, Sun, ...
From presentation by Tony Hey
e-Science Demonstrators
Dynamic Brain Atlas
Biodiversity
Chemical Structures
Mouse Genes
Robotic Astronomy
Collaborative Visualisation
Climateprediction.com
Medical Imaging/VR
From presentation by Tony Hey
Contents
What is e-Science?
What do we expect from the Grid?
The UK e-Science Programme
NeSC’s Role & Structure
The Road ahead
NeSC’s context
Coordination
e-Science Centres Application Pilots
IRCs …
e-Scientists, Grid users, Grid services & Grid Developers
GNT
DBTF
ATF
TAG
NeSC
GSC
UK Core Directorate
eSI
CS Research
Global Grid Forum …
NeSC’s Roles
Stimulation of Grid & e-Science Activity
Users, developers, researchers
Education, Training, Support
Think Tank & Research
Coordination of Grid & e-Science Activity
Regional Centres, Task Forces, Pilots & IRCs
Technical and Managerial Fora
Support for training, travel, participation
Developing a High-Profile e-Science Institute
Meetings
Visiting Researchers
International Collaboration
Regional Support
Portfolio of Industrial Research Projects
e-Science Institute
The Story so Far
August & September
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3 workshops week 1: DF1, GUM1 & DBAG1
HEC2 and the Grid
preGGF3 & DF2
October
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Steve Tuecke Globus tutorial (oversubscribed)
4-day workshop Getting Going with Globus (G3)
– Reports on DataGrid & GridPP experience
Biologist Grid Users’ Meeting 1 (BiGUM1)
November
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GridPP
Configuration management
December
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Architecture & Strategy with Ian Foster et al.
AstroGrid
eSI Highlights cont.
2002 & 2003
January
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Steve Tuecke et al. 4 day Globus Developers’ Workshop
Pilot project workshop
February — closed for renovation
March
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Digital Libraries, Librarians, Museums and the Grid
Protein folding Workshop 14th to 17th IBM sponsor
May
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Mind and Brain Workshop
21st to 26th July GGF5 & HPDC 11 EICC
August Research Festival
14th to 16th April 2003 Dependability
Contents
What is e-Science?
What do we expect from the Grid?
The UK e-Science Programme
NeSC’s Role & Structure
The Road ahead
Where to Concentrate
International & Industrial Collaboration
Ideas, experiments, software, standards
Integrating Data across the Grid
Data growth demands new methods
Data ownership expects respect & security
Data is hard to scan — indexing & query
Data is hard to move — query & move code
Human attention is scarce but essential
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Machine-assisted annotation, provenance, archiving
Machine-assisted data mining
Machine-assisted ontology construction & integration
Human-factors must drive designs
Dynamic, Dependable and Virtual Fabric
Improved Programming Models
For more Information
Ask me
www.nesc.ac.uk
director@nesc.ac.uk
Thank you for your attention
or for arriving early for the next talk 