The UK e-Science Core Programme
Annual Report
Year 1: April 2001 – April 2002
1
Contents
Executive Summary
1
Introduction
2
The Core e-Science Programme
Programme team
Structure of the Programme
UK e-Science Grid
Centre Projects
Promotion of Middleware
IRC Grid Projects
Support for e-Science Projects
International Collaboration and Outreach
e-Science Network Requirements
3
3
3
4
6
7
9
10
11
14
Committees and Bodies within the Core Programme
Technical Advisory Group
Grid Network Team
Architectural Task Force
Database Task Force
Engineering Task Force
15
15
15
16
16
17
Meetings Attended
18
Programme and Project Management
Centre Management
Project Co-ordination
Demonstrator Management
Grid Support Centre
Open Call & IRCs
Risk Management
OST, EPSRC, DTI Management Structure
24
26
26
30
30
30
30
30
Finances
31
Conclusions
33
Appendix 1: Centre hardware for UK e-Science Grid
Appendix 2: Core e-Science Action Plan
Appendix 3: Core e-Science Risks
34
35
38
2
Executive Summary
This report gives an overview of the first twelve months of activity of the Core e-Science
Programme. A shorter overview report of the activities is also available. The EPSRC, on behalf of
all the Research Councils and the Department of Trade and Industry is managing the programme.
The Core Programme has been structured around six key elements:
1. Implementation of a National e-Science Grid based on a network of e-Science Centres
2. Promotion of Generic Grid Middleware Development
3. Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) Grid Projects
4. Establishment of a support structure for e-Science Pilot Projects
5. Support for involvement in International activities and outreach activities
6. Support for e-Science networking requirements
Each of these key elements is outlined and the status of the developments so far. A National Centre
and eight Regional Centres have been created and a UK e-Science Grid has been initiated across
these centres.
It is essential that there is industrial collaboration and buy-in, particularly on the development of the
middleware to support e-Science activities. The Core Programme is proving successful in this
regard, through industrial projects at the e-Science centres and other projects. During this first year
of the Programme there has been a shift in the industrial participation in Grid activities, with the
many high tech companies such as IBM, Sun, HP, Oracle and others all having declared support for
the Grid. An Architecture Task Force and a Database Task Force have been created to work with eScience applications and industrial partners to analyse requirements and put together a roadmap for
development of Grid middleware. The Programme is also funding projects in middleware through
an Open Call as well as projects at the e-Science Centres.
Projects based on the four existing EPSRC computational Interdisciplinary Research Collaborations
(IRC) have also been funded to enable them to consider the implications of Grid technology for
their research directions. In addition, two collaborative projects combining the software
technologies of the Equator and AKT IRCs with the MIAS application project have been funded. In
effect these projects, each constitute a sort of ‘Grand Challenge’ pilot project in ‘e-Healthcare’.
A Grid Support Centre has been created to support the e-Science pilot projects and other e-Science
activities. The Centre provides telephone and email support for the use of grid middleware and
related issues. It is also responsible for the digital certificate authorisation for e-Science
applications. A Grid Network Team has also been created to assist application developers in
understanding network requirements and to consider the long-term network requirements for Grid
applications.
It is important to the success of the programme that it is sufficiently integrated with other related
International activities. A number of funding opportunities to assist in this area have been put in
place. The Directorate has ensured that leading developers in this technology are involved in the
programme either as technical advisors or through some similar route. The UK Programme is seen
as leading the way in Europe. Demonstrators have been developed which are now being used in
educational and outreach activities. The demonstrators include applications from each of the
Research Councils.
The planned financial commitment level has been met for the first year.
The Programme is by nature complex and we provide an overview of the management mechanisms
for the overall activity and the individual projects. Part of the co-ordination of projects involves the
a database at the National e-Science Centre which is viewable on the NeSC website
(www.nesc.ac.uk) and which also has an interface indicating what areas projects are involved in.
1. Introduction
Under the UK Government’s Spending Review in 2000, the Office of Science and Technology
(OST) was allocated £98M to establish a 3-year e-Science research and development Programme.
This e-Science initiative spans all the Research Councils - the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research
Councils (CCLRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the
Economic Social Research Council (ESRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Natural
Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
(PPARC). A specific allocation was made to each Research Council (see Figure 1), with PPARC
being allocated the lion’s share (£26M) so that they can begin putting in place the infrastructure
necessary to support the LHC experiments that are projected to come on stream in 2005. The
Central Laboratories at Daresbury and Rutherford (CLRC) have been allocated £5M specifically to
‘grid-enable’ their experimental facilities. The sum of £9M has been specifically allocated towards
the procurement of a new national Teraflop computing system. The remainder, some £15M, is
designated as the e-Science ‘Core Programme’. This sum is augmented by an allocation of £20M
from the Department of Trade and Industry making a total of £35M for the Core Programme.
As is common in DTI programmes, the DTI contribution of £20M requires a matching contribution
from industry. It is also expected that there will be industrial contributions to the individual
Research Council e-Science pilot projects making a total industrial commitment to the e-Science
programme of well over £20M. The goal of the Core Programme is to support the e-Science pilot
projects of the different Research Councils and work with industry in developing robust, ‘industrial
strength’ generic Grid middleware. Requirements and lessons learnt in the different e-Science
applications will inform the development of more stable and function Grid middleware that can
assist the e-Science experiments and be of relevance to industry and commerce.
DG Research Councils
E-Science
Steering Committee
Director’s
Awareness and Co-ordination Role
TAG
Director
Director’s
Management Role
Generic Challenges
EPSRC (£15m), DTI (£15m)
Academic Application Support
Programme
Research Councils (£74m), DTI (£5m)
PPARC (£26m)
BBSRC (£8m)
MRC (£8m)
NERC (£7m)
£80m Collaborative
£40m
ESRC (£3m)
EPSRC (£17m)
CLRC (£5m)
Industrial Collaboration
Collaboration(£20m)
Figure 1: Structure and funding for UK e-Science Programme
The management structure is also indicated in Figure 1. The Director of the UK Core Programme is
advised by a Grid Technical Advisory Group. Tony Hey has been appointed as Director of the Core
Programme. The individual Research Council e-Science programmes are represented on an eScience Steering Committee, chaired by David Wallace, with the Core Programme Director present
as a member. The EPSRC are providing programme management for the Core Programme on
behalf of all the Research Councils. A more detailed discussion of the programme management is
provided in section 5.
2
2. The Core e-Science Programme
Goal
The overall goal of the e-Science Core Programme is to identify the generic middleware
requirements arising from the e-Science pilot projects. In collaboration with scientists, computer
scientists and industry, the Programme has a mandate to develop a framework that will promote the
emergence of robust, industrial strength Grid middleware that will not only underpin individual
application areas but also be of relevance to industry and commerce. The middleware developed
within this Programme must be Open Source and conform to Open Standards.
The funding partners have slightly different but complementary aims.
Aims for OST and the Research Councils
The UK e-Science Programme Core Programme aims to research, develop and implement key
features of a communication, computational and data (Grid) infrastructure, which will support
scientists engaged on UK “grand challenge” science projects. To achieve this, the Core Programme
will initiate and implement a coherent range of activities to identify and develop specific key (Grid)
middleware technology; to equip and implement a network of centres with Grid expertise; to
support an associated research and development agenda; to provide timely assessment, advice and
guidance to both scientific and commercial organisations involved in e-Science research; and to
facilitate a framework for International liaison.
Aims for the Department of Trade and Industry
DTI involvement in the e-Science Core Programme aims to ensure industrial participation in key
research that will accelerate initial development of new kinds of computing and data infrastructure
(Grids), which will be necessary to support the global collaborations emerging in many areas of
industry, commerce, science and Government envisioned for the next decade.
2.1 The Core e-Science Programme Team
The Director of the Core Programme is Professor Tony Hey who is seconded to the EPSRC to
direct the Programme on behalf of all the Research Councils. Dr Anne E Trefethen acts as
Professor Hey’s Deputy and Dr James Fleming is the Associate Programme Manager at the EPSRC.
Krys Bartoszewska and Carol Becker provide the programme support at EPSRC. The DTI half of
the team consists of Ray Browne, who is the e-Science team leader at the DTI with his colleagues
Lee Vousden and Jackie Whalley.
2.2 Structure of the Core Programme
The Core Programme has been structured around six key elements:
7. Implementation of a National e-Science Grid Testbed based on a network of Regional eScience Centres
8. Promotion of Generic Grid Middleware Development
9. Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) Grid Projects
10. Establishment of a support structure for e-Science Pilot Projects
11. Support for involvement in International activities and outreach activities
12. Support for e-Science networking requirements
We briefly discuss each of these activities below for each we present the goals and deliverables of
that key element and the status to date.
3
2.3 The UK e-Science Grid and the e-Science Centres
Goal
There is an urgent need for the UK to develop a nucleus of people who have experience in the detail
of running a Grid. A primary role for each Centre is therefore to donate a specific amount of
computing and storage resource for use in the construction of a National e-Science Grid. The
donated resources range from Supercomputers and commodity clusters to databases and other
repositories. Gaining experience in the use of digital certificates for single sign-on and
authentication across the 12 sites is a key purpose of this work and sorting out problems with the
security, firewalls and policy issues of each of these sites is a difficult task.
In order to have the activity succeed in developing technologies that will go beyond the end of the
Programme and be taken up by industry it is important to have industry engaged in the programme.
There are two components to this involvement education and understanding of the something of the
technologies and also the development itself.
In addition each Centre has a responsibility to establish an appropriate regional outreach
programme. This could take various forms – from a seminar series to joint projects and/or visits to
relevant organizations in the region. The National Centre is funded more substantially for such
activities, which include running training courses and a national seminar series.
Outputs/Deliverables:
1.
2.
3.
4.
A working UK e-Science Grid
An appropriate-scale Regional Outreach programme.
A national Outreach programme with training courses and a national seminar series.
Full commitment of the budget to relevant collaborative industrial projects producing useful
generic grid middleware
5. Securing significant additional funding, obtained by the Centres
6. Establishing good working relationships with PPARC Tier 1 and 2 Centres
7. Expanding the scope of the National e-Science Grid beyond the initial 10 university sites.
8. Industry engagement in development of software.
9. Technology transfer academic to industry and industry to academic.
10. Setting up and operating an e-Science Institute.
Status
Nine e-Science Centres have been established at the locations shown on the map of the UK in
Figure 2.
National e-Science Centre
(www.nesc.ac.uk)
Belfast Regional Centre
(www.qub.ac.uk\escience)
Cambridge Regional Centre
(www.cms.cam.ac.uk/grid.html)
Cardiff Regional Centre
(www.wesc.ac.uk)
London Regional Centre
(www.lesc.ic.ac.uk)
North East Regional Centre
(www.neresc.ac.uk)
Newca
North West Regional Centre
(www.esnw.ac.uk)
Oxford Regional Centre
Belf
(e-science.ox.ac.uk)
Southampton Regional Centre
(www.e-science.soton.ac.uk)
4
Hinx
A National e-Science Centre has been established in Edinburgh, managed jointly by Glasgow and
Edinburgh Universities. Eight other Regional Centres have been established – in Belfast, Cardiff,
Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Cambridge, London (Imperial College) and Southampton - giving
coverage of most of the UK. Manchester currently operates the UK’s national Supercomputer
service.
Figure 2 also shows the Rutherford and Daresbury Laboratory sites of CCLRC. These national
laboratories are key sites of the UK e-Science Grid. The Hinxton site near Cambridge is also shown
in Figure 2: Hinxton hosts the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), the Sanger Centre and an
MRC Institute. This constitutes one of the major centres of genomic data in the world. It is therefore
important that this site is linked to the e-Science Grid with sufficient bandwidth to support a number
of e-Science bioinformatics projects.
The National Centre in Edinburgh has also been funded to establish an ‘e-Science Institute’. This
Institute will organize a series of multidisciplinary research seminars covering a wide range of
topics, with scientists and experts from all over the world. Their brief is to make the Institute an
internationally known centre for stimulating intellectual debate on all aspects of e-Science.
The Centres also have a centre-specific DTI budget (£3M NeSC: £1M Regional – see above) to
develop viable Grid Middleware projects collaborating with industry. This is part of the effort to
engage industry, to ensure that ‘UK Plc’ understands the technology and is in a position to exploit
the Grid in business and commerce.
In addition, AccessGrid nodes have been established in each Centre to aid collaboration both
within and outside the UK (Figure 3). The AccessGrid system was developed at Argonne National
Laboratory in the USA and makes use of MBONE and Multicast technologies to provide a more
natural video-conferencing experience between multiple sites that allows direct integration of Grid
simulations and visualisation. This system allows easy interaction between the Centres and will be
used to experiment with innovative ways of working and teaching. At the present time all but one
of the centres has an operational AccessGrid node. The implementation of the AccessGrid took
longer than anticipated due to problems with multicast across the SuperJANET academic network.
Figure 3: AccessGrid Session at Manchester e-Science Centre
The Centres are contributing a heterogeneous collection of resources, including supercomputer and
cluster computing systems as well as diverse data storage systems. These resources will constitute
the UK e-Science Grid and will be used both as a test platform for new Grid middleware and as a
resource available for Centre industrial projects. A list of the resources available is given in
appendix 1. An Engineering Task Force (ETF) has been tasked with the implementation of this
Grid (see Committees and Bodies section of report). The members of the Task Force are from the eScience centres and are led by Dr David Boyd, CCLRC as part of the Grid Support Centre’sTeam.
5
The Cambridge e-Science Centre has also been chosen to act as the NERC e-Science Centre,
providing specific, focussed support for the NERC community. Each Centre produces a rolling
quarterly report that acts as a report on the previous quarter and a plan for the upcoming quarter.
They are also required to have a six monthly review at which the Programme’s Technical Advisory
Group (TAG) and/or e-Science Steering Committee members can participate (see Programme
management section for detail).
The Websites of all of the Centres are following a template developed at NeSC, thereby creating a
UK e-Science Grid ‘branding’.
Centre Projects
The criteria for a Centre industrial project is that it is addressing a generic grid middleware issue,
that it will result in an open source/open standard solution and of course that there is industrial
collaboration. The extent of the contribution from industry is somewhat under the control of each
centre director. The portfolio of projects from a Centre must have a 50% contribution from industry
but any given project might be slightly above or below this figure. The proposals for projects are
reviewed by members of TAG and the projects must be based on the following description.
An e-Science Grid project must involve collaborative sharing of distributed resources – computing,
data and/or facilities – in a secure manner. The Globus toolkit provides digital certificates through
the Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI) for single sign-on to resources and user authentication. The
Grid Support Centre at CCLRC has set up a Certificate Authority (CA) to issue digital certificates
for this purpose. The Globus toolkit currently offers support for GSI and remote computing
services, file access and fast data transfer. An alternative approach for data-centric problems
could be to use the GSI package with Web Services, looking towards the Grid Service
implementation of Globus 3.0, incorporating the Open Grid Standards Architecture (OGSA), now
being taken forward for standardisation. (N.B. This is likely to be available from December 2002).
To date 11 centre projects have been funded, a further 9 are under consideration (decisions expected
imminently). It is anticipated that a further 10-12 projects will be funded by July of 2002. The
projects have ranged from middleware for telemedicine, engineering optimisation to generic tools
for understanding workflow. The specific project details are listed below.
PI
Graves
Institution
Cambridge
Darlington
Imperial
Glen
Cambridge
Title
Teleconferencing Using
Grid Technologies
EPIC – E-Science Portal at
Imperial College
Industrial
Partners
171,974
NHS Trusts;
Siemens
215,000
605,000
Sun
960,000
Unilever
266,000
Molecular Informatics
Standards for the Grid
264,204
Watson
Newcastle
Middleware Services and
Tools for managing
Resource Sharing in Virtual
100,000
Organisations
Newhouse
Imperial
Management and Use of
Large Clusters within and
250,000
between Virtual
Organisations
Parsons
Edinburgh
Sun Data and Compute
437,500
Grids
Product Description for Ship
127,000
Keane
Southampton
Motion Analysis using Grid
6
£
Industrial
Contribut
ion
£
Requested
HP-Arjuna
100,000
Compusys;
Intel
Sun
204,000
450,000
Wolfson Unit
127,000
for Maritime
Technologies
Shotton
Keane
Miles
Technology
and Industrial
Aerodynamic
VIDEOWORKS FOR THE
GRID
National Cosmology Grid
Cambridge
and Remote Visualisation
Grid enabled
Southampton
Electromagnetic
Optimisation (GEM)
Cardiff
Collaborative Virtual Teams
Oxford
330,000
IBM, Informix
353,026
Virage
NCSA,
SGI
127,200 MesoPhotoni
cs
170,260
BWITech
127,200
166,000
Still under Consideration (decisions expected imminently)
Cockayne
Bennett
Spivack
Keane
Cant
Goble
Toft
Oxford
Durham
Remote Microscopy
e-Demand: A Demand-Led
Grid-Based Architecture for
Dependable e-Science
Applications
250,000
307,000
Cambridge
Electromagnetic Scattering
180,00
by Aircraft
Southampton
G-Yacht
127,370
Cambridge
Distance CFD
182,429
Supercomputing for Industry
Manchester
UTOPIA
130,000
NeSC
Grid & Utility Computing
Fabric Management
Investigation
132,000
Jeol
SUN
Sharp
Sparkle
Tech
Citrix
BAE
Systems
WUMTIA
250,000
336,200
381,000
127,370
Rolls
Royce
Sun
EmbNet
182,429
HP
143,000
110,000
2.4 Promotion of Grid Middleware Development
Goal
This is an essential component of the Core Programme. The challenge is to obtain Grid middleware
requirements from all the e-Science pilots and deliver to each of the different Research Council
communities Grid middleware and tools that the users welcome and use. At the same time, a
dialogue with the relevant parts of the IT industry must be established to engage their interest in
developing industrial-strength versions of the Grid middleware to support and enable e-Business
opportunities. Industry also needs to be convinced of the value of an Open Standards approach to
Grid middleware. The engagement with industry will be both directly via the office of the Core
Programme Director and each of the e-Science Centres. The Open Call for Grid middleware
projects is important both for its openness and for its flexibility framework for assembling relevant
consortia and projects. A major challenge will be to coordinate the software outputs from all these
efforts as far as is reasonable.
Deliverables/Outputs:
1. Requirements analyses from each of the different research communities
2. Identification and implementation of generic middleware component/tool valued by each
research community
3. Commitment by major parts of the IT industry for an Open Standards approach to Grid
middleware
7
4. Delivery of significant components of Grid middleware that are internationally valued and
known to have been developed in the UK
5. Coordination of individual Centre and Open Call industrial projects to a reasonable extent
Status
In order to have the UK programme begin on an equal footing we have provided projects with a
common starting point for Grid middleware. The initial Grid middleware selected is the same as
that used by NASA in its Information Power Grid (IPG) and includes Globus, SRB (Storage
Resource Broker) from San Diego, and Condor from Wisconsin. The IPG may be termed an ‘IntraGrid’ - since the NASA laboratories connected are all part of one organisation. In the case of the
UK e-Science Grid, the Grid connects different universities with different IT policies, firewalls,
infrastructure and devices. This is a good test of the basic Globus infrastructure and the digital
certificate based security system.
The Core Programme is in discussions with major IT companies such as IBM, Sun, HP, Oracle and
Microsoft, as well as with the Globus, Condor and SRB teams concerning the future development of
Grid middleware. In this respect, it is encouraging that both IBM and Sun have given strong
endorsements to working with the Globus team to take forward the production of improved and
robust Grid middleware. The software that will emerge will offer considerably more functionality
than the present Grid middleware and will also be produced to industrial quality.
A major task for the Core Programme is the capture of requirements for the Grid infrastructure from
each of the e-Science pilot projects. These include computational, data storage and networking
requirements as well as the desired Grid middleware functionality. In order that the projects do not
dissipate their energies by fruitless re-explorations of common ground, the Core Programme has
commissioned a number of reports on the present state of Grid middleware. Reports on Globus,
SRB/Databases, and .NET are currently available at the NeSC website (see
http://umbriel.dcs.gla.ac.uk/NeSC/general/technical_papers/).
A Grid Architecture Task Force (ATF) has been set up, led by Professor Malcolm Atkinson,
Director of the National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh, to look at overall architectural directions
for the Grid (see http://umbriel.dcs.gla.ac.uk/NeSC/general/teams/atf.html). The team is tasked with
producing a ‘e-Science Grid Road Map’ for Grid middleware development. The ATF is tasked with
identifying some specific short-term goals (given the pilot requirements) as well as identifying
longer-term research issues. In addition, a Grid DataBase Task Force (DBTF), led by Professor
Norman Paton from Manchester, has been set up to examine the question of Grid middleware
interfaces to Relational DataBase Management Systems and the federation of different data sources
(see http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/grid-db/). Its preliminary ideas have been discussed with the Globus
team and with IBM, Oracle and Microsoft. The DBTF has both a short term remit - to look at
developing an interface with some minimal useful functionality as soon as possible - and a longer
term remit – to look at research issues beyond flat files and relational data. To that end it has
produced a requirements document created by speaking with all active projects.
Initial ideas from the DBTF point towards the implementation of a database interface in terms of a
‘Grid Services’ model along the lines of Web Services. This leads to the idea of the Grid
middleware designed as a ‘Service Oriented Architecture’ with Grid services consumed by higher
level applications. Reports from both task forces have been submitted to the Global Grid Forum as
white papers, which were discussed at the last Global Grid Forum. It is important that at least a
subset of standard protocols that go beyond the present Globus model are agreed as quickly as
possible in order to ensure that the Grid middleware development in the application projects can
proceed effectively. We intend to collaborate with the Globus team and assist in taking forward the
open source implementation of these standards. The ATF and DBTF have written a draft of the eScience Grid Architecture Roadmap and there will be a workshop on April 18th where application
developers and other middleware architects will have the opportunity to critique the proposed
8
architecture. Without a community effort we cannot ensure that the architecture meets the
requirements of the varied e-Science activities underway.
The standards being adopted and developed within the scientific Grid community over recent years
have until recently taken a different path than those developed within the World Wide Web
Consortium and other bodies active in the web services area. This potential divergence of
technologies has caused concern, as there is clearly a need for these two sets of protocols to
interface. In the last six or so months academics and industry have put forward an Open Grid
Services Architecture (OGSA) that essentially provides a merging of the two strands. This Grid
Services Architecture will provide a unifying framework upon which all networked systems can be
integrated, from high-performance computers to the most modest of commercial databases. The eScience community in the UK are actively involved in the specification and development of this
architecture. The Core Programme has funded a joint centre project that will provide database
access within this architecture. The proposal is between NeSC, Newcastle and Manchester eScience centres and includes IBM and Oracle as industrial partners.
In addition to the funding of the e-Science Centres, £5M (plus significant industrial contribution) is
available through an ‘Open Call’ with no deadlines. One project has already been funded under the
Open Call with three others under consideration and an anticipated four other proposals are
expected in the near future. The table below shows the details. The projects for the Open Call must
again be addressing a generic middleware issue – stretching the Grid in one direction or another.
The proposals are reviewed by members of an e-Science ‘college’.
PI Name Organisation Status
Grant
Value
Prof D
Duce
Oxford
Brookes
Being
£53,677
Refereed
Dr J
Bicarregui
CCLRC
Being
£39,514
Refereed
Prof M
Giles
Prof K
Brodlie
Oxford
Leeds
Prof CRA
Catlow
RI
Prof G
Nudd
Warwick
Being
£55,460
Refereed
Being
£129,763
Refereed
£278,414
GrantTitle
Visualization
Middleware for eScience
Collaborating Industrial
Organisations Contribution
NAG, IBM,
Streamline
Computing
e-Science
Technologies in the BT, Avantium,
Agreed £790, 873
Simulation of
IBM, GSK
Complex Materials
Performance
Being
£585,146 Based Middleware
Refereed
for Grid Computing
IBM
£332,000
£590,000
£435,000
See the section on Programme management for details on the co-ordination activity for these
projects.
2.5 Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration Grid Projects
The EPSRC in the UK has funded three, six-year, computer science (CS) oriented, Interdisciplinary
Research Collaborations (IRCs). These are major projects that fund key CS research groups from a
number of universities to undertake long-term research in three important areas. The Equator
project, led by Professor Tom Rodden from Nottingham, is concerned with technological
innovation in physical and digital life. The Advanced Knowledge Technologies project (AKT) led
9
by Professor Nigel Shadbolt from Southampton is concerned with the management of the
knowledge life cycle. Also, the DIRC project, led by Professors Cliff Jones from Newcastle and Ian
Sommerville from Lancaster, is concerned with the dependability of computer-based systems. A
fourth IRC, jointly funded by EPSRC and the MRC, is the MIAS project led by Professor Mike
Brady from Oxford. This application focussed IRC is concerned with translating data from medical
images and signals into clinical information of use to the medical profession. The Core Programme
has provided further funding to these IRCs.
Goal
These IRCs were selected after an open competitive bidding process and represent a unique pool of
expertise in these three key software technologies and in the important multidisciplinary application
area of medical informatics. We want to leverage this computer science research activity and have it
applied to the Grid.
Deliverables/Outputs
1.
2.
3.
4.
Leverage of outputs of leading edge computer science research into relevant Grid activities.
Grid stretch of these technologies.
‘Grand Challenge’ pilots for e-Health
Creation of IRC e-Science ‘community’
Status
The Core Programme is funding projects with each of these IRCs to enable them to consider the
implications of Grid technology on their research directions. In addition, we are funding two
collaborative projects combining the software technologies of the Equator and AKT IRCs with the
MIAS application project. In effect these projects constitute a sort of ‘Grand Challenge’ pilot
project in ‘e-Healthcare’.
Projects have been funded with AKT, Equator and MIAS, and joint projects AKT/MIAS and
Equator/MIAS have also been funded. The DIRC proposal is now with reviewers and will be
discussed at a meeting of a subcommittee of TAG on May 2nd. TAG reviewed the IRC projects
together with expert clinicians. All IRC projects are due to start in April 2002.
PI
Institute
IRC
Title
Amount
funded £
Equator/ GRID-BASED MEDICAL DEVICES 385,287 +
Rodden/
Nottingham/ Oxford
MIAS
FOR EVERYDAY HEALTH
195,693
Tarrassenko
Shadbolt/
Brady
Southampton/Oxford
AKT/
MIAS
Grid Enabled Knowledge Services:
487,030 +
Collaborative Problem Solving
246,589
Environments in Medical Informatics
Shadbolt
Southampton
AKT
Co-AKTing: Collaborative Advanced
Knowledge Technologies in the Grid
517139
Taylor
Manchester
MIAS
MIAS-Grid: A Medical Image and
Signal Research Grid
494411
Greenhalgh
Nottingham
Equator
Advanced Grid Interfaces
623,007
10
2.6 Support for e-Science Projects
Goal
The e-Science projects in the UK are being developed at the same time as the middleware to support
them. This leads to an inevitable tension and to the fact that application developers are being asked
to use tools that have not been polished and in some cases are still under development. The
application developers need support to use the middleware software. There is also a need to have a
central ‘Certificate Authority’ in the UK to provide secure digital certificates for the use of Grid
resources.
Outputs/Deliverables
1. Interface to middleware developers providing smooth transition between releases for the
UK.
2. Create a Grid starter kit (continually updated)
3. Provide information via web relevant to Grid technologies.
4. Act as the UK Certificate Authority.
5. Provide a 9-5 telephone/email query service.
6. Educate systems level administrators in use/installation of Grid middleware.
7. Facilitate the Engineering Task Force in implementation of UK e-Science Grid.
Status
In order to provide support for e-Science application projects, a Grid Support Centre (GSC) has
been established, jointly funded by the Core Programme, BBSRC and PPARC (www.gridsupport.ac.uk). The GSC hosts teams located at CCLRC (RAL) and with associates at CCLRC
(Daresbury) and Manchester and Edinburgh Universities. The GSC is charged with supporting the
implementation and operation of the UK e-Science Grid network and supporting associated
Research Council Pilots, Centres and Projects. The Centre developed the UK ‘Grid Starter Kit’
which initially consists of the Globus Toolkit, Condor and the Storage Resource Broker
middleware. The service provides regular upgrades to these core software systems, on-line help and
advice for its installation and commissioning, the management of current Grid security certification
system, co-ordination of the Engineering Task Force (ETF) and act as first point of liaison with
several key International groups. The support team is available to answer questions and resolve
problems for Grid application developers across the UK on a 9 to 5 basis.
Further roles of the team are to help educate the systems support staff at the UK e-Science Centres
and to advise the Core Programme Directorate on all matters affecting the efficient and effective
operation of the UK e-Science Grid and its connectivity to International collaborators.
2.6 International Collaboration and Outreach
2.6.1 International Collaboration
Goal
It is important to ensure that the UK e-Science community is actively communicating and
collaborating with the international community. It is therefore desirable to encourage the
development of an informed UK community on Grid technologies and provide funding for all to
play an active role in the development of internationally agreed Grid protocols at the Global Grid
Forum.
Deliverables/Outputs
1. Involvement in the Global Grid community and Global Grid Forum (GGF)
2. Collaboration with key international middleware development teams
11
3. Understanding of other national initiatives and directions
4. Engagement with non UK industrial ventures
Status
The Core Programme has funded a ‘GridNet’ network project which has a substantial travel budget
for attendance of UK experts at relevant standards bodies – the Global Grid Forum, the IETF and
W3C, for example. The last Global Grid Forum in February, saw a significant attendance and
engagement by UK participants and the next GGF meeting will be held at the National e-Science
Centre in July.
The UK programme is also concerned to create meaningful links to International efforts represented
by projects such as the EU DataGrid and the US iVDGL projects. We are therefore funding Grid
fellowships for young computer scientists from the UK to participate in these projects. The National
e-Science Centre is also tasked with establishing working agreements with major international
centres such as Argonne National Laboratory, San Diego Supercomputing Center and NCSA in the
USA and is active as a NPACI International partner. We are also looking to establish other
International links and joint programmes
In order to strengthen ties with the US research programme members of the UK e-Science
community took part in and NSF N+N Meeting in August. A follow up meeting is planned at
NeSC.
Clearly the ties with CERN and the particle physics community in the UK and internationally are
very important. The international links with EU projects are also important for the FP6 programme
which is about to come on line. We also believe that the ESA, NASA connections will also be
significant. The UK e-Science community is in a good position to take advantage of anticipated EU
funding for e-Science and Grids.
2.5.2 Demonstrator Projects and Outreach
Goal
There is a need to educate the broader community about e-Science. Even to computational
scientists it is not always clear what the Grid can offer to their science. The idea of the
demonstrator programme is to create a set of short-term projects that can use the present technology
to illustrate the potential of the Grid in different areas.
Outputs/Deliverables
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Eleven active demonstrators of Grid technology
Leading scientists who are able to present the demonstrators to their own communities
Literature based on the demonstrators for outreach within industry
‘Bleeding Edge’ tests of the existing Grid middleware
Industrial Grid Outreach – technology transfer
Status
The Core Programme has funded eleven ‘Grid Demonstrator’ projects. We have tried to select
demonstrators across a range of applications representing each of the Research Councils. Examples
include a dynamic brain atlas, a medical imaging project using VR, a robotic telescope project,
automated chemical data capture and climate prediction.
All demonstrators have been reviewed and most are in a final form. They will be used for both
actual demonstrations of the technology at such events as the launch of the National Centre and will
be individually documented in a glossy brochure. It is anticipated that we will hold a number of
‘industrial’ days, as part of a DTI Grid outreach programme, later in 2002/2003 at which the
demonstrator projects will also be employed.
12
On April 25th, Gordon Brown will be opening the National e-Science Centre, where the
demonstrators will play a prominent role.
As part of the community building and communication bridge, the Core Programme is organising
an ‘All Hands’ meeting in which all e-Science projects will be encouraged to participate and the
pilot projects will required to participate. The meeting is scheduled of September 2-4 and will be
held in Sheffield.
Demonstrator
Dynamic Brain Atlas
Medical Imaging/VR
e-Star
GRAB
PIs
Dr. D.L.G. Hill,
Dr. J.V. Hajnal,
Dr. S.M. Smith,
Dr. D. Rueckert,
Prof J.M. Brady
Dr. D Alexander
Dr. A Steed
Dr I Steele
Dr. D Carter
Prof Tim Naylor
Dr T Bowcock
Prof W GRAY
Dr A C Jones
Prof N J Fiddian
RC
MRC
MRC
NERC
BBSRC
Chemical Structures
Dr. M Surridge
EPSRC
E-Portal
Dr M Parsons
---
Mouse3D
Dr. M Parsons
Dr R. Baldock
Dr. J Sharpe
MRC
13
Comments
Aims to build a Grid-based brain atlas for
neuroimaging research and healthcare, that is
generated by multiple collaborating sites, can
be dynamically customised, can be provided in
a coordinate frame selected by the user, and
can be used for decision support in healthcare.
Remote access and VR visualization of
complex MR brain image, remote
collaboration between the surgeons, clinicians,
anatomists and imaging experts for diagnosis
and pre-surgical planning.
Development of an e-science prototype based
around the "ROBONET" concept of a network of
remote, robotic telescopes connected via
appropriate middleware to enable distributed,
dynamically scheduled astronomical observations
to be carried out and the data interpreted by
intelligent software systems.
This project builds on the SPICE (Species 2000
Interoperability
Co-ordination
Environment):
BBSRC/EPSRC-funded project investigating a
federated catalogue of life. Ultimately allowing
complex biodiversity queries such as ‘what
countries in a world might a given species be
successfully introduced into?’
This project will develop a proof-of-concept
demonstration showing how e-Science on the Grid
can help design materials to make improved optical
devices for information capture, communication
and processing applications. The demonstration
will bring together laboratory facilities at the
EPSRC National Crystallography Service, along
with published and private information sources, and
analysis programs and computational resources.
This project will create an ePortal to produce a
visually attractive demonstration of the power of
the portal approach to Grid computing. The portal
will also include customised job query panels for
tracking the state of a running job. Information will
include strip charts of program performance along
with the visualisation window(s) of the current state
of the system.
Considering time-changing 3D distributions of
gene activity in the embryo using optical projection
tomography enhanced by: fast, convenient, secure
transfer of data and results to and from Grid
ClimatePrediction.com
Seamless Access to
Multiple DataSets
Health Care Planning
with Data Driven
Resource Allocation.
Dr M Allen
Dr D Stainforth,
Prof K Cole
Prof M Birkin.
Prof P Dew
NERC
ESRC
ESRC
resources, providing computational resource via the
Grid using Globus and demonstrating a major
reduction in processing time from more than 5
hours to less than 15 minutes and enabling realtime visualisation of the results in the scientist’s
laboratory.
Will harness the power of idle home and business
PCs to provide the first fully probabilistic 50-year
forecast of human induced climate change based on
a perturbed-physics ensemble simulation with a
full-scale three-dimensional atmosphere-ocean
general circulation model.
This proposal suggests the development of a single
point of access to a large and disparate set of ESRC
data. The effect will be to make MIMAS a flexible
data repository on the Grid.
This proposal suggests the application of Grid
technologies to support decision-making process.
The problem domain for the application is the
health care planning and the investigators intent to
combine a currently disparate set of data sources, a
decision support module and visualisation to show
the results.
2.7 Support for e-Science Network requirements
Goal
The UK e-Science application projects will rely on the UK universities network SuperJANET4 for
delivering the necessary bandwidth. The backbone bandwidth of SuperJANET4 is now 2.5 Gbps
and there is funding in place to upgrade this to 10 Gbps by mid 2002.
Most application developers will not have had to consider network requirements previously and this
can be a complex task. This task is not made easier by the ‘balkanisation’ of the UK network into
an SJ4 backbone run by UKERNA and Metropolitan Area Networks run by university consortia.
The goal, then, is to help the application scientists and the e-Science Centres understand their
network requirements. A longer-term goal is to consider what developments are required in order to
ensure the UK network could support Grid applications of the future.
Deliverables/Outputs
1.
2.
3.
4.
Identify bottlenecks and potential bottlenecks.
Analyse e-Science centre and project requirements
Consider QoS issues for the Grid
Long term strategy for network development
Status
The Core Programme has established a Grid Network Team (GNT). The team comprises academics
from different areas of networking and members from UKERNA. The team have scheduled visits
to the e-Science Centres and have also visited those pilot projects that are ‘up and running’. A
£500K project with UKERNA and CISCO has been funded to look at traffic engineering issues and
another project is considering the question of bandwidth scheduling with the EU DataGrid project.
Both of these network R&D projects are jointly funded by the Core Programme and PPARC.
14
3. Committees and Bodies set up within the Core e-Science Programme
3.1 Technical Advisory Group (TAG)
Purpose
The Technical Advisory Group is made up of international academics and industrial science and/or
IT experts, who are able to advise the Director and act as reviewers for the e-Science Centres and
their projects.
Members
Professor Tony Hey (Chair)
Guy Rickett (Secretary)
Dr Anne Trefethen (deputy Chair)
Academic Members
Professor Jon A Crowcroft, Cambridge
Professor David Hutchison, Lancaster
Paul W Jeffreys, Oxford
Professor Ian M Leslie, Cambridge
Professor John A McDermid, York
Professor Ron H Perrott, Belfast
Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Southampton
Dr Paul Watson, Newcastle
Industrial Members
Dr Alistair Dunlop, Capital Interactive
Dr Glenn R Gapper, BAE Systems
Dr Mike J Kirton, Qinetiq
Professor Dominic J Tildesley, Unilever Research
International Advisors
Professor Ian Foster, Argonne National Laboratory, USA
Professor Chris Johnson, University of Utah, USA
Dr Paul Messina, California Institute of Technology, USA
Professor Dr Andreas, International University in Germany
Mr David Williams, CERN, Switzerland
Dr Carl Kesselman, USC/Information Sciences Institute, USA
3.2 Grid Network Team (GNT)
Purpose
As noted above the GNT was established to advise the Directorate and its Technical Advisory
Group (TAG) on matters related to computer networking. There is a short-term role to assist eScience application developers and e-Science Centres understand network requirements and identify
network bottlenecks. A longer-term role is to identify the directions that the UK needs to take to
ensure that the network will continue to meet the anticipated growing e-Science demand.
Membership
David Hutchison, University of Lancaster, (Chair)
Tim Chown, University of Southampton
Chris Cooper, UKERNA & Oxford Brookes University
Jon Crowcroft, University of Cambridge
Peter Clarke, University College London
15
Bob Day, UKERNA
Paul Jeffreys, University of Oxford
David Salmon, UKERNA - Secretary
Jeremy Sharp, UKERNA
Roland Rosner, University College London
David Williams, CERN
3.3 Architecture Task Force (ATF)
Purpose
As noted above the Architectural Task Force was established to develop an architectural model for
the UK's contributions to grid middleware.
Members
Prof. Malcolm Atkinson, National e-Science Centre (Chair)
Prof. John Crowcroft, University of Cambridge
Prof. David De Roure, University of Southampton
Vijay Dialani, University of Southampton
Dr. Andrew Herbert, Microsoft Research
Prof. Ian Leslie, University of Cambridge
Dr. Ken Moody, University of Cambridge
Dr. Steven Newhouse, Imperial College London
Dr. Tony Storey, IBM UK Laboratories
3.4 Database Task Force (DBTF)
Purpose
The Grid DataBase Task Force (DBTF), led by Prof. Norman Paton from Manchester, has been set
up to examine the question of Grid middleware interfaces to Relational DataBase Management
Systems and the federation of different data sources.
Members
Prof. Malcolm Atkinson, National E-Science Centre
Mr. Vijay Dialani, Southampton University
Prof. Norman Paton, Manchester University, (Chair)
Dr Dave Pearson, Oracle
Dr Tony Storey, IBM United Kingdom Laboratories
Prof Paul Watson, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
3.5 Engineering Task Force (ETF)
Purpose
The Grid Engineering Task Force was formed to guide the construction, testing and demonstration
of a prototype UK e-Science Grid. It contains members from each of the ten UK e-Science Centres.
The Task Force operates through several Working Groups.
Members
Dr. David Boyd, CLRC e-Science Centre (Chair)
Dr. Nick Hill, CLRC e-Science Centre (secretary)
Mr. Rob Allan, CLRC e-Science Centre
Dr. Andrew Sansum, CLRC e-Science Centre
16
Dr. Stephen Booth, National e-Science Centre
Dr Rolly Gilmour, National e-Science Centre
Dr Stewart Macneill, National e-Science Centre
Dr Joe Burns, Belfast Regional e-Science Centre
Dr Ricky Rankin, Belfast Regional e-Science Centre
Dr Mark Hayes, Cambridge e-Science Centre
Dr. Andy Parker, Cambridge e-Science Centre
Dr. Omer Rana, Cardiff e-Science Centre
Dr Stephen Pickles, e-Science North West
Dr Mike Daw, e-Science North West
Dr Steven Newhouse, London e-Science Centre
Dr Mark Hewitt North East Regional e-Science Centre
Prof. Mike Giles, Oxford e-Science Centre
Prof. Simon Cox, Southampton Regional e-Science Centre
Dr Oz Parchment, Southampton Regional e-Science Centre
17
4. Meetings Attended
The following meetings were attended by one or more members of the Core management team.
(AJGH =Tony Hey, AET = Anne Trefethen, RAB = Ray Browne, JF = James Fleming).
The meetings are of a variety of types, making ties with industry, international meetings, meeting
with other funding agencies etc.
Date
10-11 April
Attendees
Meeting, Place
05-Apr Meeting with Logica
AJGH
09-Apr PREP 2001 – Keele University
Workshop/Consultation meeting on Large-Scale
Systems and Platforms – Brussels
AJGH
AJGH
18-Apr Meeting with Geof McMullen (CE, UKERNA) et al – AJGH
London
19-20 April
PADDA 2001 – Munich, Germany
23-Apr GRID update meeting– Swindon
Meeting with Charles Courquin, Oracle – London
25-Apr Unisys Users Association 2001 Conference – Paris
27-Apr TAG meeting – London
01-May Anne Trefethen – London
John Taylor – London
02-May Hugh Pilcher-Clayton and Maggie Wilson re n+n with
the States – Swindon
Alec Gray – Cardiff University, Department of
Computer Science
AJGH
AJGH/RAB/JF
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH/RAB/JF
AJGH/RAB
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
04-May Visit to Edinburgh
AJGH/RAB
08-May Meeting with John Manley – Swindon
AJGH
Meetings with Paul Durham, Keith Jeffery and David AJGH
Boyd – RAL
16-18 May
09-May Meeting with IRC Directors – Swindon
AJGH/JF
14-May UKCRC meeting – London
AJGH
15-May e-Science Steering Committee meeting – London
AJGH/RAB/JF
Visit to the States – San Diego and Caltech
AJGH
21-May Meeting with John Wood – RAL
AJGH
GRID Programme Centres meeting – London
AJGH/RAB/JF
Meeting with Malcolm Read and Maxwell Irvine, JISC AJGH
– London
22-May EPSRC Testbeds presentations – London
23-May IRC meeting – London
24-May Conference for members of Research Councils –
London
28 May – June 1
CERN
04-Jun Meeting with Mike Reeve – Southampton
06-Jun TAG – London
18
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH/RAB/JF
08-Jun Meeting with Director General, Industry Group, DTI – AJGH/RAB
London
18 Jun-20 Jun
21-24 Jun
24-26 June
12-Jun Meeting with Oracle reps – London
Meeting with MRC CE – London
13-Jun Meeting with David Boyd – RAL
14-Jun Visit to Glasgow and Edinburgh
15-Jun EPSRC UP meeting – London
Advanced Environments & Tools for HPC Conference
– Italy
First Euroglobus Conference - Italy
HPCN Europe 2001 Conference - Amsterdam
27-Jun OECD meeting – Paris
28-Jun FCO S&T Science Attaches Conference – London
29-Jun IT Innovation Exploitation Strategy meeting –
Southampton
AJGH/RAB
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH/RAB/JF
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
02-Jul Visit by Phil Andrews, SDSC
AJGH/AET/JF
Visit to Cardiff University
AJGH
04-Jul Meeting with Bob Day and Jeremy Sharp, UKERNA AJGH/AET
– Swindon
Visit to Bristol University
AJGH
05-Jul Visit to Cambridge
AJGH
05-Jul Multi Service Networks, Abingdon
AET
10-Jul GNT,London
AET/RAB/JF
10-Jul British National Conference on Databases – RAL
AJGH
11-Jul Meeting with Robert Gurney and David Brown, NERC AJGH
12-Jul Meeting with Tony Storey, IBM Hursley
AJGH
SSTF AGM and meeting with Vijay Dialani –
AJGH
Southampton
15 July –18 July
23-24 July
13-Jul Visit to Liverpool and Manchester Universities
Global Grid Forum 2 and e-Science TAG meeting –
USA
AJGH
AJGH/RAB/JF
20-Jul Visit to Leeds and York Universities
e-Science Testbed interviews – London
24-Jul Grid Microscopy Meeting, Manchester
25-Jul e-Science Steering Committee meeting – London
26-Jul Meeting with IoP CE, Dr Alun Jones – London
26-Jul PPARC e-Science Steering Committee meeting –
London
AJGH
AJGH/JF
AET
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH
AJGH/AET
Presentations by e-Science Centre Directors – London AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
27-Jul e-Science Core Programme Town Meeting – London AJGH/AET
30-Jul Meeting with Liz Lyon, Andy Powell, UKOLN and
Keith Jeffery - Swindon
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AET/RAB
AET
AJGH/JF
01-Aug Mindsite Web, DTI
02-Aug Ian Smith, UKERNA
4 August - 5 August
N+N meeting - USA
19
07-Aug Globus meeting, Steve Teuke, Vijay Delani, Tony
Storey
AET
10-Aug E-Science support centre review, RAL
16-Aug Jeremy Sharpe, David Salmon, UKERNA
28 August -29 August Euro-Par 2001 Conference - Manchester
30 August -31 August CERN
03-Sep EPSRC press briefing at BA Festival of Science –
Glasgow
AET/RAB
AET
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
03-Sep Transatlantic Procurement, UKERNA
4 September - 7
Parallel Computing 2001 Conference – Italy
September
AET
AJGH
06-Sep MRC e-Science workshop
07-Sep Cambridge e-Science Management Committee
meeting
10-Sep Liz Lyon, UKOLN
10 September - 11
Annual UKHEC Seminar – Edinburgh
September
AET
AET
AET
AJGH
12-Sep Myles Allen and David Stainforth , Oxford
AJGH/AET
EU DataGrid and CERN Fellowships Panel – Swindon AJGH/JF
13-Sep CERCs meeting – London
AJGH
14-Sep Hugh Pilcher-Clayton re HPC
AJGH/AET
Dr Mark Lemmens
AJGH
17-Sep Meeting with Wolfgang Gentzsch, SUN Microsystems AJGH/RAB/JF
and David Stephenson with e-Science Centre Directors
– London
18-Sep EPSRC DIM, Edinburgh
18-Sep AKT Town Meeting, IoM, London
19-Sep Talk at Oxford University on e-Science
20-Sep Meeting with JISC reps – Swindon
22 September – 28
HPCAsia 2001, Australia
September
1-2 October
8-10 Oct
10-12 October
24-Sep David Cockayne, Oxford
26-Sep HPC User Meeting, London
27-Sep SRB Seminar, RAL
Centre Directors meeting, Edinburgh
03-Oct e-Science Steering Committee, London
Talk at IoP, London
04-Oct Common Infrastructure Environment, HEFCE
05-Oct meeting with Jeff Robbins
TAG, London
GGF3, Rome
09-Oct BBSRC Council and Strategy Board mtg, London
Cluster 2001, California, USA
20
AET
AJGH
AJGH/AET
AJGH
AJGH
AET
AET/JF
AET
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH
AET
AJGH
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AET
AJGH
AJGH
14 - 17 October
High Performance Transaction Systems Workshop,
California, USA
AJGH
18-Oct Cambrige e-Science Management Committee
19-Oct Digital Curation: International Standards and UK
Developments mtg, London
AET
AJGH
22-Oct UKAEA IEE Talk, Thurso, Scotland
22-Oct Cranfield University, e-Science Day, Cranfield,
Bedfordshire
AJGH
JF
24-Oct New Science for High Performance Computing,
London
AJGH
26-Oct e-Biology: Data Integration in Biology (The Novartis AJGH
Foundation), London
29-Oct RSLG, Swindon
31-Oct Visit and talk at IBM, Zurich
02-Nov Contemporary Physics Editorial Board meeting,
London
07-Nov Heads of Departments, Oxford
08-Nov Support Centre visit, RAL
8 - 9 November
mtg with USA IBM senior people, NY, USA
10 Nov -11 Nov
SUN HPC Consortium, Denver, USA
12-14 November
SC2001, Denver, USA
20-Nov Michael Jubb (AHRB)
Regional Centres Directors mtg, ICSTM, London
21-Nov Cambridge
22-Nov Talk at IBM Hursley Park, Winchester
23-Nov Ian Diamond, Southampton
23-Nov Sonjan Zhou (Platform Computing) London
ICSTM Rector
26-Nov Visit to Newcastle
26-Nov Cambridge e-Science Management committee
27-Nov JISC Contacts gp mtg, Action Group mtg and Talk to
staff in Polaris House (with Vince Osgood)
28 - 29 Nov
6-7 Dec
28-Nov Spanning NHS/HE Interface, UCL
Visit to QUB, Ireland
29-Nov NHS Link up, MRC London
30-Nov Mtg to consider e-Science IRC proposals, London
04-Dec Cave demonstration, UCL
04-Dec JISC Committee meeting, Bristol
Foresight ICM Panel with the EC, Dusseldorf
05-Dec IBM Luminaries, London
05-Dec e-Science Workshop, Germany
06-Dec IBM, Winchester
NERC e-Science Programme Panel
11-Dec International Review of Computer Science event,
London
21
AET
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH/AET
AET
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH
AJGH
AET
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AET
AJGH
AET
AJGH/RAB
AET
AJGH/RAB/JF
AET/RAB/JF
AJGH
AJGH
AET
AJGH
AJGH
AET
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
13 - 14 Dec
18 -19 Dec
6-10 February
12-Dec International Grid Workshop, Vienna
12-Dec Brain Atlas Demo, Guy Hospital
Visit to Edinburgh
17-Dec Visit to Warwick University
JISC/UKERNA Conference, Warwick
2002
03-Jan ClimatePrediction Demo, Oxford
08-Jan GNT,London
09-Jan Comb-e-Chem demo, Southampton
10-Jan TAG mtg, Manchester
11-Jan Lunch with Judith Scott (CE BCS) in Swindon
15-Jan Glenn Gapper, at EPSRC
15-Jan Web review, Glasgow
16-Jan e-Science Seminar, Southampton
17-Jan e-Science Steering Committee, London
18-Jan Optical Networking Seminar (Starlight), DTI, London
AJGH
AET/RAB
AJGH
AJGH/AET
AJGH
21-Jan Muffy Calder (Glasgow Uni) at DTI, London
Pru Backway (Foresight), DTI, London
Emmanuel De-Rycker et al, Hewlett-Packard, London
22-Jan Mtg with CEO, Compaq, London
Grid Presentation, Brussels
23-Jan Cardiff Computer Science, including AccessGrid
Demo with reps from Patent Office
AJGH/RAB
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH/AET/RAB
24-Jan Edinburgh – Talk by Steve Tuecke
25-Jan 1st meeting for all EPSRC e-Science Pilot projects,
NeSC, Edinburgh
AJGH/AET/JF
AJGH/AET/JF
28-Jan meeting with Markus Lemmens (re e-Science in
Germany) at DTI
AJGH
29-Jan Entropia, Cambridge
29-Jan Cambridge e-Science Management Committee
meeting and launch of e-Science Centre, Cambridge
AET
AJGH/AET
30-Jan Mike Dexter, Wellcome Trust, London
RSLG e-Science meeting at HEFCE, London
31-Jan Robonet Demo, Liverpool
31-Jan ISTAG, Brussels
01-Feb Liz Lyon (UKOLN), Swindon
04-Feb Glasgow for Directors meeting/forum
05-Feb continuation of Directors meeting, Glasgow
06-Feb Go Programme
Brazil Grid Workshop
11-Feb Bioinformatics Funders, Swindon
11-Feb e-Science lecture, Edinburgh
12-Feb NeSC management meeting
12-Feb Lunch with Ursula Martin, Chesterfield Hotel, London
AJGH
AJGH
AET/JF
AJGH
AJGH/AET
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AET/RAB
AJGH
AET
AET
AET
AJGH
22
AET
AET/RAB/JF
AET/RAB
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH
AJGH/JF
AET
AJGH
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH/RAB
Research Audit Committee, Chesterfield Hotel,
London
17-19 February
6-8 Mar
21-23 March
25-26 March
AJGH
13-Feb Info Tech Pharma 2002 Conference, London
14-Feb ARCADE Conference, Barcelona, Spain
Global Grid Forum, Canada
20-Feb Grid support Centre Review, RAL
20-Feb Visit to Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, USA
with Malcolm Atkinson
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AET/RAB
AJGH
21-Feb Common Infrastructure Environment, London
21-Feb Visit to National Center for Supercomputing
Appliations, Chicago with Malcolm Atkinson
AET
AJGH
25-Feb Go Programme, DTI
25-Feb Peter Roberts (Platform Computing), London
Joe Hutcheon and Rachel Merrett re JISC Research
Committee, London
AET/RAB
AJGH
AJGH
26-Feb ISTAG, Brussels
27-Feb Digital Preservation Coalition – House of Commons,
London
AJGH
AJGH
27-Feb Allan Schofield, HEFCE
AET
01-Mar Bob Bentley, Southampton
AJGH
04-Mar Schlumberger e-Science day
AET/RAB
05-Mar Visit and talk at Reading University
AJGH
NPACI All Hands meeting, San Diego
AET/JF
06-Mar Meeting with John Taylor, Ron Perrott, David Wallace AJGH
etc
07-Mar Presentation to BBSRC BITS Board, Swindon
08-Mar PPARC Grid Steering Committee, London
11-Mar JISC Committee for Support of Research, London
pm RHUL Computer Science Department Dinner and
Address, London
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
12-Mar Oxford e-Science Management meeting
13-Mar HoL S&T Committee Seminar, RS, London
14-Mar CERN
15-Mar ISTAG, Brussels
18-Mar Cambridge e-Science Management meeting
18-Mar Paul McKee et al, at DTI
e-Science Seminar, IoM, London
19-Mar Swiss HPCN Grid Committee meeting, Lugano,
Switzerland
AET
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
AET
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
20-Mar TAG mtg, London
SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research Rethinking Science Policy mtg, Brighton
AJGH/AET/RAB/JF
AJGH
Grid Computing Symposium, Singapore
27-Mar ISTAG, Brussels
28-Mar JISC Committee meeting London
AJGH
AJGH
AJGH
23
5. Programme and Project Management
This is a complex programme with many inter-related projects and bodies. Figure 5 below
illustrates this complexity by highlighting the connections between one pilot project and other
elements of the programme. This same complexity exists when considering any one body or project
and its relationship to the whole community. Many of these elements are beyond the ‘control’ of the
Core Programme and at most we can try to ensure communication and awareness.
NHSNet
NERC
DTI
“HEFCE”
Keyworth
Dir Gen
MRC
CCLRC
Pilots
Outreach
OST SR2002
Pilots
Projects Hinxton BBSRC
Web sites
Bid
HPC
Pilots
Publicity
e-Science
ESRC
4 IRCs Information
EPSRC/DTI
Centres
Steering
Pilots
5 Projects
Finance
9 Grid
e-Science
Committee
e-Science
Demos
Institute
Operations
8 Regional
Director
EPSRC
Committee
Core Programme
6 Pilots
National Centres
myGrid
£20m
Centre
PPARC
Technical Advisory
Grid
50 Projects
Pilots
Group
CCLRCSupport
Open
RAL & DLTeam
CERN
Call Projects
ICT
Grid
SuppliersGrid
GEANT
International Network Reports
USERS
Gridnet
EU
Security
Team
Grid
Framework
Taskforce
UKERNA
Fellowships
Projects
Architecture
JISC
Other
Taskforce
Data Base
International
Network
Taskforce
Projects
Monitoring
Global Grid
Forum US
Players
Figure 5: Programme Connections
In order to manage the Core Programme we are using a number of tools, including Microsoft
Project. The Project has been defined at quite a detailed level (see figures below). This provides a
picture of the programme at any one given point in time. To provide a higher-level view of the
programme we have created an Action Plan (in Excel) – provided in Appendix 2. This provides the
key events and has proved useful in determining likely budget requirements and effort.
24
Figure 6: Extracts from the MS
Project Gant Chart
(a) Programme Meetings &
National Grid Network
(b) E-Science Centre plans
(c) Demonstrators
25
Management of the key elements of the programme is completed in slightly differing ways due to
the nature of the elements.
5 .1 Centre Management
The e-Science Centres are required to provide a quarterly report/plan in which they indicate possible
projects that are being developed, hence communicating that to other centres. There is a secure area
on the NeSC website where papers and reports regarding the centres are shared.
The Centre projects are reviewed by members of the TAG, and occasionally by other outside
experts. The Centre management teams manage the portfolio of projects but they are also coordinated through a project database web page on the NeSC site (see below). The Directorate also
take an active role in several of the Centre management committees.
Centre Director meetings are held every 6-8 weeks where issues and opportunities can be discussed.
Each Centre has a six monthly review, beginning six months after the first industrial project is
awarded. The review includes presentations from each of the active industrial projects and where
the core team will review the financial and other details. The first of these reviews will be held in
May at the Cambridge Centre. The reviews include members of the Core Programme team together
with members of the TAG and e-Science Steering Committee.
5.2 Project Co-ordination
A project mapping scheme has been developed. All projects are mapped on to the table below in
figure 7. The mapping identifies those components of Grid development that are included in any
given project.
This project mapping has been implemented as a webpage. All e-Science projects are being stored
in the database, indicating those components of middleware that they are actively engaged in
developing, the funding agency and links to other projects. There is a visual representation of the
database on the web page which indicates those areas that have well developed code, research code
or none. A beta of this mapping is available on the NeSC website. Figure 8(a) illustrates the top
level of the project mapping. Figure 8(b) indicates what happens when some one clicks on a given
component – a list of the projects active in the component is given. The user can then drill down
further to find details of any given project (see figure 8c) and what other components or projects it
is related to. Alternatively clicking on a funding agency provides the list of projects funded by that
agency and again further details can be found by further drilling.
We intend including international as well as UK projects in the database which should provide a
good overview for the community as a whole. The intention is that as middleware developers are
considering proposals they will look at the web page and identify those areas where there is little or
no activity.
26
Figure 7
Grid
Service
Information
Uniform Resource
Access
Brokering
Global Queuing
Co-Scheduling
Global Event
Services
Problem Solving
Environments
Visualisation Toolkits
Collaboration Toolkits
Instrument
Toolkits
Management
Data management
Toolkits
Data Mining Toolkits
Data Cataloguing
Uniform Data Access
Authentication
Authorisation
Security Services
Auditing
Scheduling/Monitoring/
Diagnostic
Assessment Tools
and
Domain/Task
Ontologies
&
Metadata
Dissemination/
Archiving
Services
Market Economy
Mechanisms
Patterns
models
Environments
Publication/
Virtual/Immersive
Environment
Toolkits
Collaboration and
Remote Instrument
Services
Grid
Administration
Program
Monitoring
Fault Management
Durability
Management
BBSRC
EPSRC
ESRC
MRC
NERC
PPARC
Core
27
Grid
Computational
Services
Application
Toolkits
Figure 8a: Webpage of project mapping
Figure 8b: Drilling down on Visualisation Toolkits
28
Figure 8c: Further drilling into project details
Figure 8d: Information regarding a funding agency
29
5.3 Demonstrator Management
The management phase of the demonstrators is almost complete although there will be a need to
ensure that they are maintained and are usable throughout the programme. Each demonstrator was
reviewed during development by one or more of the Core Programme Team to ensure that the
directions taken were as planned and matched the programme goals.
The outreach programme using the demonstrators is being managed by the DTI but is also in
collaboration with the EPSRC marketing group to ensure a same ‘branding’ of material.
5.4 Grid Support Centre
The Grid Support Centre is reviewed quarterly. The Centre Manager, Dr David Boyd, provides a
status report and statistics of the number of requests for assistance that have been received, the
number of hits and downloads of software from the website and so on. He also provides a set of
milestones for the Centre for the upcoming quarter. The resources and effort are considered at each
stage to ensure that the level of support is maintained. Both the GSC and EFT produce milestones
and updates for the directorate and the rest of the community as an integral part of the activity. The
centre had its first such review on February 20th and the next is scheduled in May.
5.5 Open Call and IRCs
The open call and IRC projects will be reviewed together in a six monthly meeting which will be
held along the same lines as the centre reviews. The first review meeting for these projects will take
place in September. There will be a steering committee comprising the IRC directors and Core
Programme directorate to monitor progress of the projects.
5.6 Risk Managment
The Core Programme is classified as an EPSRC Business Critical project and has recently been
moved to ‘Amber’ status. The Core Programme directorate keeps an active document of risks and
actions taken, or to be taken, to minimize the risk. The most recent is provided in appendix 3. This
document is maintained regularly as the programme evolves and areas of risk develop. The
programme report regularly to the EPSRC RAC and to the CEG.
5.7 OST, EPSRC and DTI Management Framework
The Core Programme is managed on behalf of all the research councils by the EPSRC and is part of
the e-Science Programme created by Dr John Taylor, Director General of the Research Councils.
The e-Science Programme as a whole is overseen by the e-Science Steering Committee, chaired by
Professor David Wallace.
Within the EPSRC Professor John O’Reilly, Chief Executive of EPSRC, is responsible for the
overseeing the financial management of the OST’s £15M contribution to the Core Programme. The
DTI programme management and budget of £20M is overseen by Patrick Mcdonald, Director of
KBT, DTI.
30
6. Finances
As noted above the Core Programme is funded by the DTI and the Research Councils, with EPSRC
managing the programme on behalf of the research councils. There are some of the elements of the
programme that are funded jointly and others that are only funded from one source or the other.
In the first year EPSRC has committed £9,052,350 and DTI £9,403,000. This is in line with the
expected level of commitment for the first year of the programme.
Call Name
Industry
EPSRC
DTI cost
Involvement
cost
Lead
Body
EPSRC
DTI
Cost/Yr
Duration
0%
100%
£200k+
o/h
3 years
£0
£840,202
£0
DTI
0%
100% £50k total
N/A
£0
£117,500
£0
DTI
£0
£0
DTI
National
Centre
Infrastructure
Access
Grid
Newtontype
100%
0%
£500k
3 years
£1,500,0
00
33%
67%
up to
£1M
3 years
£1,000,0 £2,000,0
£3,000,000
00
00
0%
100%
£100k+
o/h
3 years
0%
100%
£50k (+
VAT)
Projects
13%
up to
£1,000,0 £7,000,0
88% £1M over 3 years
£8,000,000
00
00
3 years
DTI
Additional
0%
100%
100%
0%
0%
Projects
Regional
Centre (times
Infrastructure
8!)
Access
Grid
Cambridge
Open Call
Demos
IRC Projects
IRC
Contracts
Various
Demos
Access Grid
Demo
Individual
projects x4
Joint Project
DTI
£0
£3,490,6
43
£0
DTI
£0
£452,165
£0
DTI
£0
£218,209
£0
DTI
£440000
0 over 3
years
£4,400,0
00
£0
£2,500,000
ESPR
C
100%
£300k
0
£334,401
£0
DTI
0%
100%
£15k
0
£15,000
£0
DTI
100%
0%
£0
£1,000,000
EPSR
C
£0
£1,000,000
EPSR
C
100%
0%
£500k x4
over 3
3 years
years
£3,900,0
00
£2M over
3 years
3 years
Reports/Roa
d Map etc
Various
0%
100% £100,000
£0
£100,000
£0
DTI
0%
100% £100,000
£0
£100,000
£0
DTI
TAG Costs
0%
100% £250,000
£0
£250,000
£0
DTI
31
Muffy Calder
DTI Website
0%
0%
100% £50,000
100% 50000
3 years
£0
£0
£50,000
£50,000
£0
£0
DTI
DTI
Support
Support
Centre
/Starter Kit
0%
100%
£500k
3 years
0
£1,200,0
00
£300,000
DTI
International
Involvement
Grid Net
100%
0%
£400k
over 3
years
3 years
£600,00
0
£0
£0
EPSR
C
0%
100
£1.5M
over 3
years?
£0
Grid
Grid Network
Infrastructure
Team
Support
£1,500,0
£1,000,000
00
DTI
GNt
GNT
Research
Projects
100%
0%
£1M over
3 years?
£1,000,0
00
£0
£1,300,000
EPSR
C
GNT
Hinxton/Cam
bridge Link
0%
100%
£500000
?
£0
£500,000
£500,000
DTI
Grid
Architecture/
Database
Task Force
Task Force
Costs
0%
100%
£200000
?
£0
£200,000
£0
DTI
Fellowships
CERN
100%
0%
£1200k
over 3
years?
£1,200,0
00
£0
£0
EPSR
C
iVDGL
100%
0%
DataGrid
100%
0%
£400,00
0
£0
£200,000
EPSR
C
Contingency
0%
100%
£1,000,0
00
50%
50%
£100k
£150,00
£150,000
0
100%
0%
£300k
£300,00
0
£200k?
2 years
£1,000,0
£0
00
£15,000, £21,418,
£27,800,000
000
120
£0
Total
e-Science
Annual
Conference
Meetings/Rel
ated Admin
Costs
Various
(Town
Meetings,
Scoping etc)
32
£0
EPSR
C
£0
EPSR
C
7. Conclusions
The Programme has seen a busy and productive year. All key activities have progressed as
planned. The only area to have caused concern and moved at a slower rate than planned was the
AccessGrid. This was due in part to a mismatch in understanding on the issue of multicast
protocols across the network
The e-Science centres are all up and running. The demonstrator projects are mostly complete. The
centre projects are beginning to take shape. The proposals for the Open call are just beginning to
appear, perhaps slightly behind where we might expect them to be, however this is likely to be due
to the effort being spent in bringing in centre projects.
The programme is a quite complex and needs careful management to ensure success. The team are
using a variety of management tools and are involved in regular reviews and meeting of the relevant
parties. The project mapping promises to provide a good tool for project co-ordination and project
information dissemination.
The Programme is an internationally recognised programme and has been described as the leading
‘Grid’ programme in Europe. By leveraging international efforts, particularly from the US, the
activity has been able to sprint off the starting blocks.
The next twelve months sees a great deal of cross project communication activity, the building of
the first draft of the architecture from the architecture roadmap, the Grid outreach programme to
industry and the continuing development of industrial projects through the centres.
33
Appendix 1: Centre Hardware for UK e-Science Grid
Centre
Hardware
Belfast
IBM SP, CAVE
CeSC Cambridge
IBM SP (160 proc) 5%
SGI Origin 2000 (64 CPU) 5%
Cardiff
Beowulf Cluster, VR Table
CLRC Daresbury
Beowulf (32x pentium, Linux, PBS)
IBM SP and w/s pool (AIX, Loadleveler)
Sun w/s pool (Solaris, Condor, LSF)
Alpha cluster (64 alpha, Linux, PBS)
CLRC RAL
Wulfgar (pentium, Linux, PBS)
Hrothgar (athlon, Linux, PBS)
NeSC Edinburgh
Cray T3E (344 PEs) 1%
Sun 6800 cluster (3x24 procs) 5%
Sun Wildfire (32 procs) 5%
Beowulf (16 procs) reference
Beowulf (64 procs) 1%
NeSC Glasgow
ScotGrid facilities ?
LeSC London
Sun E6800 + tape store
Sun cluster (22 machines, Condor)
AP3000 (Solaris)
SRIF procurement some %
ESNW Manchester Turing Cray T3E (816 proc)
Fermat Origin 2000
Kelvin Origin 2000
Sun w/s cluster
Green Origin 3000
Newcastle
Beowulf (32 pentium)
procurement some % (IBM ?)
CAVE
OeSC Oxford
IBM (64x2 pentium, Myrinet, Linux, Condor) 5%
Sun E6800, 4 SMP nodes (84 procs) 5%
Southampton
Beowulf (small, Linux)
Beowulf (324 procs, Linux) some %
34
Appendix 2: Core e-Science Action Plan
Activity
Programme
Management
Action/Deliverable
Timing
Programme review
Annual/April
Create Technical Scope
Build project database
Programme Meetings Steering Committee
Operations Meetings
TAG
Directors' Meeting
Industrial Liason meetings
All Hands meeting
Action Group
International
Engagement
National Grid
Network
Centre Web sites
Industrial projects
Project review workshops
Demonstrators
TH/AET/JF/RB
June '01
Oct '01
complete
Ongoing
TH
AET/MA
Monthly
Quarterly
Six weekly begin Sept '01
Bimonthly Sept '01 - Dec
'02
Annually, October
Triweekly
Ongoing
Ongoing
Ongoing
Ongoing
JF
GR
MA,JF
TH,CB
Ongoing
Ongoing
CB +
KB
In hand
TH/TAG
In hand
MA/TH
Complete
In hand
Complete
Complete
JF
JF
TH
TH
TH
July '01
Sept '01
Sept '01
Sept '01
Sept '01
Sept '01
Complete
Complete
Complete
Complete
Complete
Complete
TAG
RB
RB/AET/JF
RB/AET/JF
RB/AET/JF
RB/AET/JF
Annual
Nov '01/quarterly
Ongoing
Ongoing
Sept '01
Oct '01 start
Ongoing
Ongoing
AET
Centre
Directors/AET
AET
Centre
Directors/TH
Centre
Directors/JF
Centre
Directors/JF
UK involvement in GGF
Oct '01 start
(Gridnet)
e-Science Institute
Sept '01 start
Fellowships (CERN,iVGDL,DataGrid)
Call, Closing day discussions
Aug/Sept 01
Announcements
Autumn '01
NSF N+N Initial meeting
Aug '01
Continuation follow-up
Spring/Summer '02
Request Proposals
May '01
Decisions on Centres
Center Contracts in place
Center Guidelines
Project Guidelines/forms
Center review process
Center project proposal review
process
Centers integration review
Centre Activities Plans
Access Grid Nodes
Progress Responsible
Each centre six monthly
Access Grid Node operational
Dec '01
Operational
Nov '01
On going
Demonstration
Dec '01
In hand
Virtual Coffee room evolvement
Dec '02
Demonstration strategy
Collection of representative
demonstrators
Review Process Procedure
July '01
Oct '01
Ongoing
Ongoing
TH/AET
AET
Oct '01
Complete
TH/JF/RB/AET
35
Centre
Directors/TH
Centre
Directors/TH
Centre
Directors/TH
IRCs
e-Science Support
Center
Project Reviews
Demonstration schedule
Grid Outreach Programme
Request Proposals
Decision on IRC Projects
Contract in place
IRC Project review meetings
Dec '01
Nov '01
April '02
June '01
Nov '01
Dec '01
Six monthly (June/Nov)
complete
In hand
In hand
Complete
In Hand
AET
RB/AET
RB/AET
TH
JF
JF
JF
June '01
Complete
TH
July '01
Sept '01
July '01
Continual
Nov '01
Oct '01
Throughout programme
Quarterly (begin Dec '01)
Complete
Complete
Complete
In hand
In hand
In hand
TAG/TH/AET
AET/RB
GSC
GSC
GSC
GSC
GSC
AET/RB
Create
Oct '01
Complete
TH/DB
Develop national Grid
milestones
UK e-Science Grid functional
Terms of reference
Resource proposal
Contract in place
GNT guidance/issues
document
Questionairre +
Meetings
Webpage
Research projects
Jan '02
Complete
DB
Jun '02
July '01
Aug '01
Sept '01
Oct '01
In hand
Complete
Complete
In hand
On going
DB
AET/TH
AET/TH
AET/TH
AET/TH
Sept '01
Monthly/as required
Sept '01
as required
On going
AET/TH
One
received/fun
ded
JF
In hand
TH
Request Proposal
Decision on Support Centre
Contract in place
Starter Kit
Starter Kit update
Certificate Authority
Training Workshops
International visits
Support Center Review
Engineering task
force
Grid Network Team
Architecture Task
Force
Terms of reference
Oct '01
Meetings
Review Grid Technology
Create short/medium/long-term
architectural roadmap
Community buy in - workshop
Database Task Force Terms of reference
Meetings
Review Database technology
Develop Short term/medium
term/ long-term
database architecture
Community buy in - workshop
Announcement
Open Call
Review Process in place
e-Science college created
Panel meetings
Open Call project review
meeting
36
as required
Dec '01
First roadmap Feb '02
April '02
Oct '01
as required
Jan '02
First report Feb '02
TH
TH
TH
In hand
April '02
July '01
Complete
Sept '01
Complete
Sept '01
Complete
(TAG meetings)
Six Monthly from first project
TH/AET
TH
TH
TH
TH
TH/AET
JF
JF/RB/AET/TH
JF
TAG
Contracts/Grants
Reports on Existing technology
Bringing in of technical
expertise
Dissemination
DTI website
Joint council website
Newsletter/Brochure
News Items
as required
as required
Aug '01 - continuing
Dec '01
Throughout programme
37
TH/RB
TH/RB
On going
On going
In hand
AET/RB
AET/JF
JF/AET
All
Appendix 3: Core e-Science Programme Risk Register
Description of risk
Prob
Score
Impact Total Priority
Score Score (H),
(M) and
(L)
Actions/Strategies to obviate risk
Status
Owner
Flexible approach to lengths of proposals and referee
responses.
On going
TH
On going
TH
General Programme Risks
Finance/Nexus
4
2
8
M
1
3
3
L
3
3
3
3
9
9
H
H
Director and Tech Team Head to monitor
Usual care to document. Risk lies in individual
characters and abilities which are difficult (impossible)
to replace. Director monitoring.
2
2
4
L
Monitor situation closely. Recent downturn in the IT This risk has reduced.
sector is alleviating this problem. Reports from The majority of
Science Centres and Pilot Projects have been very
projects have
encouraging; most projects are nearing full compliment completed recruitment,
of staff.
although some areas of
the country are still
finding it harder than
others.
Cross-council activity doesn't match existing formats
Internal operation of programme fails to meet good
audit practice
Resources
Lack of support staffing
Internal Staff changes
Recruitment of Staff in projects
Director with EPSRC/DTI team, TAG and ESSC
monitor review process and funding commitments.
On going
TH
Lack of Engagement of a Wider Community
2
3
6
M
Increased publicity (e.g. Town Meetings, Newsletter,
Academically- and Industrially-focussed web sites),
establishment of e-Science Institute at NeSC. Director
has given several press interviews. E-Science Centres
have generated local and National press. National
Centre will opened by a senior Govt minister on
31/01/02. e-Science brochure to be produced 01/02,
and information on web site to be drastically updated.
Activities to date have
been successful.
Wider community
involvment is evident
in workshops at NeSC,
in project proposals
and in press articles.
TH
Insufficient interaction across disciplines
2
2
4
L
Annual e-Science Workshop across all Research
Activities to date have
Council Activities, e-Science Institute activities, Cross
been successful.
Council sharing of ideas (via the e-Science Operations Interaction across
group)
disciplines is evident
in workshops at NeSC
and in project
proposals.
TH
Inadequate Involvement in international activities
2
3
6
M
e-Science Institute activities, GridNet proposal (to
allow UK researchers to visit relevant
conferences/meetings) is now funded with a budget in
excess of £0.5M, N+N meeting with US (and follow-up
meetings), discussions with EU activites (through
Fabrizio Galgiardi etc), Fellowships at CERN and with
iVDGL (US) to be announced in 2002, National eScience Centre hosting GGF5, discussions with Grid
projects abroad on-going (e.g. US, Japan, Malaysia,
China, Germany, Holland etc.).
TH
Industrial engagement low
2
4
8
M
Project management of large grants
2
3
6
M
DTI guidelines on e-Science projects necessitating real Many of main tech
engagement of industry - particularly e-Science Centre industries are now
projects, Coordinated discussions with leading
involved in e-Science
companies (e.g. Sun, IBM etc). Creation of e-Science
projects.
centres (see below).
Annual e-Science Workshop (see above), Project
On going
monitoring for all centres (see above) on a 6-monthly
basis. Various meetings at National e-Science Centre.
39
On going
TH
TH
Repetition of research/reinventing wheels
3
3
9
H
Annual e-Science Workshop (see above), Project
monitoring (see below)
On going
TH
Managing expectation
2
2
4
L
Appropriate use of publicity
On going
TH
Access Grid technology fails
2
3
6
M
Centres unable to attract industrial projects
2
3
6
M
UK e-Science Grid not engineered
2
3
6
M
Overlap of Centre projects
4
1
4
Projects fail to deliver
2
3
Community diverge on software base
4
Clear directions not provided
2
UK e-Science Centres & Grid
Fund one centre to lead (Manchester) and train others. Access Grids are now
Involve Grid network team. Encourage development operative at all but one
project together with US AG team.
e-Science Centre.
There still remains a
question of the
scalability of the
technology.
Director/Core team visit centres and local industry. Set 13 Centre projects
point at which funds will be redistributed to more
have been funded to
successful centres.
date. More in the
pipeline.
Create Grid Engineering Task force, lead from Grid
UK e-Science Grid
Support Centre. Have requested NeSC to co-ordinate
Level 1 now in
driving project to move Grid to level 2.
operation.
TH
L
Share centre project plans. Discuss project plans at bimonthly director meetings.
TH
6
M
Monitor on six monthly basis.Provide support through First review visits start
GSC and GNT
in June.
TH
3
12
H
Grid Starter Kit to enable common starting point. Six
monthly reviews of Centres. Definition of "What is a
Centre" project to include software required.
TH
3
6
M
Create Architecture Task Force, Database Task Force First roadmap has been
to deliver roadmap for middleware development
published and
reviewed by
community.
On going
TH
TH
Generic Grid Middleware
40
Grid Starter Kit has
been employed to
build UK e-Science
Grid. First Web
services modules are
now available.
TH
Architecture Roadmap doesn't provide all required
3
3
9
H
Software interoperability problems
3
3
9
H
4
2
8
H
2
3
6
M
Developments don't reach open source standard
Insufficient industrial buy in
3
3
9
H
Industrial middleware players in conflict
2
5
10
H
Insuff integration of middleware/application
development
3
3
IRC Projects
Fail to deliver e-Science/Grid deliverables
2
3
6
M
Lack of integration with other e-Science apps.
2
3
6
M
Grid Support Centre
Fail to provide comprehensive certificate authority
2
4
8
H
Insufficient support for e-Science projects
2
4
8
H
Too much effort in one area
H
Fail to anticipate middleware transistion issues
Major project in
middleware funded
Collect requirements from all research council projects.
with close
Collaborate with US middleware teams.
collaboration in US.
Workshops ongoing.
Ensure communication between development groups workshops at eSI, all hands day
Use Project Mapping database to ensure spread of
Database in place.
effort.
On going
Project requirement in both consideration and progress
to include commitment to Open standards
Involve industry in middleware projects. Discuss
On going
industrial middleware developments. Engage directly
and through GGF.
Ensure suffiecient research level middleware
On going
development within programme to support
applications.
On going
Middleware developers are working with application
developers.
Six-monthly review meetings of all IRC projects
concurrently. Development of IRC e-Science Steering
Committee
Integration of projects with myGrid; overlap with
partners involved in other Pilot Projects; involvement
in Annual All-Hands Meeting
41
TH
TH
TH
TH
TH
TH
On going
TH
On going
TH
Policy document required.
Policy document in
draft for discussion by
community
Focussed provision of resource. Quarterly review of First quarterly review
activities.
succesful
Involvement with groups delivering middleware.
Provision of hardware to test new middleware.
Integration with ETF.
TH
On going
TH
TH
TH
Lack of knowledge in required areas
Hold specific early training on technologies for GSC
staff.
On going
TH
Demos mostly
complete and two
ESRC demonstrators
underway.
Used successfully at
NeSC launch.
TH
International & Outreach
Demonstrators
Inadequate coverage of relevant areas
1
3
3
L
Numerous application areas covered by demos; Call in
Jan/Feb for ESRC demo
Fail to provide adequate demonstration
1
3
3
L
Review part way through - redirect if necessary.
Unable to leverage results adequately
2
3
6
M
Create demonstrator collatoral for use at
Posters and leaflets
meetings/conferences. Use demonstrators at centre have been completed
launches etc. Create Industrial days to demonstrate to for all demos, except
chose industrial participants.
the ESRC.
TH
International
Insufficiently integrated in 'Global Grid' developments
3
5
15
H
TH
Lack of awareness of UK developments
2
4
8
H
Ensure links with (a) USA through GGF, development
On going
projects, IVDGL; (b) EU Projects and FP6. © CERN,
EU DataGrid and LHCGrid,; (d) Australasia Grid,
Singapore/UK Industrial links
Ensure presentations at appropriate international
EU presenters refer to
conferences; discussions with leading players (esp US UK as leading Europe
& EU) in academia & industry
Grid activities.
42
TH
TH