ESLEA PROJECT
Review of current applications using UKLight
Colin Greenwood
coling@nesc.ac.uk
1st March 2006
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
1. Introduction
2. ESLEA Applications
3. Challenges
4. Successes
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
2 year EPSRC funded project
Academic Collaborators
• Universities of Edinburgh, Lancaster, Manchester,
Oxford and UCL.
• CCLRC.
Industrial Collaborators
• Boston.
• Cisco.
EPSRC GR/T04465/01
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
What are “Switched Lightpaths”?
• Optical networks in which 2 points are connected
along a dedicated end-to-end circuit which remains
in effect until the communication is terminated.
Why are they important?
•
•
•
•
High speed
Dynamic
Dedicated
Deterministic
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
Project Objectives…
• Demonstrate the potential of dedicated optical
lightpaths.
• Develop capabilities to set up international optical
lightpaths
• Develop capabilities for the advanced reservation
and allocation of lightpaths.
• Evaluate and optimise appropriate transport
protocols.
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
ESLEA is the first
widely scoped
project to exploit
UKLight for a
range of scientific
applications.
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
CDF
FNAL producing ~ 1000 Tb/yr of data.
Subsets of this data are analysed by ~
200 physicists in UK/Europe
UKLight will be used to:
• Transfer data from FNAL for
analysis in UK
• Transfer data from FNAL which
is then reprocessed on Grid
resources in UK and then sent
back to FNAL
• Send simulated data generated in
the UK to FNAL
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
ATLAS
Physics collisions start in 2007.
Series of service challenges to
transfer increasing amounts of data.
Tier-0 to Tier-1 (CERN – RAL) and
Tier-1 to Tier-2 (RAL – Lancaster)
service challenges.
SC3 throughput goals at each Tier-1:
• 1.5 Gbits/s network-disk
• 0.6 Gbits/s network-tape
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
Radio Astronomy
Radio penetrates cosmic dust see processes such as galaxy
formation clearly.
Radio Telescopes can produce
data at many Gbit/s.
Need to correlate signals from
telescopes.
Real-time connection allows:
• Faster turnaround of results
• Increased sensitivity
• Lower cost
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
HPC
Distributed HPC applications require
high-end networking solutions in
order to overcome the limitations of a
single resource.
Routine exploitation of UKLight to
run simulations, computational
steering and visualisation.
Collaborating HPC applications
include:
• SPICE
• Nektar
• Vortonics
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
E-Health
The emerging e-health context
Two main use cases:
• Data Transfer - high volumes of
simulated data sent from HPCx
to SRB
• Coupled simulation - two HPC
resources, with different
architectures, run separate
aspects of a heart model.
Overview
Applications
Challenges
Successes
Snapshot of UKLight Connectivity for 1 March 06…
Task
CDF
VLBI
ATLAS
HPC
e-Health
UKLight Link
UCL - Chicago (FNAL)
Man - Amsterdam (Dwingeloo)
Man – Amsterdam (JIVE)
Man – Chicago (Haystack)
RAL – CERN*
RAL - Lanc
Lanc - Man
Lanc - Edinburgh
UCL - Chicago
Man - Chicago
UCL - Man
DL - Chicago
DL - UCL
DL - MAN
RAL-DL
* UK-HEP connection
Bandwidth
1*1.0 Gbit/s
1*1.0 Gbit/s
1*600 Mbit/s
1*650 Mbit/s
4*1.0 Gbit/s
1*1.0Gbit/s
1*1.0Gbit/s
1*1.0Gbit/s
1*300 Mbit/s
1*300 Mbit/s
1*300 Mbit/s
1*100 Mbit/s
1*300 Mbit/s
1*300 Mbit/s
1*750 Mbit/s
Status
Active
Active
Required Mar 06
Active
Active
Active
To be connected
Required May 06
Active
Active
Active
To be reconnected
To be reconnected
To be connected
Active
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
Challenges include…
• Network configuration
• The last mile
• Securing persistent and stable resources
• Lack of automated co-ordination
Advice about connecting to UKLight is included in the
‘Connecting to UKLight’ section of ESLEA’s website.
www.eslea.uklight.ac.uk
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
Recent successes…
• Demos at AHM05, Grid 05 and SC05.
• Particle Physics: “Distributed TeraByte Particle
Physics Data Sample Analysis” entry wins the
SC05 Bandwidth Challenge.
• ATLAS: Transfer of 8 TeraBytes of ATLAS data
from RAL to Lancaster over 24 hours (mean rate
>900 Mbit/s).
Introduction
Applications
Challenges
Successes
More successes…
• VLBI: First trans-Atlantic transfer of real-time VLBI
data at 512 Mbit/s from Onsala, Sweden to
Haystack, USA.
• HPC: SPICE project wins the HPC Analytics
Challenge at SC05.
• Protocols: ESLEA’s DCCP transport protocol
implementation to be incorporated into the Linux
kernel.