Welcome
&
The National e-Science Centre
Prof. Malcolm Atkinson
Director
www.nesc.ac.uk
6th November 2003
Three-way Alliance
Multi-national, Multi-discipline, Computer-enabled
Consortia, Cultures & Societies
Theory
Models & Simulations
→
Shared Data
Requires Much
Computing Science
Engineering,
Systems, Notations &
Much Innovation Formal Foundation
Experiment &
Advanced Data
Collection
→
Shared Data
Changes Culture,
New Mores,
New Behaviours
→ Process & Trust
New Opportunities, New Results, New Rewards
Database Growth
Bases 45,356,382,990
PDB Content Growth
Global Knowledge Communities
driven by Data: e.g., Astronomy
No. & sizes of data sets as of mid-2002,
grouped by wavelength
• 12 waveband coverage of large
areas of the sky
• Total about 200 TB data
• Doubling every 12 months
• Largest catalogues near 1B objects
Data and images courtesy Alex Szalay, John Hopkins
Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Production System
Slide from Ian Foster’s ssdbm 03 keynote
Tera → Peta Bytes
RAM time to move
15 minutes
1Gb WAN move time
10 hours ($1000)
Disk Cost
7 disks = $5000 (SCSI)
Disk Power
100 Watts
Disk Weight
5.6 Kg
Disk Footprint
Inside machine
RAM time to move
2 months
1Gb WAN move time
14 months ($1 million)
Disk Cost
6800 Disks + 490 units +
32 racks = $7 million
Disk Power
100 Kilowatts
Disk Weight
33 Tonnes
Disk Footprint
60 m2
May 2003 Approximately Correct
See also Distributed Computing Economics Jim Gray, Microsoft Research, MSR-TR-2003-24
Globus
Alliance
National
eScience
Centre
National e-Science Institute
International relationships
Engineering Task Force
Grid Support Centre
Architecture Task Force
OGSA-DAI
One of 11 Centre Projects
GridNet to support standards work
One of 6 administration projects
www.nesc.ac.uk
Training
team
5 Application projects
15 “Fundamental” Research projects
EGEE
HPC(x)
NeSC’s Role
Help coordinate and lead the UK e-Science Programme
Community building activities, regional support & outreach
Grid building as a member of the Engineering Task Force
Skill building through training events & support centre
Knowledge building through workshops and conferences
Help establish the UK’s international role
International meetings, standardisation work & presentations
Undertake R&D projects
To deliver reliable middleware
To engage industry
To stimulate the uptake of e-Science technology and methods
Run the National e-Science Institute
Research visitors and events
www.nesc.ac.uk
NeSI in Edinburgh
National e-Science
Centre
NeSI Events held in the 2nd Year
(from 1 Aug 2002 to 31 Jul 2003)
We have had 86 events: (Year 1 figures in brackets)
11 project meetings
( 4)
11 research meetings
( 7) > 3600 Participant Days
25 workshops
(17 + 1)
Establishing a training
2 “summer” schools
(0)
team
15 training sessions
(8)
Investing in community
12 outreach events
(3)
building, skill generation &
knowledge development
5 international meetings
(1)
5 e-Science management meetings (7)
(though the definitions are fuzzy!)
Suggestions always
welcome
NeSI Workshops
Space for real work
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/events/
Crossing communities
Creativity: new strategies and solutions
Written reports
Scientific Data Mining, Integration and Visualisation
Grid Information Systems
Portals and Portlets
Virtual Observatory as a Data Grid
Imaging, Medical Analysis and Grid Environments
Grid Scheduling
Provenance & Workflow
GeoSciences & Scottish Bioinformatics Forum
NeSI Supported Researchers
Two Patterns
Research Leaders





Help deliver NeSI goals
Collaborate in our research
Develop our research workshop programme
Build bridges with their research community
Typically one year appointments from local institutions
International Research Visitors






Pre-established mutual interests
Complementary experience, knowledge and skills
Collaborate in our research and development
Engage in and develop our event programme
Build bridges with their community
Application for our support for a visit via web site
NeSI Research Leaders
First period: Q3 2002 to Q3 2003
Two Research Leaders
Dr Bob Mann


From the Institute for Astronomy, Edinburgh
UK e-Science Pilot Project AstroGrid
Dr Richard Baldock



www.roe.ac.uk/ifa
www.astrogrid.org
From the Medical Research Council’s Human Genetics Unit
Western General Hospital, Edinburgh
www.hgu.mrc.ac.uk
Mouse Atlas
Second period: Q4 2003 to Q4 2004
genex.hgu.mrc.ac.uk
Four posts available




Three so far allocated:
Dr Colin Perkins
Dr Bob Mann
Dr Ewan Klein
csperkins.org
NeSC Staff
Director
Malcolm Atkinson
Centre Manager
Anna Kenway
Events, Admin &
Finance
Gill Maddy
Lee McLeod
Alastair Knowles
Jennifer Hurst
Jennifer Chan
Deputy Director
Arthur Trew
Chairman
Richard Kenway
Research Manager
Dave Berry
Technical Director
Richard Sinnott
Training Manager
John Murison
Systems Support
David McNichol
Mark Cavenagh
Mark Pelligrini
Iain Souter
John Watts
R&D
Micha Bayer
Magnus Ferrier
Derek Houghton
Conrad Hughes
Oliver Malham
Commercial
Director
Mark Parsons
Web Master
Susan Andrews
Regional Director
Stewart Anderson
Research Leaders
Richard Baldock
Bob Mann
Colin Peckham
Training Team
6 Posts to Fill
Integration is our Focus
Supporting Collaboration
Bring together disciplines
Bring together people engaged in shared challenge
Inject initial energy
Invent methods that work
Supporting Collaborative Research
Integrate compute, storage and communications
Deliver and sustain integrated software stack
Operate dependable infrastructure service
Integrate multiple data sources
Integrate data and computation
Integrate experiment with simulation
Integrate visualisation and analysis
High-level tools and automation essential
Fundamental research as a foundation
Take Home Message
Data is a Major Source of Challenges
AND an Enabler of

New Science, Engineering , Medicine, Planning, …
Information Grids
Support for collaboration
Support for computation and data grids
Structured data fundamental
Integrated strategies & technologies needed
OGSA-DAI is here now – use it AND
Join in making better DAI services & standards
NeSC would like to help you develop e-Science
We seek suggestions and collaboration