Grid Infrastructure in the UK

Neil Geddes

Why this talk ?

• LHC to 2020 – GridPP to 2011– SRIF3 to 2010 ?

• Who was successful in SRIF3?

– Thereafter ?

• PPARC -> STFC• EU and FP7• “Just tell people what to do”

The Vision Thing ...

UK e-Infrastructure

LHC

I SI S TS2

HPCx + HECtoR

Users get common access, tools, inf ormation, Nationally supported services, through NGS

I ntegratedinternationally

VRE, VLE, IE

Regional and Campus grids

Community Grids

NGS

• The Mission– To provide coherent electronic access for UK researchers to all

computational and data based resources and facilities required to carry out their research, independent of resource or researcher location

• To achieve this, the NGS will – Lead the deployment of a common grid infrastructure– Promote common open standards– Through the NGS Partnership programme, integrate services to

access a growing number, scale and variety of resources• A production Service

– Conservative approach to evolution– NGS does not write software

• but we do fill gaps and influence funders

NGS Today

• UK CA, myProxy• 4 core nodes providing production compute and data storage

– Being upgraded as I speak – “VDT”

• 6 additional partners/affiliate providing computing resources/portals• 6 others in the pipeline

– Includes Glasgow and ICUL – good technical progress– Affiliation is (will be) easy

• Systems to access data from ISIS and DLS– Working with ESRF and ILL to expand across Europe

• Access portal with library of (JSDL) jobs for commonly used programmes– User repository

• Pre-production resource broker (glite and gridway), UI, VOMS service, OMII service hosting, rendering

NGS in the future• Focus on Services

– Hang over from grid hype– Need services focus on website/documentation/outreach

• User led– Steering Committee/Advisory Board– Community/subject foci

• Reference point, standards, expertise– Forum for agreeing and recommending– Get out more

• Support for Collaborative Working– Will integrate with Shibboleth infrastructure – other JISC services

Landscape

• A random walk through the political and funding landscape ...

3.18 JISC will continue to provide services that support the research community, e.g. the National Grid Service, the Digital Curation Centre, the Text Mining Centre, particularly in the integration of research data and its analysis. JISC will work with the Research Information Network on better integration. […]4.3 JISC has increased its support to the research community over the past few years and is working with the Research Councils to help to deliver the government’s ‘Science and Investment Framework 2004-2014’. Much of this has been in response to the OST’s e-science core programme. JISC currently helps to provide an e-infrastructure for e-science methodologies as well as to more traditional research. JISC intends to take a more strategic involvement in some e-infrastructure support activities in future, such as the National Grid Service, in collaboration with the Research Councils.

HPC RESOURCES TO SUPPORT THE PPARC THEORY AND NUCLEAR PHYSICS THEORY PROGRAMME – FIRST CALL FOR PROPOSALS - CLOSING DATE 24th APRIL 2007

“... in due course, the NGS should provide an infrastructure for sharing computing and data resources, and all HPC facilities should benefit from integration with the NGS. Applicants should be prepared to justify exclusion from integration with the NGS.”

2006 Strategic Framework for High End Computing

The UK now has in place a National Grid Service (NGS) [...] the working model for which should not be restricted by the capability and status of the current NGS.[...] A suitably evolved form of the NGS should in future provide some part of the capacity resources needed at national level, the bulk coming from campus based facilities which, in some cases, might eventually be integrated.

e-IRG Task Force on Sustainable e-Infrastructures

http://e-irg.eu/publ/2006-Report_e-IRG_TF-SEI.pdf The overall vision of this document:

"The linking of individual computers into increasingly complex networks has been transforming the scientific enterprise for several decades. Networking has affected every aspect of research, including data gathering, sharing of large databases, brute-force computing, modelling and simulation, and publishing of preprints and papers."

Recommendation I: governments and the Commission should develop policies and mechanisms to encourage increased investment in a more coherent and interoperable way across Europe

Recommendation II: the existing e-Infrastructure projects must be superseded by integrated sustainable services at national and European levels

Grid Infrastructureand FP7

?Who

Encourage and influence development of infrastructure

NGS

Existing“NGI”s

Encourage new“NGI”’s

Why does GridPP care ?

• Would like lots of users of grid infrastructure

• GridPP doesn’t want to support them all

• New users/communities can be hard to engage

• Need to leverage the work of others to achieve the goal form slide 2

Why this talk ?

• LHC to 2020 – GridPP to 2011– SRIF3 to 2010 ?

• Who was successful in SRIF3?

– Thereafter ?

• PPARC -> STFC• EU and FP7• “Just tell people what to do”

Thereafter?

Life SciencesB

BS

RC

EP

SR

C

STFC

• STFC Science led ...• STFC will work with the

whole RCUK community – Boundaries tbd

• Leadership Nationally and Internationally a clear goal– Define the boundaries– Leverage UK investments

Space S

cience

Astronom

y

Nuclear P

hysics

Particle P

hysics

Physical Sciences

LaboratoriesFacilities?

...

What can <insert name here> do ?

• Work to develop computing infrastructure in your own institution/region– Get together with your friends– Bring new users onto local resources, EGEE and NGS

• EGEE user forum in Manchester in May• (NGS user forum in June/July)• (Hector++ user forum in September/October)• EGEE funds this

• Leverage commitment to generic infrastructure such as NGS (and EGEE)– Support NGS interfaces (affiliate)– Join and influence NGS (partner)

• Membership and governance of NGS will evolve.• Evolution will be determined by funders and partners

• JISC and others will be funding wider engagement– <insert name here> gets it for free if they support the interfaces and basic

infrastructure

Conclusion

• BIG VISION small steps

• Several activities are in train such that the benefits will accrue on top of the basic infrastructure

• Some challenges remain re e.g. EGEE and interoperability– Get engaged and influence the discussion