From Training to Technology Transfer:experiences from an EU perspective

in the Asia and Pacific region and opportunities/challenges

presented by Cloud ComputingDavid Fergusson

The problemWe can build technologies and infrastructures.However without USERS this means nothing.

Only when these tools are used (in this case to create new science) do they have any

meaning.

To do this we have to go out to the communities, they will not come to us.

NeSC Training, Outreach and Education

Founded in 2004 based on national and EU grants (EGEE).Grown from 2 staff to 13 in 3 years.Courses in UK, in Europe, elsewhere

China, Korea, Japan, Australia, Africa, South America

TOE projectsEGEE, EGEE II EGEE III

European Grid Institute Design StudyEGI-Inspire

UK National Grid ServiceOMII-Europe

NextGridICEAGE

University of Edinburgh, eLearning & MScJISC eLearningJISC eUptake

TOE servicesBased around digital library to curate material

Different project views: EGEE, ICEAGE, OMII-EU, NGSRSS feeds

Multimedia (video/audio/presentations)Community editable metadata

eLearning servicesOnline assessment

ePortfoliosT-Infrastructure integration

http://egee.lib.ed.ac.uk/ http://baillie.lib.ed.ac.uk:8080/

Training & Education SpectrumTraining

TargetedImmediate goalsSpecific skillsBuilding a workforce

EducationPervasiveLong term and sustainedGeneric conceptual modelsDeveloping a culture

Both are needed

Society

Graduates

EducationInnovation

Invests

PreparesCreate

Enriches

Organisation

Skilled Workers

TrainingServices & Applications

Invests

PreparesDevelop

Strengthens

Changing Culture

EGEE to EGIBuilding a sustainable international

distributed infrastructure

8

Activity overview

8

9

Geographical spread of events

http://bit.ly/EGEEtrainingmap

185 events in EGEE-III

80 separate locations worldwide

2312 participant

s

Training designated as a NGI task

10

UPDATE Training event locations 2008 - 2010

11

UPDATE Training event data in EGEE-III

<- Event duration

Average course length 2.5 days

12

Breakdown by event type

13

EGEE collaboration events

Services for sustainable trainingGILDA VO became part of the production infrastructure

No difference in infrastructure monitoring & maintenance between production and t-infrastructureNGIs can contribute to training with production resources

Accreditation of trainers

Training support services in EGIDigital library

Training event databaseTrainer registry

GILDA VO

14

Digital Library

Audio and video in Library

17

Digital library - updates

Improved Search & Filter

New eLearning modules

Rebranding

Digital Library

• Open to everyone for search, retrieval, linking http://egee.lib.ed.ac.uk

• Also accessible via web services - by negotiation• Based on Fedora open source repository and

international standards • Contains now over 6900 learning resources! (>100

videos) 18

19

GILDA t-Infrastructure

Training Infrastructure for EGEE and other European projects, providing resources for training events

GILDA is now one VO of the production infrastructure

13 site

~1100 cpu

20

Development of EGEE trainers• Training the trainers

– Provide partner autonomy – Experts ensure quality of message

• Trainer Accreditation– Accreditation process:

Peer approval Details of training experience

– Currently 104 trainers

Location of accredited trainers (Current; increase in Y2)

22

6

2

717

1

3

87

16

5

3

1

2

15

2

5

2

1

4

7

1

Taiwan – 8Australia – 1

Japan - 1

53

+2

+3 +2+5

+16

ICEAGE Stimulating academic take up of grid subjects in education

Supporting summer schools - educational cutting edgeInternational Summer School for Grid Computing

Biomed SS, GridKa, CERN summer school & others

International shared t-InfrastructureWorking with OMII-Europe & EGEE to extend

Stimulating policy and standards to enable sharing of educational resources and materials

ICEAGE Web site(www.iceage-

eu.org)

Collection of Masters courses

Collection of Summer Schools

Policy activity - OGF

OGF E&T Workgroup Wiki

International Summer School for Grid Computing

Biomed Grid Summer School

ICEAGE FORUM

E-Infrastructures Reflection Group

e-uptake Project

Rob Procter, David Fergusson Lorna Hughes, Alex Voss

OverviewWP1WP2

Sustainability and integration with other projectsDissemination

Resourcing statusExtension request

WP1: Fieldwork Phase I

Aim to develop understanding of academic use of

e-Infrastructure.

Methodology: desk-based research; questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews:50 interviews: 8 respondents per RC (AHRC, BBSRC,

EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC) plus STFC.

Respondents academic users of e-Infrastructure services selected on basis of desk research and

questionnaire.

Conducted within Community Engagement Framework of Understanding.

WP1: Fieldwork Phase I

Respondents asked about their use of e-Infrastructure services:

Services used and role in research lifecycleHow services facilitated researchHow respondents found out about themWhether training and other kinds of support were

available and made use of Barriers encountered, if and how they were overcomeEnablers that would improve use of services

Transcripts systematically coded up using scheme developed from typology.

WP1: Top Level Typology

WP1: Data AnalysisIdentify barriers, understand their causes and implications.

Identify enablers, what they achieve and scope.Evolve the typology.

Identify issues to feed into phase II fieldwork.Identify candidate interventions for:

WP2Service ‘intermediaries’, service providers, JISC programme managers

Feeds into other deliverables:Current state of adoption

Training recommendationsOther recommendations

Barrier: Lack of Awareness

Description: There seems to be a lack of systematic introduction to the services and the training available, which results in a lack of

awareness as well as a a lack of understanding of how services and methods can facilitate research and what different options exist.

Examples: [MR02], [EP02], [AH04]

“one barrier is not having heard of these things” [AH03]Candidate responses:

Boundary spanningOpportunities for learning about e-Research / e-Infrastructure

Systematic training of young researchersTypology:

Social Issues / Training, Education and Outreach / Early Engagement & Outreach

Enabler: Boundary Spanning

Description: Boundary spanning refers to the moving of people from one discipline to another. It can help transfer ideas, knowledge and skills across disciplinary boundaries.Example: As one Arts and Humanities researcher put it: “before I was at [my current institution], I was at an engineering department at [other institution] and so I was kind of

aware of a lot of these things that we are talking about – Access Grid, e-Science.” [AH01]Barriers addressed:Lack of awareness of services

TypologySocial Issues / Individual / Career Choices

Training, Education and Outreach

User RequirementsOn-going collection of information

Maintaining form of data set to allow aggregations

2008 Training Survey Results

110 attendees completed surveys at the All Hands Meeting, Oxford e-Research Conference and EGEE 2008 in September.The top five training requirements from existing categories are:

1. Introduction to e-Science (25)2. Application development (15)

3. Monitoring (11)4. Security (9)

5. Semantic grid (7)

UK vs International Focus

Remain generally very similar.Differences:

International - Application porting, Monitoring*, Deployment*, Job SubmissionUK - OGSA-DAI, UNICORE, Campus Grid, IPR, Management issues, Cloud

2008 Training Survey Results: New Categories

Seven new categories for training have been identified from 2008Results:

1. Data management (10)2. Access Grid (6)3. Interoperation (3)

4. Project management in a distributed environment (3)5. Campus grid (1)

6. IPR and grid/e-Science (1)7. Cloud computing (1)

Of these new categories, DATA MANAGEMENT ranks in the top five across old and new categories (4).

One Stop ShopAtom/RSS/web services/podcast feeds available

Improving filtering based on:Community projects’ requirements meeting (filtering requirements)

Practical experiences with ENGAGE (eg. chunking)Improved merging of materials and events data

Moving to Digital Library@NeSC as single data sourceImproving support for the creation for community specific clients

NGS will implement new versions of clients Discussions agreed for OMII - data & presentation

Interventions IEarlier Social Science/Arts & Humanities event

allowed investigation of new modes of delivery but poor community engagement at that pointLead to adjustment of plans using outputs of UK & International workshops (eUptake and ICEAGE)

Interventions IIMore focussed events

joint event with NGS for specific communitiesPolicy and stakeholder level events (outreach)-

eRoadshowsGreater profile/impact - NGS sponsored UK

summer schoolADSSS

Introductory “text book”Research in a connected world pamphlet

eRoadshowsIntroductory events

Delivered to communities in their own locations

54

Model for learning - IWSGC eLearning school

Resources

eLearning event with collaboration between gLite, Globus, UNICORE, Condor

• 4 technology weeks

• ~17 hours per week (student

average)

• 35 Participants

Course design – technology week

Training Infrastructure

Training InfrastructureDigital

Library

Content

Content

COURSE

Winter School IWSGC site

Virtual Learning Environment

Virtual Learning Environment

Live TalksLive Talks

KeynotesKeynotes

Tutor chatTutor chat

Exercises

Exercises

Tutor

Tutor 55

Recorded presentationsRecorded presentations

Training documentsTraining documents

Research papersResearch papers

Student mailing List

Discussion Forum

Discussion Forum

ObjectiveTo set up an e-Learning version of the International Summer School in Grid Computing

Repository Registry t-Infrastructure

Digital Library

ContentContent

PeoplePeople

StudentStudent

TutorTutor

AssessmentOwnerOwner

MarkerMarker

StudentStudent

COURSE

VLE

NA3 support services were necessaryto complete the winter school

NA3 support services were necessaryto complete the winter school

ApplicationApplication

Application formApplication form

Admission processAdmission process

AcceptanceAcceptance

PresentationsPresentationsRegistrationRegistration

AssessmentAssessment

Pre-requisiteexercises

Pre-requisiteexercises

Winter SchoolWinter School

IWSGC site

IWSGC site

People registryPeople registry

Create new user

Update

TutorialsTutorials

Digital LibraryDigital Library

ISSGCISSGC

Student process for Winter school

UNIX

Java

XML

Certificate

ApplicationApplication

Application formApplication form

Admission processAdmission process

AcceptanceAcceptance

RegistrationRegistration

AssessmentAssessment

Pre-requisiteexercises

Pre-requisiteexercises

Winter SchoolWinter School

IWSGC site

IWSGC site

People registryPeople registry

Create new user

Update

Digital LibraryDigital Library

ISSGCISSGC

t-Infrastructure (GILDA)

PresentationsPresentations

exercisesexercises

ApplicationApplication

Application formApplication form

Admission processAdmission process

AcceptanceAcceptance

RegistrationRegistration

AssessmentAssessment

Pre-requisiteexercises

Pre-requisiteexercises

Winter SchoolWinter School

IWSGC site

IWSGC site

Create new user

Update

Digital LibraryDigital Library

ISSGCISSGC

Tutors

PresentationsPresentations

exercisesexercises

Coordinator

People registryPeople registry

Course Structure 1Course had 4 “technology weeks”

gLiteGlobusCondor

OGSA-DAIEach week:

Reading material/online presentationsTutorials to be completed

Mon-Thu – Tutor available (email/ forum)Fri – Chat session with Tutor

Course Structure 1Course had 4 “technology weeks”

gLiteGlobusCondor

OGSA-DAIEach week:

Reading material/online presentations

Tutorials to be completedMon-Thu – Tutor available (email/

forum)Fri – Chat session with Tutor

VLE

GILDA

KeynotesTo provide high points for the school (idea taken from ISSGC)

3 Keynote talksIan Foster

Miron Livny Malcolm Atkinson Live broadcasts

Provided opportunity for students to chat with some of the prominent grid expertsAdobe Connect

ApplicantsThe IWSGC’08 Admissions Committee received:

55 complete applications 38 prospective participants started working on Preparatory Exercises

29 from 16 countries participants successfully completed all exercises and were invited to register 28 participants successfully completed the School

1 dropout participant had to give up because of unexpected commitments.

Applicant demographics

•38 applicants

from 16 countries

Sustained engagement in

IWSGC’08

Wednesday, 6th February 15:00 GM

Iain Foster Invited 39

Peak Users34

Tuesday, 26th February 15:00 GMT

Miron Livny Invited 40

Peak Users34

Wednesday, 12th March 15:00 GMT

Malcolm Atkinson

Invited39

Peak Users 40

Participant Feedback

Question: How did you find the level of commitment required?

Participant Feedback

93% completed questionnaire

75% structure “good”

90% course “correct length

80% interested in individual technology week

Statistics600 messages on forum

200 emails sent via VLE

Average student working time 20 hours per week

Average user sessions per day:43

Average user sessions per day on weekdays:54

Average user sessions per day on weekends:16

SummaryA month long “Winter School” in February 2008 & 2009.

Use of support components Adobe Connect, WebCT, GILDA t-Infrastructure, Digital Library, NeSC People Registry.

Integration of Training Support services in workflow with existing tools4 technologies presentations and practicals

gLite, Globus, Condor, OGSA-DAI28 students from 16 countries, 9 tutors from 4 countries

3 live presentations by leaders in the field with chat sessions

High levels of satisfaction from students and presenters

Head in the clouds?Dynamic (service) provisioning

How is it applicable to the NGS/Edinburgh?Training

Rapidly deploy services for teachingIsolate training from production

OtherSpecialised research environments

Rapid deploymentIdentify use cases and gather requirements

NGS 3 EWP2“NGS Agile Deployment Environments”

EPSRC funded, 2 yearsPeople

Matteo Turilli (OeRC, Oxford) [0.75 FTE]Steve Thorn (NeSC, Edinburgh) [0.5 FTE]David Fergussion (NeSC, Edinburgh) [WP

Leader]

Overview (cont.)Realistic usage

Training event on virtualized infrastructureHosting infrastructure? Amazon EC2 compatible

De facto standard currently, with open source implementation

Ease of deploymentEucalyptus, Nimbus and others

HardwareEdinburgh: 8 cores ⇒ 16+ dual cores

Oxford: 64 cores (older)

Eucalyptus“Elastic Utility Computing Architecture Linking Your

Programs To Useful Systems”Open source and Commercial

Amazon Web Services API compatible EC2, storage - S3, Elastic Block Store (EBS)

Easy to installXen and KVM hypervisors

Commercial version supports others (inc. VMWare)

Eucalyptus architecture

Cloud controllerEntry point

Gathers informationCluster controllerSchedules VM execution Manages virtual networkNode controllerControls VM execution

(Xen running on node)

Storage controller (Walrus)

implements Amazon’s S3 interface

Prototype service

Eucalyptus 1.6.2 (current 2.0)Migration in next few monthsCall for users for prototype

> 20 groups expressed interest> 25 registered users on system

Increasing constantly

May be reaching the limits of current support

Research domains

Social sciencePopulation simulations (York, St Andrews)

Cloud interface development Advanced teaching

Edinburgh (MSc)Canfield (MSc)Bioscience

Next gen sequencing, micro arrayTaxonomic analysis

Geospatial analysisCivil Engineering (flood risk management)

MyGrid on the cloud