Introduction to e-Infrastructure: Enabling the Research of the Future

Tuesday 28 Mar 2006, 09:45 → 16:30 Europe/Zurich

University of Leeds, Emmanuel Church, Room 11

Julian White & Joanna Schmidt

The talks for this event are at: http://www.wrgrid.org.uk/workshop2006_slides.html
The term e-Infrastructure refers to a spectrum of developments that will underpin research and learning in the future. It embraces networks, grids, data centres and collaborative environments and includes the supporting operations centres, certificate authorities, training and help-desk services. A range of e-Infrastructure developments is maturing: grid computing is increasingly used as a basis for the computation and data management required by collaborative research. Furthermore, the outcomes of JISC investments, such as in virtual research environments, are now being adopted. Production services, notably the National Grid Service and the international EGEE grid are being established, and at the same time new technologies are poised for deployment. These innovative developments increasingly provide underpinnings for novel multidisciplinary and collaborative research environments.

This event is jointly organised by the White Rose University Consortium, the White Rose Grid e-Science Centre, and the National e-Science Centre training team. It will:
• provide an overview of the White Rose, national and international e-Infrastructure
• inform decision makers, researchers and systems managers about the possibilities that are arising
• support host organisations in building their communities of those adopting or considering adopting an e-Infrastructure
To achieve these goals the talks seek to give:
• an understanding of the concepts, status, and promises of e-Infrastructure
• an overview of relevant e-Science developments within the White Rose universities
• an outline of major initiatives at the scales of the UK and internationally
Target audience:
• researchers from any discipline who have heard of grid, e-Science or e-Research and wish to find out more
• research scientists with an interest in grid technologies, e-Research and e-Infrastructure
• IT systems managers and decision makers
• members of the Universities of Leeds, York and Sheffield, and more generally all are welcome
Registration:
This is a free event; however, attendees need to register as there is only a limited number of places available.To book a place please download the registration form and email the completed form to events@whiterose.ac.uk .

09:45 → 10:00 Registration and Coffee

10:00 → 10:10 Welcome & Introduction

This talk will introduce the White Rose University Consortium and the White Rose Grid project.

Speaker: Dr Julian White (CEO of the White Rose University Consortium)

10:10 → 10:50 Overview of e-Infrastructure

The concepts of the different aspects of e-Infrastructure are explained, including networks connecting resources of data and computation; grids that enable these resources to be perceived as "virtual computers"; and tools that support collaboration. It provides a summary of AA (Authentication and Authorisation), Virtual Organisations (VOs), and the concept of grids offering virtual computing across administrative domains. The impact that e-Infrastructure is beginning to have on research and learning is described with emphasis on the enabling of collaboration and the potential for multi-disciplinary research. The talk sets the context for the remainder of the day, which explores e-Infrastructure at different scales - the campus, regionally, nationally and internationally.

10:50 → 11:20 Campus grids: e-Infrastructure within a university

Many UK universities and institutes have already deployed e-Infrastructures. Their motivations, methods, problems and opportunities are summarised. Current emphasis is often on the better use of computational resources - so for example, teaching laboratories with many PCs can be used overnight as a high-throughput resource for computation. The potential for e-Infrastructure to contribute more widely to research and learning is explored.

Speaker: NeSC (NeSC training team)

11:20 → 11:35 Coffee/Tea

11:35 → 11:45 WRG e-Science Centre

This talk will summarise recent activities and achievements.

Speaker: Professor Jie Xu (White Rose, University of Leeds)

11:45 → 12:15 White Rose Grid e-Infrastructure

This talk provides an overview of the White Rose Grid e-Infrastructure (grid nodes, WRG e-Science Centre, procedures for obtaining e-Science certificates, Access Grid, training courses, local support and contacts).

Speaker: Mr Chris Cartledge (White Rose, University of Sheffield)

12:15 → 12:35 Enabling e-Research over GridPP

This talk will provide an overview of a computational grid for particle physics.

Speaker: Dr Dan Tovey (White Rose, University of Sheffield)

12:35 → 13:25 LUNCH

13:25 → 14:10 UK-wide e-Infrastructure

The UK government is investing 250 million pounds over 5 years to establish and encourage use of UK-wide e-Infrastructure. The goal is not only to underpin research and learning, the emphases of this event, but also to be the foundation of a competitive economy in the "information society". The term "e-Infrastructure" embraces the networks (JANET, SuperJANET, UKLight), grids (National Grid Service) and the enabling middleware (OMII) and the supporting organisations and services such as the Grid Operations Support Centre. An introduction to these is given, and related developments emerging from JISC are summarised.

Speaker: NeSC (NeSC training team)

14:10 → 14:30 Experience with Shibboleth

This talk will introduce the concept of Shibboleth and the University of Leeds' experience of being an early adopter of using Shibboleth.

Speaker: Mr Nigel Bruce (White Rose, University of Leeds)

14:30 → 14:50 Lessons learned from DAME and transfer of the project's results to BROADEN

The outcome of the £3.5m EPSRC DAME (Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment) project is to be exploited by Rolls-Royce in the recently awarded £4m DTI project BROADEN (Business Resource Optimisation for Aftermarket and Design on Engineering Networks) in which the three White Rose Universities are involved jointly with Oxford and other industrial partners. This talk will summarise the lessons learned from DAME and will provide an overview of the BROADEN project.

Speaker: Professor Jim Austin (White Rose, University of York)

14:50 → 15:10 TEA

15:10 → 15:30 Enabling e-Social science research

This talk will present: *an introduction to the National Centre for e-Social Science *e-Infrastructure developments for e-Social Science *modelling and simulation for e-Social Science

Speaker: Dr Andy Turner (White Rose, University of Leeds)

15:30 → 16:00 International e-Infrastructure

Many research collaborations are international. These can be empowered by an international e-infrastructure. Examples are given. The major European initiatives that integrate national initiatives in networking (GEANT), high performance computing (DEISA) and grid computing (EGEE) are described. The implications of international e-Infrastructure are summarised with reference to emerging standards and interoperability between grids that support many reseach communities.

Speaker: NeSC (NeSC training team)

16:00 → 16:15 e-Research and collaboration with China

Researchers from the WRG (Leeds) and Beihang University of China are collaborating to integrate WRG facilities with the CROWN Grid system (http://www.crown.org.cn/), which is being developed under a major e-Science program sponsored by NSF of China with five universities and other research institutes participating. Following a short introduction there will be a live demonstration of an application submitted for execution to CROWN middleware.

Speaker: Professor Jie Xu (White Rose, University of Leeds)

16:15 → 16:30 Closing discussion