This document discusses Montana State University's approach to supporting research networking with a lean CI staff. Key points: - MSU has a small IT budget and CI staff of 2 FTE to support research networking for over 16,000 students and faculty. - The NSF CCDNI program was critical for funding MSU's Bridger research network, providing 40% of the annual IT capital budget. - As an early adopter, MSU keeps its network architecture simple and leverages support from the national CI community rather than going it alone. - MSU partners with vendors like Cisco to help support its research networking beyond what its small staff could provide alone.

1. Supporting the NRP with a Lean CI Staff
Jerry Sheehan, Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Montana State University
August 8, 2017

2. Montana State, A LEAN CI Approach
• Campus is 16,440 students, 1,302 faculty and 2,016 staff
• Core Information Technology Budget is ~$14M with 75 FTE
• Research Cyberinfrastructure Staff: 2 FTE, positions a
combination of technical and outreach
• RCI supports: Community HPC cluster, Collaboration environments,
and the Bridger research network
• Networking Staff is 3 FTE for 35,000 (20K wireless, 15K wired)
devices

3. Where is Data Intensive Research Networking in the
Higher Education Technology Adoption Curve ?
Image from: Hoonuit.com, Understanding the Technology Curve in Education,blog.atmoiclearning.com

4. The Day Job of the CIO
• The Primary Decision that CIOs make are Economic
– Limited resources (financial and personnel) and unlimited demand
(commoditized technology/user needs and wants)
• The Smaller the Size of the Campus the More Sensitive Each
Resource Allocation Decision Becomes
• Smaller Research Intensive Campuses and other Universities
can be Early Adopters if there is a Demand for Services
• Research Networking Suffers Across All Campuses Because
Most Scientists Don’t Know What’s Possible

5. Research Data Census for Montana State
Source: Data Intensive Science and Campus IT, Educause Review 2015, see http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/9/data-intensive-science-and-campus-it

6. The Importance of the NSF CCDNI Program
• Impossible to Implement our Campus
Science Network Without this NSF
Program
• NSF Investment of $470K for the
Bridger Project Would be 40% of My
Annual IT Capital Budget.
• The CCDNI Project Enabled Montana
State:
• Work with a systems architect, not on
our staff, to design a no out of pocket
cost to us our campus-wide networking
approach to research data
• Pull together our research community
who had data needs, but didn’t know
how the network could help address
these issues

7. Early Adopters with Lean CI-Keep It Simple
• As an Early Adopter vs Being an Innovator It’s Important to Keep
Your Network Architecture Simple
• There are Things We Won’t Adopt Until Others Have Done the
Heavy Lifting of Figuring out How and Clarifying the Value
Proposition
• IPv4 to v6
• CCDNI Calls Have a Tension to Them With This Approach,
Need to Show Value of Federal Investment (What Science), but
More Science Drivers Lead to Increased Complexity

8. Early Adopters Can Rely on
The National CI Community
• Montana State Relies on the
National CI Community for Support
and Leverages Existing NSF
Investments for This Purpose, No
Need to Go It Alone
• PRP for Support for Research Data
Collaborations, Human Capital, and
Hardware Design, Like the FIONA
• National perfSONAR end points for
testing (es.net/sdsc/uhnet/gigapop)
• Globus for Identity Management,
Graceful Large File Transfer, and
Data on Net Data Movement
• Cybinf-engr listserv run by ESnet

9. The Vendor Partnership
• A Lean CI Approach Makes it Imperative to Have Partnerships
with the Private Sector, Not Just Vendor Relationships
• CISCO has Been An Exceptional Partner for Montana State
University.
– Technical architecture assistance for the Science DMZ
– Help in the technical review and red team of our NSF CCDNI proposal
• Excited to Announce This Relationship is Advancing to the Next
Level with a Montana State/Cisco Partnership for Research
Networking