EUDAT 3rd Conference: Bringing Data e-Infrastructures to Horizon2020 - Carl-C...EUDAT
| www.eudat.eu | EUDAT 3rd Conference Opening Session: Bringing Data e-Infrastructures to Horizon2020 - Carl-Christian Buhr, Member of the Cabinet of Ms Neelie Kroes, Vice‐President for Digital Agenda, European Commission - Wednesday 24th September 2014, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
EUDAT 3rd Conference: Bringing Data e-Infrastructures to Horizon2020 - Carl-C...EUDAT
| www.eudat.eu | EUDAT 3rd Conference Opening Session: Bringing Data e-Infrastructures to Horizon2020 - Carl-Christian Buhr, Member of the Cabinet of Ms Neelie Kroes, Vice‐President for Digital Agenda, European Commission - Wednesday 24th September 2014, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
La presentazione di Franco Cima, Ambasciatore Epale e consigliere della città di Bologna al Cultural Exchange con la delegazione israeliana del 21 gennaio a Firenze
OSFair2017 Workshop | Service provisioning for excellent sciencesOpen Science Fair
Daan Broeder presents the EUDAT community
Workshop title: Organising high-quality research data management services
Workshop abstract:
Open science needs high quality data management where researchers can create, use and share data according to well defined standards and practices. this is one of the pillars of Open Science. In the data management landscape we find quite a few organisations that aim at achieving this, however to get it right, a collaboration is called for where all can play a suitable role and present this in a consistent way to the researcher.
The proposed workshop brings together representatives of standard organisation (RDA), eInfrastructures (EUDAT) and Libraries (LIBER) that together can organise the high quality data management for research.
DAY 1 - PARALLEL SESSION 2
http://opensciencefair.eu/workshops/organising-high-quality-research-data-management-services
Governance and Sustainability of EOSC: ambitions, challenges and opportunitiesEOSCpilot .eu
This presentation was held at the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum 28-29/11/2017 in Brussels.
For more information on the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum visit: https://eoscpilot.eu/eosc-stakeholder-forum-shaping-future-eosc
Follow EOSCpilot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eoscpilot
and LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/eoscpiloteu
Past, present and future of advanced computing for data-driven scienceEGI Federation
The EGI Federation celebrates 15 years of distributed computing in 2019. Many milestones were achieved to bring distributed computing from a vision to a real-life international production platform that today enables data-intensive processing at an unprecedented scale, supporting some of the greatest groundbreaking scientific discoveries of the XXI century.
EGI and EUDAT support to the PaNOSC projectEGI Federation
Data transfer & archivingm, and Jupyter on the EGI Federated Cloud at the core of EGI and EUDAT support to Photon and Neutron science in the PaNOSC project
Soap box session - Intermediaries, Research communities & LibrariesEOSCpilot .eu
This presentation was held at the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum 28-29/11/2017 in Brussels.
For more information on the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum visit: https://eoscpilot.eu/eosc-stakeholder-forum-shaping-future-eosc
Follow EOSCpilot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eoscpilot
and LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/eoscpiloteu
LandCity Revolution - L'evoluzione del segmento di terra per sostenere l'era ...giovanni biallo
La diffusione di immagini satellitari fruibili gratuitamente e liberamente, come i dati del progetto Copernicus, apre nuovi orizzonti in termini di prodotti e servizi,
La presentazione di Franco Cima, Ambasciatore Epale e consigliere della città di Bologna al Cultural Exchange con la delegazione israeliana del 21 gennaio a Firenze
OSFair2017 Workshop | Service provisioning for excellent sciencesOpen Science Fair
Daan Broeder presents the EUDAT community
Workshop title: Organising high-quality research data management services
Workshop abstract:
Open science needs high quality data management where researchers can create, use and share data according to well defined standards and practices. this is one of the pillars of Open Science. In the data management landscape we find quite a few organisations that aim at achieving this, however to get it right, a collaboration is called for where all can play a suitable role and present this in a consistent way to the researcher.
The proposed workshop brings together representatives of standard organisation (RDA), eInfrastructures (EUDAT) and Libraries (LIBER) that together can organise the high quality data management for research.
DAY 1 - PARALLEL SESSION 2
http://opensciencefair.eu/workshops/organising-high-quality-research-data-management-services
Governance and Sustainability of EOSC: ambitions, challenges and opportunitiesEOSCpilot .eu
This presentation was held at the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum 28-29/11/2017 in Brussels.
For more information on the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum visit: https://eoscpilot.eu/eosc-stakeholder-forum-shaping-future-eosc
Follow EOSCpilot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eoscpilot
and LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/eoscpiloteu
Past, present and future of advanced computing for data-driven scienceEGI Federation
The EGI Federation celebrates 15 years of distributed computing in 2019. Many milestones were achieved to bring distributed computing from a vision to a real-life international production platform that today enables data-intensive processing at an unprecedented scale, supporting some of the greatest groundbreaking scientific discoveries of the XXI century.
EGI and EUDAT support to the PaNOSC projectEGI Federation
Data transfer & archivingm, and Jupyter on the EGI Federated Cloud at the core of EGI and EUDAT support to Photon and Neutron science in the PaNOSC project
Soap box session - Intermediaries, Research communities & LibrariesEOSCpilot .eu
This presentation was held at the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum 28-29/11/2017 in Brussels.
For more information on the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum visit: https://eoscpilot.eu/eosc-stakeholder-forum-shaping-future-eosc
Follow EOSCpilot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eoscpilot
and LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/eoscpiloteu
LandCity Revolution - L'evoluzione del segmento di terra per sostenere l'era ...giovanni biallo
La diffusione di immagini satellitari fruibili gratuitamente e liberamente, come i dati del progetto Copernicus, apre nuovi orizzonti in termini di prodotti e servizi,
Common Design Elements for Data Movement Eli DartEd Dodds
Eli Dart, Network Engineer ESnet Science Engagement Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Cosmology CrossConnects Workshop Berkeley, CA February 11, 2015
Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment SystemEd Dodds
The Federal Reserve believes that the U.S. payment system is at a critical juncture in its evolution. Technology is rapidly changing many elements that support the payment process. High-speed data networks are becoming ubiquitous, computing devices are becoming more sophisticated and mobile, and information is increasingly processed in real time. These capabilities are changing the nature of commerce and end-user expectations for payment services. Meanwhile, payment security and the protection of sensitive data, which are foundational to public confidence in any payment system, are challenged by dynamic, persistent and rapidly escalating threats. Finally, an increasing number of U.S. citizens and businesses routinely transfer value across borders and demand better payment options to swiftly and efficiently do so.
UNDERSTANDING THE DEBATE OVER GOVERNMENT-OWNED BROADBAND NETWORKSEd Dodds
Context, Lessons Learned, and a Way Forward for Policy Makers Cedar Falls Case Study Charles M. Davidson Director, ACLP at New York Law School Michael J. Santorelli Director, ACLP at New York Law School From JUNE 2014
Health and Wellbeing Living Lab Symposium PresentationsVITALISEProject
The Health and Wellbeing Living Lab Symposium is dedicated to showcasing the outcomes of the VITALISE project, which focuses on harmonizing Living Lab services and procedures while recognizing Living Labs as integral Research Infrastructures. Over the past three years, a collaborative effort among Living Labs in Health has actively demonstrated the significance of Living Labs as Research Infrastructures, effectively representing the global Living Lab community. The work undertaken in VITALISE aligns with the overarching vision of Living Labs developed over the last 15 years, manifesting in project results that advance the recognition and quality of harmonized Living Labs.
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101007990 The symposium's primary objective is to engage in collective reflection with the European Commission and relevant stakeholders and beneficiaries of Research Infrastructures. The aim is to discuss and plan the next steps toward a new era where Research Infrastructures are open and actively involve communities as powerful tools for co-research.
The value of EOSC from a user perspective: Key themes and actions from Day 1EOSCpilot .eu
This presentation was held at the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum 28-29/11/2017 in Brussels.
For more information on the 1st EOSC Stakeholder Forum visit: https://eoscpilot.eu/eosc-stakeholder-forum-shaping-future-eosc
Follow EOSCpilot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eoscpilot
and LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/eoscpiloteu
The Ascent of Open Science and the European Open Science CloudTiziana Ferrari
Open science is becoming more and more part of the daily practice in conducting science. Around the world, researchers are increasingly aware of the value and importance of open science. As scientific research becomes highly data-driven and dependent on computing, scientists are conscious of the growing need to share data, software and infrastructure to reduce wasteful duplication and increase economies of scale. In an ideal world, every step of the research process would be public and transparent – the full methodology and all the tools used, as well as the data, would be accessible to the public and all groups without restriction, enabling reproducibility and refinement by other scientists.
This presentation will show case a number of success stories indicating how federated digital infrastructure, that have been sustained by the member states and the European Commission, have become an indispensable tool to enable collaboration ad sharing.
The European Open Science Cloud was launched by the European Commission in 2016 aiming to (1) increase the ability to exploit research data across scientific disciplines and between the public and private sector, (2) interconnect existing and new digital infrastructures in Europe and (3) support open science.
The presentation showcases how open data, open data analytics and open e-Infrastructures like EGI (https://www.egi.eu/) have been key enables of scientific discoveries from the discovery of gravitational waves with LIGO-VIRGO to drug design with the molecular modelling tools of WeNMR.
EOSC-hub (https://www.eosc-hub.eu/) - the first and the largest of the EOSC implementation projects of the H2020 funding programme, has succeeded in delivering some of the building blocks like the EOSC portal and Marketplace, tools and processes for federating data and services providers, harmonized policies, a federated AAI infrastructure, Competence Centres to support research infrastructures in their complex digital needs, interoperability guidelines and the Early Adopter Programme to provide expert support and service capacity to research projects.
OSFair2017 Workshop | Towards a Policy Framework for the European Open Scienc...Open Science Fair
Workshop title: Towards a Policy Framework for the European Open Science Cloud
Workshop abstract:
The workshop provides a hands on approach in relation both to the understanding of the EU open science policies and their application by related stakeholders. It will seek to explore, propose and test different aspects of policy documents created by and for different types of stakeholders (e.g. RPOs, funders, policy makers etc) in the context of EOSC. Drawing on the work by the EOSC policy work, the workshop invites participants to bring their own policies or work on model policies to develop a simple but comprehensive policy document tailored to their needs and conforming to the EU policy and legal framework.
It is useful to the broader Open Science community as it brings together services, stakeholders and policies and allows for a better understanding of the interaction between different constituencies.
DAY 2 - PARALLEL SESSION 3
Text (personal views position statement) to accompany presentation on what research infrastructures really need for data, XLDB-Europe, 8-10th June 2011, Edinburgh
Jarkko Siren is Project Officer in DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology at the European Commission.
Jarkko's presentation gives an introduction to public engagement in research at the European Commission
European Open Science Cloud: Concept, status and opportunitiesEOSC-hub project
European Open Science Cloud: Concept, status and opportunities.
Presentation given by Gergely Sipos at the International Symposium on Grids and Clouds 2019 event in Taiwan.
Known simply as GÉANT, GN3plus is the extension to the third term of the successful GÉANT networking project that lies at the heart of the EU’s e-Infrastructure strategy. Co-funded by the European Union (EU) and Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), GÉANT seeks to promote the free, unimpeded movement of scientific data and knowledge, by connecting and empowering research and education (R&E) communities within Europe and other world regions. By driving knowledge creation as the global hub for research networking excellence, GÉANT’s vision is to become the unified European Communications Commons.
European Long-term Ecosystem and Socio Ecological Research Infrastructure (eL...Innovate UK
Lessons learned under the 2013 call for “integrating and opening research infrastructures of European interest” by Terry Parr
How the starting community was set up and how it evolved from 2012 (or earlier) un.l
submission in 2014:
1. How will we know we are succeeding?
• Early contacts and ideas
• Outline proposal to 2012 call for topic ideas
• Team building while waiting
• Content of full proposal
• Useful tips for proposal preparation
The 2011 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence » industry...Francois Pouilloux
The industry day of the conference aims to bring together people from both academia and industry in a venue that highlights application and practical impact.
I'm pleased to present there on August 22nd 2011.
Stay tuned for the prez file after the event !
EOSC Governance Development Forum 7th WebinarEOSCpilot .eu
This is the 7th installment in a series of thematic, stakeholder targeted workshops which are held to allow EOSC governance framework to be elaborated from the stakeholder perspective. The Webinar was held on 9 November 2017 by Matthew Dovey (Jisc), Saara Kontro and Per Oster (CSC).
You can watch the recorded video of thi webinar at: https://youtu.be/o-a_XPj5y5M
For more information about the EOSCpilot Governance Development Forum visit https://eoscpilot.eu/about/governance-framework
Follow EOSCpilot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eoscpilot
and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoscpiloteu
CityDrivers is a project funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) to improve the ability of creative professionals to provide services based on service design and co-development
CityDrivers is a project funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) to improve the ability of creative professionals to provide services based on service design and co-development. At an event held in Helsinki on the 13th February, Tuija Hirvokisko (ENoLL president and Laurea Director) gave a presentation and spoke about City Drivers project as well as ENoLL as an ecosystem.
Updated Policy Brief: Cooperatives Bring Fiber Internet Access to Rural AmericaEd Dodds
Originally published in 2017, our report, Cooperatives Fiberize Rural America: A Trusted Model for the Internet Era, focuses on cooperatives as a proven model for deploying fiber optic Internet access across the country. An update in the spring of 2019 included additional information about the rate co-ops are expanding Internet service, and now we’ve updated it again, with a new map and personal stories from areas where co-ops have drastically impacted local life.
Digital Inclusion and Meaningful Broadband Adoption Initiatives Colin Rhinesm...Ed Dodds
This report presents findings from a national study of digital inclusion organizations that help low-income individuals and families adopt high-speed Internet service. The study looked at eight digital inclusion organizations across the United States that are working at the important intersection between making high-speed Internet available and strengthening digital skills—two essential and interrelated components of digital inclusion, which is focused on increasing digital access, skills, and relevant content.
Innovation Accelerators:
Defining Characteristics Among Startup Assistance Organizations by C. Scott Dempwolf, Jennifer Auer, and
Michelle D’Ippolito
Optimal Solutions Group, LLC
College Park, MD 20740
contract number SBAHQ -13-M-0197
Release Date: October 2014
This report was developed under a contract with the Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, and contains information and analysis that were reviewed by officials of the Office of Advocacy. However, the final conclusions of the report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Advocacy.
Executive Summary. Thriving in a Turbulent, Technological and Transformed Global Economy | Council on Competitiveness 900 17th Street, NW, Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20006 T 202 682 4292 Compete.org
America has long been a nation of innovators. The United States is the birthplace of the Internet, which today connects three billion people around the world. American scientists and engineers sequenced the human genome, invented the semiconductor, and sent humankind to the moon. And America is not done yet. For an advanced economy such as the United States, innovation is a wellspring of economic growth. While many countries can grow by adopting existing technologies and business practices, America must continually innovate because our workers and firms are often operating at the technological frontier. Innovation is also a powerful tool for addressing our most pressing challenges as a nation, such as enabling more Americans to lead longer, healthier lives, and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Report to the President and Congress Ensuring Leadership in Federally Funded ...Ed Dodds
In the report, PCAST focuses on eight R&D areas: cybersecurity, IT and health, Big Data and data-intensive computing, IT and the physical world, privacy protection, cyber-human systems, high capability computing, and foundational computing research. All of these areas help to achieve the Nation’s priorities. For example, Big Data, IT and the physical world, and high-capability computing are essential contributors to addressing issues within energy and the environment.
Data Act Federal Register Notice Public Summary of ResponsesEd Dodds
Summary of Responses to the Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service Notice in the Federal Register on 9/26/2014 for “Public Input on the Establishment of Financial Data Standards (Data Exchange)
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
AI for Every Business: Unlocking Your Product's Universal Potential by VP of ...
Implementation of a European e-Infrastructure for the 21st Century
1. CERN-OPEN-2013-019
12/07/2013
EIROforum IT Working Group
12th July 2013
This document produced by Members of the EIROforum and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.eiroforum.org/
Page 1
Implementation of a European e‐
Infrastructure for the 21st
Century
Executive Summary
This document proposes an implementation plan for the vision of an e‐infrastructure as
described in “A Vision for a European e‐Infrastructure for the 21st Century”. The objective
of the implementation plan is to put in place the e‐infrastructure commons that will
enable digital science by introducing IT as a service to the public research sector in
Europe.
The rationale calls for a hybrid model that brings together public and commercial
service suppliers to build a network of Centres of Excellence offering a range of services
to a wide user base. The platform will make use of and cooperate with existing European
e‐infrastructures by jointly offering integrated services to the end‐user. This hybrid
model represents a significant change from the status‐quo and will bring benefits for the
stakeholders: end‐users, research organisations, service providers (public and
commercial) and funding agencies. Centres of Excellence can be owned and operated by
a mixture of commercial companies and public organisations. Their portfolio of services,
starting with those listed by eIRG and the High Level Expert Group on Scientific Data,
will be made available under a set of terms and conditions that are compliant with
European jurisdiction and legislation with service definitions implementing recognised
policies for trust, security and privacy notably for data protection. A funding model
engaging all stakeholder groups is described.
The ability to fully exploit the potential for knowledge and job creation that is locked‐up
in the datasets and algorithms to be hosted by the Centres of Excellence will require the
nurturing of a new generation of data scientists with a core set of ICT skills.
A management board where all the Centres of Excellence operating organisations are
represented will provide strategic and financial oversight is coupled with a user forum,
through which the end‐users themselves, in a cross‐disciplinary body collaborate to
define requirements and policies for the services.
A pilot service is proposed that can be rapidly established by building on the existing
investments. The pilot service will demonstrate the feasibility of the e‐infrastructure
Centres of Excellence model for a range of scientific disciplines and evaluate the
suitability for the ESFRI Research Infrastructures, that are currently under‐development
and represent Europe’s future “big data factories”. Implementation will start in 2014,
initially offering a limited set of services at a prototype Centre of Excellence.
3. EIROforum IT Working Group
12th July 2013
This document produced by Members of the EIROforum and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.eiroforum.org/
Page 3
Introduction
This document proposes an implementation plan for the vision of an e‐infrastructure as
described in a separate document1 “A Vision for a European e‐Infrastructure for the 21st
Century”. The objective of the implementation plan is to put in place the e‐infrastructure
commons that will enable digital science by introducing IT as a service to the public
research sector in Europe.
The EC, in its Communication “High Performance Computing: Europe’s place in a Global
Race”2 called for the creation of a network of HPC Centres of Excellence and this
implementation plan is a means of addressing this need.
EIROforum3 partners are intergovernmental research organisations – CERN, ESA, EMBL,
EFDA, ESO, European XFEL, ILL and ESRF – covering disciplines ranging from particle
physics, space science and biology to fusion research, astronomy, and neutron and
photon sciences. The partner organisations have a truly European governance, funding
and remit, and in many cases share a global engagement. They are world leaders in basic
research, as well as in managing and operating large research infrastructures and
facilities. The EIROforum collaboration is helping European science reach its full
potential through exploiting its unparalleled resources, facilities and expertise. By
combining international facilities and human resources, EIROforum exceeds the
research potential of the individual organisations, achieving world‐class scientific and
technological excellence in interdisciplinary fields. EIROforum works closely with
industry to foster innovation and to stimulate the transfer of technology.
This implementation plan establishes a pilot service aimed at addressing the challenges
ahead to capture, manage, and process the vast amounts of data to be generated, not
only by the established fundamental research domains but in a growing range of
scientific disciplines, large and small. This pilot service is seen by the research
organisations as an exploratory activity to be operated and funded in addition to their
baseline plans for the production services they offer to their user communities.
1
http://cds.cern.ch/record/1550136/files/CERN‐OPEN‐2013‐018.pdf
2
COM(2012)45, 15.2.2012. http://eur‐
lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0045:FIN:EN:PDF
3
http://www.eiroforum.org/
4. EIROforum IT Working Group
12th July 2013
This document produced by Members of the EIROforum and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.eiroforum.org/
Page 4
Rationale
The rationale for this implementation approach is inspired by the Helix Nebula project’s
publication “Helix Nebula – The Science Cloud: A catalyst for change in Europe”5 from
which extracts have been taken.
Helix Nebula was conceived as a way of bringing coherence to a highly fragmented IT
services industry through the vision of a federated ‘science cloud’ integrated with
publicly‐funded scientific e‐Infrastructures. Two fundamental steps remain if the vision
of Helix Nebula is to become reality. One is to bring together a critical mass of supply‐
side interests and the other is to do the same for the demand‐side.
The work of Helix Nebula on an architecture model6 has produced a number of
scenarios exploring the means by which publicly funded infrastructures can
interoperate with commercial cloud services7. Such hybrid systems are in the interest of
the users of publicly funded infrastructures and funding agencies because they will
provide ‘freedom and choice’ over the source of resources to be consumed and the
manner in which they can be obtained, facilitating the goal of ‘making every researcher
digital’. Hybrid systems serve the interests of suppliers by encouraging the adoption of
cloud services by more researchers and thus creating a larger and more vibrant
marketplace in which they can offer their services.
This integration will allow the public infrastructure users to strike their own balance
between publicly funded resources and commercial cloud services while taking into
account aspects of policy and cost. Private sector service providers can supply
resources/services and additional capacity not available in the public funded
infrastructures. Research and innovation activities that have the potential for
commercial exploitation can work with the private sector to unlock that potential,
demonstrate feasibility and market acceptance. It is expected that services will migrate
from publicly funded infrastructures to commercial suppliers as suitable offers,
addressing cost and policy aspects, become available on the market. In this manner,
Helix Nebula is implementing what the e‐Infrastructrue Reflection Group (eIRG) refers
to as the e‐Infrastructure Commons in its 2012 Roadmap paper8.
This hybrid cloud has the potential to bring the public and private sectors together so
that the public sector has something to offer the private sector more than a simple
demand for cloud services. The creation of a continuum of services across the public
and private sector, instead of a simple supply‐demand model will alleviate the current
situation which is inhibiting the establishment of hybrid cloud infrastructures. It is also
inhibiting the establishment of big‐data services since there are a number of
sensitivities, explained below, that need to be addressed before a model can be envisage
where all datasets are hosted on commercial cloud services.
5
http://cds.cern.ch/record/1537032/files/HelixNebula‐NOTE‐2013‐003.pdf
6
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1478364/files/HelixNebula‐NOTE‐2012‐001.pdf
7
http://cds.cern.ch/record/1548323/files/HelixNebula‐D6_1.pdf
8
http://www.e‐irg.eu/images/stories/publ/e‐irg_roadmap_2012‐final.pdf
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Business models need to be developed that ensure the Data Stewards9, which are
frequently publicly funded research centres, retain control over the curation and usage
of the datasets and the associated intellectual property. Researchers also need
guarantees about the long‐term availability of the cloud services and the data. Such a
hybrid model would address these points and allow the progressive migration of
services between public and private providers. Furthermore, it is of upmost importance
that data catalogue services, such as those being developed by the EUDAT project10, are
available to all research communities’ datasets hosted by both public and private cloud
services.
There have been many community specific research data infrastructures established in
recent years, such as The Catalog of Life indexing the world’s known species11,
iMARINE12 and GENESI‐DEC13, which have produced valuable data curation tools and
expertise, along with data sharing policies. Being able to interface these data e‐
infrastructures into a hybrid cloud model will allow a larger user base to exploit the
data, bigger opportunities to contribute scientific data to multi‐disciplinary research,
and provide sustainability models for their continued existence.
Initial investigations on the potential impact of cloud services in the research
community suggest that the commercial public cloud services are likely to be adopted
initially for the ‘long tail of science’ conducted by researchers that do not have access to
significant in‐house computing resources and skills. Efforts must be made to simplify
access to commercial cloud services for such groups that generally have straightforward
requirements and frequently do not have sufficient in‐house IT expertise to manage and
operate their own computing resources.
Conversely, it will require further reduction in the costs of commercial services for large
research users with important in‐house computing capacity to find commercial cloud
services as financially attractive as is the case for small scale users. As one industry
representative put it ‘why would I hire a car on a daily basis if I know in advance I will use
it every day for 3 years – it will be cheaper to buy my own’14.
It is recognised that not all publicly funded research centres are in a position to make
accurate estimations of the total cost of ownership of in‐house IT services since some
contributing costs are borne by different departments. But in order for the demand‐side
users to be encouraged to purchase cloud computing services, the services offered must
be economically advantageous compared to other means of procuring IT services.
These alternatives include purchasing and operating IT equipment internally which
requires capital investment and IT expertise but remains economically attractive for IT‐
intensive applications with a sustained and predictable usage.
9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_governance
10
http://www.eudat.eu/
11
http://www.catalogueoflife.org/
12
http://www.i‐marine.eu/Pages/Home.aspx
13
http://www.genesi‐dec.eu/
14
Similar cost arguments are made in this article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/26/cloud_magic_number/
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Benefits of the hybrid model
The hybrid model outlined in the rationale above represents a change from the status‐
quo but is necessary to kick‐start new and emerging sciences use of e‐infrastructures.
The identified benefits of this model for the stakeholders include:
Users
A wide range of integrated services and data resources providing a more
complete working environment supporting the full lifecycle of research activities
Easy means to publish their own research results and data
Freedom and choice over which services to use according to preferences for
functionality, policy and budget
An environment into which their own bespoke services can be integrated
Readily available training material and support
Time to focus on their research objectives rather than having to learn about and
dedicate time to operate IT infrastructure
Keep control over their results and data with the assurance that they will be
available over the long‐term
Have a voice on how the services they use are governed
Research Organisations
A means to expose their research products to a wider community
A platform through which research organisations can be more closely connected
to their users and react more quickly to their changing needs
Ability to procure additional resources on‐demand
Grouped negotiation of service procurement with other research organisations
A ready‐made channel for improving knowledge and technology transfer with
industry
Service providers (public and commercial)
Creation of a market with an extensive user base in to which providers can offer
their services
Privileged communication channel with end‐users and purchasing organisations
A means of estimating the scale and sophistication of services that would be
suitable for the public research sector
Reduced risk and up‐front investment during the development and introduction
of innovative services
Funding agencies
A means of encouraging the uptake of cloud services by the public sector
Creation of an public‐private innovation platform for ICT
A simple means for implementing open access policies of publications and data
Democratisation of access to data and compute resources so they are available
to any users, laboratory or project, regardless of size
A channel for increasing the impact and exploitation of publicly funded research
A means to monitor the impact of public investments
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Pilot Service
In order to verify the feasibility of this vision and rationale, a pilot service is proposed
that can be rapidly established by building on the existing investments to demonstrate
added‐value to the research community and the sustainability of the approach.
Implementation will start in 2014, initially offering a limited set of services at a
prototype Centre of Excellence. This ramp‐up phase will include a roadmap for how to
extend the e‐infrastructure to a group of independently operated and cooperating
Centres of Excellence offering a richer set of layered services and higher total capacity to
serve the European Research Area. Such facilities will be Centres of Excellence providing
capacity style High Performance Computing (HPC) services for data centric applications
and will be federated into a network of such centres across Europe.
Portfolio of Services
The Centres of Excellence will offer an initial portfolio of services taken from the list
documented by eIRG in its blue paper of 201015 with the technical characteristics
identified by the High Level Expert Group on Scientific Data in their “Riding the Wave”
report from the same year16.
All services will incorporate state‐of‐the‐art security measures, including host‐based
protections, system logging and access traceability. All services will make use of a
federated identity management system addressing authentication and authorization to
ensure seamless and secure access to the services and data. While the Centres of
Excellence will take the role and responsibilities of Data Custodians17, the Stewards of
the data‐sets hosted by the Centres of Excellence will be responsible for defining and
managing the access policy for their data.
Brokering services will be deployed so that the full portfolio of services from all Centres
of Excellence is visible to all users and can be compared and accessed.
Training and Education
The design, creation and operation of e‐infrastructure services are essential tools in the
development of skills and competencies for the European market. The services offered
by the e‐infrastructure Centres of Excellence will provide a focus for the creation of
public‐private teams of skilled personnel across the cooperating research organisations,
service suppliers and users, enabling the sharing of knowledge to develop a co‐design
approach18 to services and applications. The ability to fully exploit the potential for
knowledge and job creation that is locked‐up in the datasets and algorithms to be hosted
by the centre will require the nurturing of a new generation of data scientists with a core
set of ICT skills. To ensure the training and education services impact as large an
audience as possible while controlling the costs of offering such services, massive open
15
http://www.e‐irg.eu/images/stories/eirg_bluepaper2010_final.pdf
16
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/e‐infrastructure/docs/hlg‐sdi‐report.pdf
17
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_governance
18
http://echallenges.org/e2010/outbox/eChallenges_e2007_ref_195_doc_3562.pdf
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online course (MOOC19) techniques will be employed which will be supported by the
Centres of Excellence model itself via the digital library services. The EIROforum
organisations have core competences in training and education20 which can form the
basis of this activity. Since its formation in 2002, EIROforum joint initiatives have
already resulted in an important impact in the areas of Outreach and Education. High‐
profile activities have involved thousands of European science teachers and students,
thus emphatically supporting Europe‐wide efforts to raise interest in science and
technology and to secure a sound recruitment base for European R&D efforts in the
future. Such collaboration in the area of human resources also have a bearing on the
European Research Area: by attracting and retaining world‐class researchers in Europe,
through technological exchange and common development, and by organising multi‐
disciplinary scientific conferences.
Integration of public and commercial service suppliers into a
hybrid model
The investigations within Helix Nebula have revealed that with current pricing of
commercial services many public organisations will continue to find it financially
attractive to provide the services themselves in‐house. Hence this implementation plan
foresees that Centres of Excellence can be owned and operated by a mixture of
commercial companies and public organisations. Each Centre of Excellence will include a
pay‐per‐usage element in its funding model but the operating organisation is free to
define its own pricing strategy and implementation. The portfolio of services will be
made available under a set of terms and conditions that are compliant with European
jurisdiction and legislation with service definitions implementing recognised policies for
trust, security and privacy notably for data protection.
By integrating commercial and publicly operated Centres of Excellence into a hybrid
model it will be possible to migrate workloads to commercial suppliers once acceptable
pricing and terms and conditions have been negotiated. In this way the Centre of
Excellence model will bolster the creation of a market to which the commercial suppliers
can offer their services.
Governance Model
The governance model foreseen for the pilot service will be based on two bodies:
A management board where all the Centres of Excellence operating
organisations are represented and the strategic and financial aspects of the
Centre of Excellence model are addressed. Policy aspects impacting the
operation of the network of Centres of Excellence will be addressed by the
management board. The introduction of a new Centre of Excellence into the
network will be approved by the management board subject to verification of
19
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course
20
http://www.scienceinschool.org/
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the policies (see Integration of public and commercial service suppliers) under
which it operates and the quality of the services provided.
A user forum21, through which the end‐users themselves, in a cross‐
disciplinary body collaborate on requirements and policies concerning the e‐
infrastructure services. The User Forum will also act as a consultation body for
management board.
The pilot service will demonstrate the feasibility of the e‐infrastructure Centres of
Excellence model for a range of scientific disciplines. The pilot service will also provide a
means for the ESFRI Research Infrastructures, that are currently under‐development
and represent Europe’s future “big data factories”, to evaluate the suitability of the
services provided by Centres of Excellence. The integrated service portfolio offered by
the network of Centres of Excellence will enable multi‐disciplinary research across the
Research Infrastructures and contribute to ensuring excellence in science.
Relationship to existing European e‐Infrastructures
The Centres of Excellence will make use of and cooperate with existing European e‐
infrastructures to build the e‐infrastructure commons by jointly offering integrated
services to the end‐user. The relationship with these existing e‐infrastructures will be
defined via written agreements and is described below.
GEANT
The Centres of Excellence will be connected to the GEANT network in order to provide
high performance access for the whole European Research Area and ensure integration
with other regions of the world so Europe can be a leading participant in global research
challenges. Building on the experience gathered through the Helix Nebula project which
is extending GEANT connectivity to commercial data centres will greatly simplify the
establishment of a hybrid model engaging both public and commercial service
providers.
PRACE
The capacity style HPC services for data centric applications offered by the Centres of
Excellence will be complimentary to the capability style HPC services provided by
PRACE. The expertise developed by PRACE and related projects in efficient parallel
programming paradigms and optimising software for a range of architectures is directly
relevant to the e‐Infrastructure Centres of Excellence and application/service
developers. The European Technology Platform for High Performance Computing
project22 recently published a Strategic Research Agenda for achieving HPC leadership
21
David Foster, Bob Jones, “Science Strategy and Sustainable Solutions; A Collaboration on the
Directions of e-Infrastructure for Science”, CERN-OPEN-2013-017,
http://cds.cern.ch/record/1545615/files/CERN-OPEN-2013-017.pdf
22
http://www.etp4hpc.eu/
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in Europe23 which specifically highlights the upcoming big‐data challenges for leading
research activities and the relevance of cloud services:
“Europe is in a unique position to excel in the area of HPC Usage and Big Data
owing to the experience level of current and potential users (and the recognition of
the importance of data by such users as CERN, ESA, and biological data banks) and
the presence of leading ISVs for large‐scale business applications. Europe should
exploit that knowledge to create competitive solutions for big‐data business
applications, by providing easier access to data and to leading‐edge HPC
platforms, by broaden the user base (e.g., through Cloud Computing and Software
as a Service (SaaS)), and by responding to new and challenging technologies.”
So as well as sharing expertise, the services offered by the Centres of Excellence and the
PRACE Tier‐0 and Tier‐1 centres should be integrated to form part of the overall e‐
infrastructure ecosystem. This will require the PRACE HPC centres to participate in the
federated identity management scheme and data sharing services if the PRACE centres
are to be fully integrated as service providers within this model.
EGI
The experience gathered by EGI in managing a federated grid infrastructure will be
directly relevant to the Centres of Excellence model. The Centres of Excellence will be
integrated with the EGI federated cloud24. Integrating the Centres of Excellence with the
EGI distributed computing infrastructure provides a clear direction for how EGI can
contribute its experience and make the full portfolio of services accessible to its existing
user‐base. The pilot service is intended to be technology agnostic allowing the e‐
infrastructure commons to profit from the long‐standing experience EGI has gained with
grid computing combined with the innovation potential created by the uptake of cloud
computing in research and business sectors.
It is expected that data services currently under development by various projects,
notably EUDAT, will provide candidates for future services and potentially additional e‐
infrastructure Centres of Excellence. A goal will be to introduce services that can profit
from the co‐location of data and compute services to support multi‐disciplinary
research. Metadata and indexing facilities across the set of services in all the e‐
infrastructure Centres of Excellence are seen as being particularly relevant. It is essential
that new services are fully integrated with existing services to preserve the data and
compute continuum of the platform and support the e‐infrastructure commons.
Engagement of funding agencies
The implementation plan and associated funding model have been designed so that the
e‐infrastructure Centres of Excellence can be sustained by their operating organisations
according to a continuum of financial models ranging from sponsored resources for
peer‐reviewed scientific cases to communities who would pay for the services they
23
http://www.etp4hpc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ETP4HPC_book_singlePage.pdf
24
https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Fedcloud-tf:UserCommunities
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receive. Additional resources will be required in order for these services to be expanded
and to serve a wider range of users. The European Commission and national funding
agencies will be invited to become stakeholders and contribute to the expansion of the
e‐infrastructure Centre of Excellence model. The guiding principle is that funding from
such stakeholders will be focused on innovation of services and uptake by new user
communities and business actors while the operational costs will be borne by the
operating organisations and the users themselves. Below is a non–exhaustive list of
areas where funding agencies may contribute to the expansion of the Centre of
Excellence model:
Development of new services to be deployed on the e‐infrastructure. Significant
effort will be required to co‐develop scalable services that can operate in a
distributed environment and serve a wide range of users.
Financial incentive scheme to increase adoption of services (both public and
private) by users including ‘long‐tail of science’ research groups and SMEs.
Engaging the use of the services by new research communities (e.g. curation of
data‐sets, connection of identity federations, deployment of community specific
services, training for new users, etc.)
Develop training and educational activities building on the e‐infrastructure
services to maximise their impact. This can also include expansion of services to
support for volunteer computing so that researchers can build citizen‐
cyberscience communities and further engage the general public in science.
Organisation of user forum events as well as outreach and dissemination to a
range of audiences and production of material for policy related activities.
International collaboration (beyond Europe) through interoperation with
equivalent structures in other regions of the world.
Expansion of the network of the Centres of Excellence across the European
member states to address national and thematic needs.
Many research organisations that operate research infrastructures do not have
the mandate to provide e‐infrastructure services to their users for the
management and processing of their experimental data. This represents a gap in
the scientific lifecycle and a missed opportunity to highlight the results and
impact of public funded research. These research organisations will require
assistance to bridge this gap by supporting their users so they can make use of e‐
infrastructures services to manage and process their experimental data.
The recently completed eInfraNet project25 brought together national funding agencies26
from across Europe to explore the economics of e‐Infrastructures and align European
25
http://e-infranet.eu/
26
http://e-infranet.eu/partners/
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policies with the needs of the member states. In its final report27 the project
recommended:
“The use of standards‐based private cloud infrastructures may also provide the
needed flexibility in case of jobs that exceed available resources through cloud
bursting (the use of external public clouds for the exceeding capacity) or by
pooling individual institutional private clouds into a federated cloud that can
provide the necessary resources in a federated way, following the extremely
successful approach already in use for GRIDs.”
The model for a network of Centres of Excellence described in this document can serve as
a blueprint to be expanded across Europe. The establishment of Centres of Excellence
could be supported by national funding agencies to address local or thematic needs and
provide a focus for innovation in e‐Infrastructures. Such national or thematic Centres of
Excellence should be integrated with existing European e‐Infrastructures (see
Relationship to existing European e‐Infrastructures) and will be in a position to host
data, information and services that for policy reasons need to remain within a national
context. As these Centres of Excellence come online they must be federated together to
provide a European dimension to the e‐infrastructure commons.
27
Cloud Computing Economics: An evidence-based approach for Research Applications http://e-
infranet.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Cloud-Computing-Economics-An-evidence-based-approach-
for-Research-Applications1.pdf
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A Prototype Centre of Excellence
A prototype Centre of Excellence is planned in order to act as “pathfinder” for the overall
model and pilot service. It is proposed to use the resources installed by CERN at the
Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Budapest, Hungary29 to develop a prototype
Centre of Excellence for the pilot service. The Wigner centre was contracted by CERN
following a competitive call to tender to which approximately 20 sites around Europe
responded. Wigner is operated as an extension to the CERN Data Centre (hosted on the
CERN site in Switzerland) and consequently CERN can assure the business continuity for
the critical systems in case of major problems. The Wigner data centre is connected to
CERN via multiple 100Gbs network links. CERN is integrated with many of the world
leaders in international networking, including hosting a GEANT Point of Presence (PoP)
as well as being a major center for commercial networking for both telecoms suppliers
as well as Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Additional network options provided by
public and private bodies are welcome according to the needs expressed by the users,
ranging from commodity IP services to dedicated circuits directly to Wigner or via
CERN.
The following initial portfolio of services will be provided by the prototype Centre of
Excellence:
A virtual multi‐tenant compute environment to provision and manage networks
of virtual machines on‐demand.
A ‘dropbox’ style service for secure file sharing over the internet.
A point‐to‐point reliable, automated file transfer service for bulk data
transfers30.
An openAIRE compliant open access repository 31 for publications and
supporting data allowing users to create and control their own digital libraries.
Persistent digital object identifiers will be assigned to all publically available
uploads so as to make them citable and permit the creation of a digital data
continuum spanning from experimental data through to publications including
links to commercial publishers.
A long‐term archiving service32.
Integrated Digital Conferencing 33 tools allowing users to manage their
conferences, workshops and meetings.
Training services: Online training material34 will be made available and re‐
enforced with advanced training via brief residential programmes and
29
http://press.web.cern.ch/press-releases/2013/06/cern-and-wigner-research-centre-physics-inaugurate-
cern-data-centres
30
http://information-technology.web.cern.ch/services/file-transfer
31
http://www.zenodo.org/features
32
http://castor.web.cern.ch/
33
http://indico-software.org/
34
http://indico.cern.ch/categoryDisplay.py?categId=88
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secondments, such as CERN’s openlab summer student programme35, which has
recently been expanded with the engagement of EIROforum organisations and
more companies.
These services will be implemented using the OpenStack36 open source software suite
accessible via the most popular interfaces (including EC2, S3 and potentially OCCI).
OpenStack has been selected as the framework for the e‐infrastructure services offered
by the prototype Centre of Excellence because it has emerged as a clear leader in the
vibrant cloud management market. CERN has extensively tested the software and has
adopted it for the management of its production resources at its data centre in Geneva.
OpenStack is fully open source and distributed under the Apache 2 license supported by
a growing consortium of more than 180 private companies and public organisations
with a well‐defined and transparent governance structure representing a global
community of more than 9,000 people across 87 countries. More than 800 developers
are contributing to the software. All of these attributes means OpenStack does not
require public funds to be maintained and offers one of the best environments for
innovation.
Recent developments lead CERN to conclude that the open source software technology
will shortly be available to make this federation of a network of Centres of Excellence
technically feasible. Federation is stated as an objective of the OpenStack Foundation37:
“The vision of federation across deployed OpenStack clouds is critical to the
OpenStack vision. At the core OpenStack is a framework for managing and
provisioning compute, network and storage. From that core many things are
possible. But, we hope and will push for the OpenStack core to remain robust,
consistent and stable. Yes, every deployment will have its own configuration and
technical specifications, but as long as the core concepts and native APIs are robust
and consistent, the possibility to drive real interoperability will exist and the value
from this is a huge advantage of the open cloud concept”.
Long term sustainability, governance and collaboration with industry are achieved by
building the prototype Centers of Excellence on the existing open source community and
means national and European funding can be focused on innovation.
The rationalisation offered by the prototype Centre of Excellence and its integration into
a hybrid model will provide a number of advantages:
Provide a clear example of the scale and nature of the services that would be
required from commercial suppliers.
Offer “user aggregation” of procurement since the prototype Centre of Excellence
will be in a position to negotiate with suppliers on behalf of all the partner
research organisations. This will ensure that the most cost effective means of
providing a service will be available at any moment in time. This will also
35
http://openlab.web.cern.ch/news/cern-openlab-summer-student-programme-invites-2013-
applications
36
http://www.openstack.org/
37
http://www.rackspace.com/blog/an-open-letter-to-the-openstack-community/
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simplify the contractual and administrative aspects of procuring services from
commercial suppliers for the cooperating research organisations.
The procurement and deployment cycle for the centre will take several months
and so the integration with commercial cloud service providers will be used to
provide additional capacity in the interim. This will bring added value to the
cooperating research organisations and their users by making it simpler for
them to use commercial cloud services in ‘bursts’ to access additional resources
to fulfil any short‐term requirements.
The technical aspects of migrating user workloads to commercial services will
be simplified and accelerated.
The prototype Centre of Excellence will make it possible to host data‐sets on a
cost‐neutral basis while offering open access so they can be exploited via
commercial services. This will remove the need for commercial suppliers to
make investments to host data‐sets without a clear estimation of how much
business they will generate.
The archiving service would offer a means of ensuring that data‐sets have a safe
back‐up copy.
Funding Model for the Prototype Centre of Excellence
To ensure the sustainability of the prototype Centre of Excellence a funding model is
envisaged where all the stakeholders participate. Sustainability is seen as a process
rather than a fixed solution and hence the funding model will evolve over time.
The services provided by the prototype Centre of Excellence will not be made available
on a commercial basis. CERN rents space in the Wigner data centre and commercial
suppliers can discuss directly with the local authorities if they are interested in locating
their own services in Wigner. This co‐location model is already used in a number of
centres around Europe offering services to the public research sector.
The proposed funding model for the pilot service is that CERN will enter into formal
agreements with partner research organisations that wish to jointly develop and use the
services offered by the prototype Centre of Excellence. CERN will take responsibility for
operating the services at the Wigner data centre and the cost during the first year of
operation will be covered by CERN. Beyond this first year, each partner research
organisation engages to fund the cost of the services their registered users consume
according to a pay‐per‐usage model where the detailed cost model will be jointly‐
developed during the first year. The costs of operating the Wigner site at the capacity
foreseen for CERN’s own usage will continue to be paid by CERN itself. CERN will charge
to the partner research organisations the additional costs which are incurred when
increasing the site’s capacity for the purpose of the Centre of Excellence. These additional
costs will include processors, storage, network switches, cabling, energy, software
licensing costs and operational staff. CERN will operate the services on the same
hardware configurations38 and at the same level of quality as those offered to its high
38
Technical Description Servers and Storage for Physics Data Processing, Acquisition and Control,
CERN, MS-3903/IT, http://cds.cern.ch/record/1472671/files/MS-3903_Technical_Description.pdf