The Helix Nebula Science Cloud is a pre-commercial procurement initiative with a budget exceeding 5 million euros, co-funded by the European Commission, aimed at developing a hybrid cloud platform for the European research community. This initiative seeks to modernize the procurement process within public research sectors to leverage a dynamic digital market, while commercial cloud services will increasingly integrate into scientific research computing models. The project highlights the need for collaboration among research organizations, data providers, and commercial cloud services to create a competitive marketplace and enhance the scientific workflow lifecycle.

1. Helix Nebula Science Cloud
Pre-Commercial Procurement pilot
21 April 2016
Helge Meinhard, CERN

2. LHC Upgrades
 Run 3: ALICE + LHCb
 LHCb:
• 1 MHz  40 MHz
 ALICE:
• 50 kHz event rate (75
GB/s) for 6 weeks/year
 Run 4: CMS + ATLAS
upgrades
 ~10 kHz event rate
(today 1 kHz)
 10-40 GB/s data rates
Integrated
L (fb-1)
Pileup
ATLAS+CMS
Run 1 25 25
Run 2 100 40
Run 3 300 60
Run 4 +300/yr 140
This x5!

3. Scale of data tomorrow …
Ian.Bird@cern.ch 4
0
20
40
60
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100
120
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Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Run 4
GRID
ATLAS
CMS
LHCb
ALICE
0.0
50.0
100.0
150.0
200.0
250.0
300.0
350.0
400.0
450.0
Run 1 Run 2 Run 3 Run 4
CMS
ATLAS
ALICE
LHCb
Data: ~25 PB/yr  400 PB/yr
Compute: Growth > x50
10 Year Horizon
What we think is
affordable unless we do
something differently
22 March 2016
2010 2015 2018 2023

4. HEP Facility timescale
Ian.Bird@cern.ch 5
2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035
Physics
Construct Physics
Design Proto Construct Physics
Construct Physics
Construct Physics
Construct Physics
LHC
SuperKEKB
HL-LHC
FCC
LBNF
ILC Design
Integrated view between Europe
(ESPP), USA (P5), Japan
22 March 2016
Science
Science
Science
SKA
LSST
CTA

5. Not only physics
22 March 2016 Ian.Bird@cern.ch 6
Growth of EBI repositories, lines
are 12 month doubling

6. 7
Augmenting CERN’s scientific computing
programme with commercial cloud services
Open Telekom Cloud

7. Major challenges
What if I get
locked in? Are there relevant
standards I should be
looking into?
What
happens to
my data?
How do I get
a good deal?
What happens to
my IT staff?
How can I compare
contracts & SLAs?
What is
PCP?
What are
the others
doing?
How can I allocate
costs?
What
services do
I need?
1. Cloud computing is disrupting the way IT resources are provisioned
2. In-house resources, publicly funded e-infrastructure and commercial cloud
services are not integrated to provide a seamless environment
3. Current organisational and financial models are not appropriate
4. The new way of procuring cloud services is also a matter of skills and education
5. Legal impediments exist

8. The Helix Nebula Initiative
The preferred model for public research
organisations is a hybrid cloud that combines
in-house resources with public e-
infrastructures and commercial cloud services
9
The Helix Nebula initiative has
brought together research
organisations, data providers,
publicly funded e-
infrastructures and European
commercial cloud service
providers to develop a hybrid
cloud model with
procurement and governance
approaches suitable for the
dynamic cloud market

9. Procurement Process
PCP
A more flexible and agile
procurement process must be
created and implemented to
speed up the uptake of cloud
services for the research sector
See PICSE call to action
http://www.picse.eu/

10. PCP PPI
11
Why PCP?
Commercial IaaS exists but not certified, integrated with
public e-infrastructures, offering std interfaces with
suitable SLA and contractual terms & conditions.
PPI
Potential follow-on
project if this PCP
project is successful

11. HNSciCloud Joint Pre-Commercial Procurement
Bob Jones, CERN 12
Procurers: CERN, CNRS, DESY, EMBL-EBI, ESRF,
IFAE, INFN, KIT, SURFSara, STFC
Experts: Trust-IT & EGI.eu
The group of procurers have committed
• >1.6M€ of procurement funds
• Manpower for testing/evaluation
• Use-cases with applications & data
• In-house IT resources
To procure innovative IaaS level cloud services
integrated into a hybrid cloud model
• Commercial cloud services
• European e-Infrastructures
Services will be made available to end-users
from many research communities
Co-funded via H2020 (Jan’16-Jun’18)
• Grant Agreement 687614
Total procurement commitment >5M€

12. What will be procured
A joint science cloud platform for the European research community
Combining services at the IaaS level into an environment supporting
the full lifecycle of science workflows
The R&D services to be developed will need to be integrated with
Resources in data centres operated by the buyers group
European-scale publicly funded e-Infrastructures
As a hybrid platform on which a competitive marketplace of
European cloud players can develop their own services for a wider
range of users beyond research and science
13
http://www.helix-nebula.eu/events/hnscicloud-pre-commercial-procurement-open-market-consultation-omc

13. HNSciCloud PCP project phases
Preparation
• Analysis of requirements,
current market offers and
relevant standards
• Build stakeholder group
• Develop tender material
Implementation Sharing
• Best practises
• Recommendations
• Training
Launch of
tender Pilots tested &
assessed
9 months 14 months 7 months
Jan’16 Jun’18
4 Designs
3
Prototypes
2 Pilots
We are
here
. . .
• Each step is competitive.
• Bids evaluated against published criteria
• Only contractors that successfully
complete the previous step can bid in
the next

14. High Energy Physics
LHC experiments
Belle II
COMPASS
Astronomy
CTA – Cherenkov Telescope Array
MAGIC
Pierre Auger Observatory
Life Sciences
ELIXIR
Euro-BioImaging
Pan-Cancer
BBMRI
WeNMR
Photon/Neutron science
PETRA III, European XFEL, 3DIX, OCEAN, OSIRIS
Long tail of science
Etc.
User groups to be supported

15. Technical Challenges
Compute
Integration of some HPC requirements
Storage
Caching at provider’s site, if possible automatically
(avoid managed storage)
Network
Connection via GEANT
Support of eduGAIN for IT managers
Procurement
Match of cloud providers’ business model with public
procurement rules
6/14/2016 16

16. Current status
Technical and administrative work well under
way
Consortium agreement signed
Subcommittees established and launched
Tender announced in Jan 2016
Open Market consultation successfully done
on 17 March 2016
Now working on tender documents, both in
commercial and technical terms
6/14/2016 17

17. Summary
18
Helix Nebula Science Cloud is a Pre-Commercial Procurement project with a
budget of more than 5M€ that is co-funded by the European Commission
The objective is to produce a hybrid cloud platform for the European research community
Changes to the procurement process in the public research sector are necessary to
benefit from a dynamic Digital Single Market and should be supported by the
platform
Commercial cloud services are expected to play an increasing role in the
computing models of scientific Research Infrastructures as part of a hybrid cloud
platform
Such a hybrid cloud platform has the potential to serve many ESFRI landmarks and
projects
Helix Nebula Science Cloud is the first in a foreseen series of EC co-funded projects
which will contribute to the European Cloud Initiative

18. Acknowledgements
Colleagues of HNSciCloud project
Bob Jones and Ian Bird for their slides
19

19. Accelerating Science and Innovation