The document discusses the concept of open infrastructure, which refers to making physical infrastructure accessible to various clients, often for a fee. It provides examples of different open infrastructure projects, such as Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, UNICORE/OMII for supercomputing resources, and UTOPIA for fiber access in Utah. These projects aim to promote competition, scientific research, and technological advancement while differing in ownership structures and funding sources.

1. Open Infrastructure
How “Open” do we want to be?
Christian De Neef
Fast Track Consulting – Brussels

2. What is O
Open Infrastructure?
f ?
Physical infrastructure – from railways and
telecommunications networks to scientific tooling
and datacenters – being made available to Clients
other than the Owners, mostly for a fee
Examples of Open Infrastructure projects
Open Infrastructure Landscape

3. Open Infrastructure Examples
O f
Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)
• Apply unused CPU cycles on a computer to perform grid computing
• Promotes scientific computing (Research)
• CPU cycles are made available for free
• Qualifying projects acquire CPU cycles for free (admin costs?)
• Research projects must be accepted by BOINC
• The iddl
Th middleware that allows di t ib t d computing i non-commercial
th t ll distributed ti is i l
• Private initiative, owned by the University of California, Berkeley
• Global (in theory), mostly North American usage (in practice)

4. Open Infrastructure Examples
O f
Uniform Interface to Computing Resources (UNICORE/OMII)
• Share CPU cycles between supercomputers to perform grid computing
• Promotes scientific computing (Research)
• CPU cycles are made available against a standard fee
• Initiated to enable German supercomputer centers to provide their users
access to their heterogeneous computing resources
• Both academic and commercial usage
• The middleware is open source, standards based
• Initially owned by German Ministry for Education & Research (BMBF),
now belongs to the community (European funding)
• Global (in theory), mostly European academic usage (in practice)
• Specialized implementations, e.g. Evaluation & risk assessment of
chemicals:

5. Open Infrastructure Examples
O f
Utah Telco Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA)
• Consortium of 16 cities engaged in providing fiber access to businesses
• Promotes competition (against the incumbent service providers)
• US$ 500M State financed (Rural Utilities Service programme)
• Financing to be covered by subscriber revenue (via service providers)
• Attracted 7 services providers (voice, data, video)
• Local i
L l investment, l
t t local usage
l

6. Open Infrastructure Examples
O f
Pilbara Railways
• In Australia, large mining companies operate their own private railways
• The railway systems have been "declared" for third party access
• Promotes competition (avoids monopolistic behavior)
• Access terms have to be negotiated with the infrastructure owners
• Private initiative, under government regulation
• No h d
N shared ownership ,shared usage
hi h d

7. Open Infrastructure Examples
O f
OCAS
• Research centre for steel applications, based in Belgium
• Promotes R&D partnerships (Research)
• Joint venture between ArcelorMittal and the Flemish Region
• Innovative product design, smart materials selection, prototyping, etc.
• 40% state funded, 60% private funding
• Financing t b covered b services revenue & spin-offs
Fi i to be d by i i ff
• Recent spin-offs include Elytra (2006), XcelCoat (2007), and borit (2009)

8. Open Infrastructure Landscape
O f
3rd Party
3 dP t
trol
Cont
Private Ownership Shared
Ownership
O hi
Contr
rol
Private