Dr David Salmon, Research Support Unit Manager at JANET(UK), sets HPC Midlands into the context of the UK's national e-Infrastructure programme, and discusses potential models for industrial connectivity to JANET to facilitate greater co-operation and collaboration. For more information, please see http://hpc-midlands.ac.uk
2. Janet
⢠Janet â UKâs NREN (National Research and Education
Network)
⢠Higher Education (Universities)
⢠Publically funded research organisations â Research
Council Facilities
â STFC, EPSRC, NERC, BBSRC, MRC, ESRC, AHRC
⢠Further education (post 16) & specialist colleges
⢠Schools (via external aggregation networks â not direct)
⢠~1000 directly connected organisations
⢠Up to 18M users
3. Funding
⢠Funding Agencies
â Higher Education
â Further Education
â England, Scotland, (Wales), Northern Ireland
⢠âTop slicedâ model
â Agencies fund Janet to implement services
â Amounts derived from organisationsâ funding statistics
⢠Formal channels
â Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
â through Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
4. Company Structure
⢠JISC â now a legal entity - charity (1st December 2012)
â Company Limited by Guarantee (CLG)
⢠JISC collections and Janet Limited (1st December 2012)
â CLG
â Formed from merger of:
⢠JNT Association Ltd. (Janet)
⢠JISC collections Ltd.
⢠JISC is the Holding company
⢠JISC Collections and Janet Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary
⢠So â Now all one...., but business as usual for service delivery
⢠Funding models and structures under review and likely to change over
coming years
5. Network Services
⢠High capacity, High Quality IP service â âInternetâ
â IPv4, IPv6, Unicast, Multicast..
⢠University access 1-10Gbit/s+, resilient in some cases
â STFC RAL â around 100Gb/s across all services
⢠100Gbit/s backbone
⢠Interoperation with GEANT (Europe) and other R&E networks worldwide
⢠Lightpath (Circuit) service
â Point to point dedcicated links
â Typically high capacity â 1-10Gbit/s
⢠VPN service in future
⢠Janet Aurora â Dark fibre R&D platform
6. Other Services
⢠Videoconferencing
⢠Eduroam wireless
⢠Router management
⢠DNS hosting....
⢠Not comprehensive list...
⢠Janet Brokerage
â Promote and provide a mechanism for take up of externally
provided services
â Storage, compute, email, cloud....
7. Research support
⢠Research Communities
â Particle Physics
â Astronomy & Radio Astronomy
â HPC
â Bioinformatics
â Natural Environment
â Atmosphere, Weather and Climate
â Network research â Testbeds & overlays
⢠Layer 2 services enabling national and International
collaboration
⢠e-Infrastructure...
10. Janet6: Core Fibre and Backbone
Resilience
⢠Similar topology to SJ5.
⢠Two north-south paths
⢠New east-west path from
Birmingham to Nottingham
â Erdington to Lowdham
⢠New PoP in Acton, West
London
12. Lighting the fibre
⢠Multi-wavelength optical transmission equipment
⢠âNativeâ capacity on the core to be 100Gbit/s per wavelength
⢠Theoretically up to 80 channels/waves
⢠Roadmap towards 400Gbit/s and 1Tbit/s per wave during
network lifetime
⢠Will be more reconfigurable than SJ5
â Flexible optical engineering
⢠Coherent regional and backbone optical engineering
â one network with edge-to-edge optical services
⢠Janet will manage the network directly (not outsourced)
â Optical, Layer2, IP
14. Janet â e-Infrastructure networking
⢠£26M With HEFCE â Announced Autumn 2011
Breakdown
⢠£10M Contribution to Janet6 backbone
⢠£12M Network provision within âclassicâ Janet
community, including key locations which may need additional
fibre access
⢠£4M âIndustry connectionâ
15. e-Infrastructure programme support
⢠Janet CTO Bob Day on e-Infrastrcuture Leadership Council (ELC)
⢠Paul Lewis secondment to BIS programme Office
â ELC secretary
â 8 months
⢠STFC secondment
â Michael Wilson
â ELC secretary
â funded from Janetâs e-Infrastructure allocation
16. e-Infrastructure Strategic Sites
⢠Identify additional fibre / capacity requirements
⢠Work with organisations to understand strategic requirements
⢠Build cases for provision
⢠Integrate provision with deployment of Janet6
17. Requirements â derive from Patterns of use
⢠Data movement â working patterns
â How much â data volume ?
⢠Beware Bytes vs. bits !
â How quickly ?
â How often ?
â Where to ?
â National & International
⢠Network engineers need bit-rates !
⢠Working with research communities to understand
emerging/evolving/strategic requirements
18. Norwich Bioinformatics Cluster
⢠The Genome Analysis Centre ⢠Institute for Food Research
- TGAC ⢠University of East Anglia
⢠The Sainsbury Laboratory ⢠Norwich Research Park
⢠John Innes Centre
19. Hinxton Genome Campus
⢠European Molecular Biology Laboratory - European Bioinformatics
Institute
⢠The Sanger Centre
⢠Babraham Institute
20. Exeter & locale
⢠Met Office ⢠Weather & Climate research
⢠University of Exeter ⢠Monsoon HPC â NERC & M.O.
21. Broaden scope of Janetâs fibre infrastructure
⢠Complementary &
integrated with
Janet6
⢠Thames Valley
regional fibre â new
transmission
equipment â Harwell
PoP (STFC RAL
etc.), Oxford
22. Industry access to academic e-Infrastructure
⢠âAccessâ
â Access to Janet community knowledge & expertise
â Access to community systems & resources connected to Janet
â Network connections
⢠Through existing provision & peerings
⢠Direct to Janet
⢠Evaluate what is appropriate
23. Industry connecting to Janet
⢠Possible for many years
â âbona-fideâ Industry/Academic R&D collaboration
â Industry funds connection (marginal cost) plus an access fee
â NOT a general âInternetâ connection
â Must have a separate connection for normal business
⢠More recently
â Janet Business & Community Engagement Policy (BCE)
⢠Academic site hosts a connection
⢠SME / Startup
⢠Share a portion of their access capacity
⢠Local decision
â Consider costs & state-aid issues
24. e-Infrastructure â Janet activities
⢠HPC consortia discussions
â Specific / preferred Industry partners ?
⢠Clarify state-aid issues
â Understand boundaries
â What can & canât be done
â Andrew Cormack â Janetâs Chief Policy Adviser
⢠Plus Consultancy
â Broader European dimension
⢠e-Infrastructure reflection Group (e-IRG)
⢠Discussions
â Technology Strategy Board (TSB)
â Catapult Centres
25. Case Studies
⢠Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG)
â Connection being established
â 1 Year
â Evaluate benefits
⢠HPC Consortia
â Pilot connections with a selected Industry partner ?
â Approach being considered
⢠Generic connections issue within Janet
â Industry â Academic OK
â Industry â Industry is the challenging area
â Policy study will clarify
⢠Perhaps âpre-competitiveâ notions will help
26. Access Management and Authentication
⢠Important issues for use of computing facilities
⢠Strong interest in greater uniformity/integration within UK HPC
community
â Janet promoting a more versatile technology
â Single sign-on, not web based
â Project Moonshot
⢠UK Technology pilot
⢠Case studies
â May help with Industry access
â Janet supporting from e-Infrastructure funding
27. Summary
⢠Janet
â Very capable national infrastructure
â Very well connected internationally
⢠Enabler for collaboration
⢠e-Infrastructure support
â exploring policy position
â encourage better academic/industry collaboration & use/access to
facilities
⢠additional network connections where appropriate
â Access management