SURA IT Initiatives & Strategy: SURA IT Strategy

The SURA CIO Committee has developed a program driven strategy that leverages information technology in ways that create competitive advantage for member institutions as they pursue federal research dollars needed to establish excellence in scientific research. This strategy was most recently updated and presented to the SURA Board of Trustees at their Fall 2005 meeting. The goal of this updated strategy was to focus SURA's IT initiatives on the growth of a regional grid computing capability through the continued development of the SURAgrid Initiative. The SURA IT Program is managed against the goals that are incorporated into this strategic plan that is updated annually and replaced every three years.

Strategic Elements (in priority order) [with links to more detail below]

1. Regional HPC Grid Infrastructure Program (SURAgrid)
2. Support for the SURA Coastal Ocean Observation and Prediction (SCOOP) program
3. The creation of a grid computing based Biomedical / BioInformatics initiative
4. Network Infrastructure and Connectivity

Several emerging areas of interest to the SURA IT community were identified and will be explored and developed as time and resources permit:

1. The development of a SURA community network research program
2. The creation of a program to explore new simulation and computer modeling capabilities
3. A SURA program to engage in the development of emerging standards and specifications in grid computing.

Program 1

Regional HPC Grid Infrastructure Program (SURAgrid)

Program Goals

• Establish a comprehensive program to develop a SURA regional grid and to aid SURA institutions in establishing inter-institutional and intra-institutional grids;
• Continue to grow and develop the SURAgrid initiative and the SURAgrid community of contributors as a visible instantiation of a regional grid;
  • Clearly identify a set of applications that can showcase the capabilities of SURAgrid;
  • Establish a SURA technical support capability for SURAgrid;
  • Develop external funding and corporate support for SURAgrid;
• Develop education and training workshops and materials in the area of grid computing technologies;
• Identify and develop extra-regional and international partnerships that could enhance SURA region activities in grid computing;
• Develop a grid technology outreach program for minority serving institutions.

Program Elements

• Create a comprehensive plan for the development of SURAgrid:
  • Define a clear mission for SURAgrid and its relationship to other state, regional and national grid initiatives;
  • Develop a SURAgrid technical support capability;
  • Develop a SURAgrid development and deployment plan;
  • Improve SURA's understanding of grid computing applications and their resource requirements with the goal of porting significant applications to the SURAgrid environment;
  • Develop a strategy for the funding of SURAgrid including the participation of corporate partners/sponsors; and,
  • Expand participation in SURAgrid adding volunteer and dedicated resources from R&E corporate partners;
• Develop a 12 month plan for the development of additional grid technology workshops and educational materials;
• Develop a plan for promoting grid related policies & standards;
• Develop a SURA grid technology white paper based on SURA member grid deployment experiences.

• Utilize existing resources for program/project planning
• Leverage SURAgrid, GridPlan and HPC participant communities and where possible contract for services/program support from SURAgrid community;
• Actively seek corporate partnerships in the form of donated or deeply discounted grid resources and support for SURAgrid workshops;
• Seek internal and external funding to support part time and/or full time staff positions in support of SURAgrid;
• Logistics and meeting support from existing SURA office staff

Program 2

Support for the SURA Coastal Ocean Observation and Prediction (SCOOP) program

Program Goals

SURA IT support for the SCOOP program is closely linked to the development of a regional grid computing infrastructure. SCOOP model developers are working closely with the SURAgrid community to port a storm surge prediction model (ADCIRC) to the SURAgrid environment. A near-term goal is to complete the porting of the ADCIRC model to the SURAgrid environment and to initiate regular ADCIRC model runs on SURAgrid resources. A longer term goal is to enhance the HPC resources available through SURAgrid to a point where SURAgrid can support reliable runs of SCOOP modeling programs in support of the broader SCOOP goals of supporting a distributed national laboratory for coastal ocean modeling and prediction.

Program 3

Grid Computing Based Biomedical / BioInformatics initiative

GOALS: Develop one or more biohealth applications to utilize the potential of the developing SURAgrid infrastructure as a way to demonstrate the value of grid computing in general, and the SURAgrid infrastructure in particular in support of biomedical and bioinformatics applications.

PROGRAM ELEMENTS: A small group of IT specialists within SURA, working with members of the SURAgrid community that possess health components, are exploring programmatic possibilities to utilize grid technologies in support of biomedical applications. Current candidates include: (1) pilot development of interoperable system communications (grid based) between several Regional Healthcare Information Organizations (RHIOs); (2) development, testing and production of medical simulation and modeling programs that can be shared and operated via the grid; (3) linkage of regional medical modeling and simulation capabilities with the delivery of improved training & education applications for medical and military personnel.

RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS: Applications are expected to require access to high performance computing resources, use parallel processing techniques requiring considerable storage capacity, be geographically decentralized, and be scientifically demanding and valuable applications. While participating institutions are envisioned as providing the bulk of the necessary resources (especially personnel and equipment), targeted funding requests to SURA itself are likely.

Program 4

Network Infrastructure and Connectivity

Premise: Network connectivity is a key enabler for most research and educational activities. While Higher Education has historically demonstrated a continual and insatiable appetite for internal and external network capacity the critical focus must remain on the specific applications that drive the connectivity needs. Network connectivity has two traditional "Opposite End of the Spectrum" problems: Last Mile and high bandwidth at a National and International scale. With the emergence of the National LambdaRail (NLR) and the Regional Optical Networks (RON) the Higher Education community has the opportunity to both control the spiraling cost and develop new and unique application to utilize the dramatically increased network capacities. "Last Mile" issue is becoming more critical as we try to economically connect many of our widely distributed small universities, field laboratories, and remote data sensors at rates consistent with the applications required. These opportunities come with their own set of unique challenges. This portion of the SURA Information Technology Plan is to deal with the current set of challenges and opportunities in Network Connectivity.

Opportunities:

• Expand connectivity
  • International ( Europe , Asia , Africa etc)
  • Additional RONs (models, successes, catastrophes to avoid)
  • Connecting regional network based on specific value added potentials (i.e. Atlantic Waves)
  • 'Last mile' issues as both obstacles and opportunities
  • Connections for 'economic development' etc.
  • Connections for K-12 and beyond
• Applications to consider
  • Designs to accommodate the emerging Grids
  • Sharing of educational databases (MIT etc.)
  • Known major application needs (SCOOP, Physics, Bio-medicine, etc.)
  • Educational delivery (both distance learning and massive data archives)

Challenges:

• Last mile —— be it yards, feet or inches
• Federal / State regulations and processes
• Managing growth at various pressure points (what is the next orifice or jam)
• Expanding cooperation while struggling with intense competition among members
• Entropy at national and regional levels
• Identifying and marketing the value added through participation in SURA type efforts
• Staff / support issues (where and how to invest the limited resources from SURA)
• Engaging the membership (contribution of knowledge, staff time, other resources)

Plan of Action

• Enhance communication of current status, best practices, and progress of projects
• Build a reference list for members to query based on specific problem
• Identify the top two or three priorities for action
• Identify the list of major impact items to plan for and monitor

Sustainable Funding Strategies

• Business cooperation and partnerships
• Economic development as a marketing tool as well as a source of investment
• State and Federal sources for research and development funds
• Providing Outsource services to other RON / local networks
• Metropolitan / community support for common not for profit applications (Hospitals, local government, etc.)