The Atkins Report

Paul Messina, as modified by Rich Hirsh

The Report is out!

• Available off the NSF CISE page• Accompanying letter from Peter Freeman, AD CISE

– excellent job … in highlighting the importance of cyberinfrastructure to all of science and engineering research and education

– The path forward that this report envisions … truly has the potential to revolutionize all fields of research and education

– [implementation of the recommendations] may eventually be seen as more of a revolution in the behavior of scientists and engineers than in the technology they use

Formal Charge

• A) Evaluate the current PACI programs.

WRT meeting needs of the scientific and engineering research community:

• B) Recommend new areas of emphasis for CISE Directorate,

• C) Recommend an implementation plan to enact recommended changes.“C

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Panel Members• Daniel E. Atkins, Chair, Univ. of Michigan, EECS and SI, atkins@umich.edu• Kelvin K. Droegemeier, Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms,

University of Oklahoma, kkd@ou.edu• Stuart I. Feldman, IBM Research, sif@us.ibm.com• Hector Garcia-Molina, CS Dept., Stanford University,

hector@cs.standford.edu• Michael Klein, Center for Molecular Modeling, University of Pennsylvania,

klein@lrsm.upenn.edu• Paul Messina, Cal Tech, messina@cacr.caltech.edu• David G. Messerschmitt, UC-Berkeley, EECS & SIMS,

messer@eecs.berkeley.edu • Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Princeton University, jpo@astro.princeton.• Margaret H. Wright, Computer Science Department, Courant Institute of

Mathematical Sciences, New York University, mhw@cs.nyu.edu

Cyberinfrastructure: the Middle Layer

Base-technology: computation, storage, communication

Cyberinfrastructure: hardware, instruments, sensors, software,

tools, personnel, services, institutions

Applications in science and engineering research and

education

Some roles of cyberinfrastructure

• Processing, storage, connectivity– Performance, sharing, integration, etc

• Data from any source, available to anyone• Make it easy to develop and deploy new

applications– Tools, services, application commonality

• Interoperability and extensibility enables future collaboration across disciplines

• Greatest need is software and experienced people

ASC PACI’s

Pittsburgh TSC

TeraGrid

Some ITR Projects

Digital Library Initiatives

Networking Initiatives

Middleware Initiatives

Other CISE Research

Cyber- Infrastructure

Initiative

Initiatives in non-CISE Directorates

NSB Research Infrastructure Review

Initiatives in DOE, NIH, DOD, NASA, …

International Initiatives: UK e-science,Earth Simulator, EU Grid & 6th FW

Landscape for Cyber-Infrastructure Initiative

Scientific Data Collection/Curation

Collaboratories

Key Points About the Proposed Initiative

• There is grass roots vision and demand from broad S&E research communities. Many needs will not be met by commercial world.

• Scope is broad, systemic, strategic. A lot more than supercomputing. Extreme science - not flops. Potential to relax constraints of distance, time, and disciplinary boundaries. New methods: computation, visualization, collaboration, intelligent instruments, data mining, etc.

• Opportunity to leverage significantly prior NSF and other government investments. Potential large opportunity cost for not acting soon.

• The initiative is intrinsically international: cooperation and competition. Can’t assume US is in the lead.

Key Points About the Proposed Initiative (cont.)

• Connectively, interoperability ( GRID accessible, pluggable) is an essential design constraint.

• Requires a holistic approach. Addressing mix of technical and social opportunities/constraints.

• Focus is on S&E research but there are much broader implications for education (work force development) and economic leadership. Highly relevant to the future of higher education at large.

• Requires significant additional and long term funding; high degree of coordination and balancing of self-interests from multiple stakeholders. Requires leadership by NSF and a multi-agency strategy. Not business as usual.

Key Principles

• High-end scientific computational resources available to the United States academic research community should be second to none, and

• The NSF should assume lead responsibility in conjunction with other appropriate mission agencies for creating and maintaining the crucial data repositories necessary for contemporary, data driven science. – The definition of crucial will come from

the research communities.

Components of CI-enabled science & engineering

CollaborationServices

Knowledge managementinstitutions for collection buildingand curation of data, information,

literature, digital objects

High-performance computingfor modeling, simulation, data

processing/mining

Individual &Group Interfaces& Visualization

Physical World

Humans

Facilities for activation,manipulation and

construction

Instruments forobservation andcharacterization.

GlobalConnectivity

A broad, systemic, strategic conceptualization

Operations in support of end users

Development or acquisition

Coordination (synergy) Matrix

Research in technologies, systems, and applications

Applications of information technology to science and engineering research

Cyberinfrastructure in support of applications

Core technologies incorporated into cyberinfrastructure

Shared Opportunity & Responsibility

• Only domain science and engineering researchers can create a vision and implement the methodology and process changes

• Information technologists need to be deeply involved– What technology can be, not what it is– Conduct research to advance the supporting

technologies and systems– Applications inform research

• Need hybrid teams across disciplines and job types.• Need participation from social scientists in design

and evaluation of the CI enabled work environments.• Shared responsibility. Need mutual self-interest.

Need highly coordinated, persistent, major investment in…

• Research and development (CI as object of R&D))– Base technology – CI components & systems– Science-driven pilots

• Operational services– Distributed but connected (Grid)– Exploit commonality, interoperability– Advanced, leading-edge but…– Robust, predictable, responsive, persistent

Need highly coordinated, persistent, major investment in…

• Domain science communities (CI in service of R&D)– Specific application of CI to revolutionizing

research (pilot -> operational)• Required not optional. New things, new ways.

– New things, new ways. Empowerment, training, retraining. X-informatics.

• Education and broader engagement– Multi-use: education, public science literacy– Equity of access

Investment Recommendations• Fundamental research relevant to CI (CI as object of R&D)

30 projects @ $2M = $60M– Base technology (CISE)– CI components & systems (CISE & SBE)– Science-driven pilots (CISE, all others)

• Advanced application of CI in domain science (CI in service of R&D) $100M– Specific application of CI to revolutionizing research

(pilot -> operational)– Required, not optional. – New things, new ways. Empowerment, training,

retraining. X-informatics.

Investment Recommendations

• Creating and evolving robust core components of operational CI $200M– Creating “production” software from

research prototype software (a la NMI)• Operational support/services $660M

– Distributed but connected (Grid)– Exploit commonality, interoperability– Advanced, leading-edge but…– Robust, predictable, responsive, persistent

Estimated annual budget, Millions of $/yr.Fund. and appl. research to advance CI $ 60

Research into applications of IT to advance $ 100

scientific and engineering research

Acquisition and development of $ 200

cyberinfrastructure and applications

Provisioning and operations of CI & apps $ 660

Computational centers $375Data repositories $185Digital libraries $ 30Networking and connections $ 60Application service centers $ 10

Total $1020

Bottom-line Recommendations

• NSF leadership for the Nation of an initiative to revolutionize science and engineering research capitalizing on new computing and communications opportunities. – 21st Century Cyberinfrastructure includes

supercomputing massive storage, networking, software, collaboration, visualization, and human resources

– Current centers (NCSA, SDSC, PSC) and other programs are a key resource for the initiative.

Backups

Blue Ribbon Panel on Cyberinfrastructure

Presentation to MAGIC

Paul Messina

November 6, 2002

Overview of Talk

• Disclaimer• Background, context• Findings and recommendations

From Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Speech to the

Royal Society (23 May 2002) • What is particularly impressive is the way that scientists are now undaunted by important complex

phenomena. Pulling together the massive power available from modern computers, the engineering capability to design and build enormously complex automated instruments to collect new data, with the weight of scientific understanding developed over the centuries, the frontiers of science have moved into a detailed understanding of complex phenomena ranging from the genome to our global climate. Predictive climate modelling covers the period to the end of this century and beyond, with our

own Hadley Centre playing the leading role internationally.

• The emerging field of e-science should transform this kind of work. It's significant that the UK is the first country to develop a national e-science Grid, which intends to make access to computing power, scientific data repositories and experimental facilities as easy as the Web makes access to information.

• One of the pilot e-science projects is to develop a digital mammographic archive, together with an intelligent medical decision support system for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. An individual hospital will not have supercomputing facilties, but through the Grid it could buy the time it needs. So the surgeon in the operating room will be able to pull up a high-resolution mammogram to identify exactly where the tumour can be found.

Streams of Activity Converging in a CI Initiative

Co

l la b

ora

tor i

e s

GRIDS (broadly defined)

E-science

CI-enabled Science & Engineering Research & Education

Specific disciplinary projects (not using above labels)

Shared Opportunity and Responsibility

• All NSF communities• Multi-agency• Industry• International

Basis for budget estimates

• Our estimates are based on – current and previous NSF activities– testimonies– other agencies’ programs in related areas– activities in other countries– explicit input from community on Draft 1.0

National PetascaleSystems

National PetascaleSystems

UbiquitousSensor/actuator

Networks

UbiquitousSensor/actuator

Networks

LaboratoryTerascaleSystems

LaboratoryTerascaleSystems

Ubiquitous Infosphere

CollaboratoriesCollaboratories ResponsiveEnvironmentsResponsive

EnvironmentsTerabit

Networks

ContextualAwarenessContextualAwareness

SmartObjectsSmart

Objects

Building Out

Building Up

Science, Policy and Education

PetabyteArchivesPetabyteArchives

Futures: The Computing Continuum