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Managing Cyberinfrastructure Strategically

Managing Cyberinfrastructure Strategically. Patrick Dreher Director, Advanced Computing Infrastructure and Systems Renaissance Computing Institute. Outline. Snowmass Meeting Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CCI) – characteristics – engines - drivers Cyberinfrastructure Summit in Denver

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Managing Cyberinfrastructure Strategically

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  1. Managing Cyberinfrastructure Strategically Patrick Dreher Director, Advanced Computing Infrastructure and Systems Renaissance Computing Institute

  2. Outline • Snowmass Meeting Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CCI) – characteristics – engines - drivers • Cyberinfrastructure Summit in Denver • Follow-on based on the Denver meeting • EDUCAUSE initiated CI projects • Community participation - how your institution can become more involved in these efforts

  3. Campus Cyberinfrastructure Snowmass Workshop • The meeting was the first workshop for the Net@EDU Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CCI) working group • Question: what are the key components of cyberinfrastructure? • Sponsored by the National Science Foundation • August 4–5, 2006 Snowmass Village, Colorado http://www.educause.edu/nmm061

  4. Engines/drivers of Campus Cyberinfrastructure • Campus Communities and Constituencies: Enabler in partnerships with researchers, not as an IT service provider • Computing and Communications: Opportunities, synergies (grids), economies of scale for high performance computing, research networks and enhanced support facilities • Information Management: Various aspects of data creation, storage, handling, retrieval, distribution interpretation, security, policies on research data, including partnerships and opportunities with libraries and repositories • Virtual communities: Opportunities associated with scholars partnering with IT organizations to create the software environments that facilitate discovery among distributed communities • Partnership Strategies: Development of proposals and relationships that enhance the partnership among researchers, universities, and funding organizations to enhance the nation’s cyberinfrastructure  (local, state, federal, international, private)

  5. EDUCAUSE’s Grand Challenges Program • EDUCAUSE is hosting several meetings on topics of particular importance to higher education • This Denver Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Summit was part of the EDUCAUSE Grand Challenges Program • Denver meeting attended by about 50 higher education leaders with particular expertise and responsibility in the support of IT for research

  6. Cyberinfrastructure Summit • List of attendees http://www.educause.edu/13280

  7. Goals for the Denver CIO Summit • Obtain CIO insights and perspectives for generating a set of national CI priorities • Capture best ideas and strategies for advancing CI from this assembled group of IT leaders • Formulate strategies and tactics for EDUCAUSE and its members • Meeting URL and final report located at http://www.educause.edu/cisummit

  8. Toward Managing CI Strategically • Recap of the Summit Meeting • Highlight/focus on several of the ideas (final report contains the full details) • Summit Format • Several brief overview talks • Structured discussions within breakout groups • Multi-tier role • CIO level • Middle layer – campus cyberinfrastructure • “Individual” principal investigator

  9. Overview Presentation Themes • Cyberinfrastructure • What is it? • Why do we care? • What CI components should be supported? • Where are the resources? • Organizationally who actually does the planning and secures the funding? • Next steps? • CI is a complex mix of components

  10. Russ Hobby, Internet2 Campus IT Security ID Mgmt Data Center Network Federal Agencies Discipline Groups National National Libraries International OGF Regional Educational Organizations Publishers International Regional Security/ Access Coordinators* Collections Organizations* Policy*/ Leadership*/ Funding Network Providers* Discipline Support Computation Storage National Medicine Physical Science International Regional Supercomputer Sites* Other Disciplines Software Development Grid Orgs* Discipline Groups* Biological Science. Cyberinfrastructure Players Peter Siegel Talk Researchers* Faculty Grad Students Staff * University Consortia & Systems

  11. Cyberinfrastructure Functions and ResourcesPeter Siegel Talk Instrumentation Human Support Training Control Researcher Policy and Funding Management Security and Access Help Desk Data Generation Education And Outreach Security Viewing Security Collab Tools Publishing Funding Agencies Access Control Program Control Authentication Resource Providers Authorization Campuses Security 3D Imaging Analysis Security Display Tools Security Input Retrieval Display and Visualization Computation Data Sets Storage Simulation . Data Input Search Archive Russ Hobby, Internet2 Schema Metadata Data Directories Program Ontologies

  12. Russ Hobby, Internet2 Instrumentation Control Researcher Management Security and Access Policy and Funding Data Generation Security Viewing Security Access Control Funding Agencies Program Control Authentication Resource Providers Campuses Authorization Security 3D Imaging Analysis Security Display Tools Security Input Retrieval Display and Visualization Computation Data Sets Storage Simulation . Data Input Search Archive Schema Metadata Data Directories Program Ontologies The Network is the Backplane for the Distributed CI Computer Peter Siegel Talk Human Support Training Help Desk Education And Outreach Collab Tools Publishing Network

  13. Breakout Discussion Groups Five Major Areas Of Emphasis • Leadership • Support for Research • Priority and Funding • Short Term Strategies • Long Term Strategies

  14. Common Categories Within Each Breakout Discussion Group • Established Practices • Trends • Ideas • Recommendations

  15. Leadership

  16. Leadership-- Established Practices 1-- • Engagement – communicate with executive management – show CI as a community need, not an IT need • Understand the local environment and culture • Build relationships with those building all the of the rest of the campus physically and infrastructure

  17. Leadership-- Trends -- • Planning, selling, engagement, and implementation tied to the institution's strategic plan • Integrate CI into university plan • The CIOs goals must be connected to institutional strategy • CIO must be an equal colleague of those s/he is influencing • CIOs should partner as the architect/rainmaker for CI -- not just the plumber or the builder – • Demo successful partnerships • Active use of benchmarks

  18. Leadership-- Ideas -- • Define what CI is on your campus • Need for collaborative educational effort • CI is different from past IT initiatives; it is more externally influenced

  19. Leadership-- Recommendations -- • Have a major coordinated campaign, on a national level, coordinated by EDUCAUSE • Some leaders are needed across community disciplines to build groups that span and mediate needs with actions and resources. • Influence those who control the money connect with the leaders within the leadership groups.

  20. Support for research

  21. Research--Established Practices -- • The definition of core CI services changes over time • Institutions should implement process to • Ensure CI meets reasonable expectations • Adjusts campus investments to shifting priorities. • Researchers, IT leaders, and administration must engage in continuous dialogue and review of the CI environment, including funding agency plans and commitments, to ensure the overall system’s sustainability.

  22. Research-- Trends -- • There is rapid expansion of demand for a robust CI on campus to support research • Key elements needed in planning for research CI needs • The technology itself • Involvement of central IT • Workflow, policy and funding proposal development • Effective IT governance structure. • Human considerations • Early involvement, cooperation with research faculty • collaborations and partnership arrangements • Support and consultation • System ease-of-use • Reliability • Interoperability

  23. Research-- Recommendations -- • Establishing life-cycle replacement process • Run development, test, and production systems simultaneously • Continuous involvement with users • Balancing leading and bleeding edge • Keep abreast of international, national, regional, and campus developments • Understand how CI must adapt to accommodate cross-disciplinary needs and domain-specific research.

  24. Priority and Funding

  25. Priority and Funding-- Established Practices -- • Funding agencies spawn independent small clusters for individual researchers, accentuating problems of high cost solutions • Burdens need to be shared by campus and sponsors • Focus on engagement – Wins for the “rainmakers” • ROI arguments used to get buy-in • Establish common expectations/norms for costs (including “hidden costs”) and benefits

  26. Priority and Funding-- Trends -- • CIO beginning to facilitate partnerships across all campus sectors • Leading from the side, advocating • CIO must nuture contact with researchers or s/he is in danger of being just a utility • Sharing verses owning => cultural change • Use central seed funds, partial funding, priming the pump • Functional lead vs technology lead

  27. Priority and Funding-- Ideas -- • Develop a commonly funded CI consortium approach • Demonstrate environmental impact of distributed/incoherent approach compared with CI • Campuses need to organize globally; prioritize locally • Practice “good stewardship of the whole not just local,” • Tap faculty incentive packages to reinforce common CI • Implement CI as a strategic capability for institution • Focus on innovation • Engage “non-vested” partners (economic development, independent validation)

  28. Priority and Funding-- Recommendations -- • Create sustainable funding models • Request an NAS/NAE study on value of federal funding of CI to science and engineering research. • ECAR should do a short-term study on campus CI funding models * * CCI Focus Group Report “Campus Cyberinfrastructure and Data Centers”

  29. Short Term Strategies

  30. Short Term Strategies-- Established Practices -- • Begin to establish social & technical trust • Identify, engage leaders and influencers • Create incentives for good behavior • Create common body of materials: • Success & failure stories • Articles • Research examples • Events/meetings

  31. Short Term Strategies-- Trends -- • Partner CI to faculty initiatives and research • Begin development of campus, regional, and national awareness around CI • Tangible pilot projects • Develop technical CI-oriented staffing and expertise: local, regional, national • Identify and leverage opportunities between “traditional” IT & CI

  32. Short Term Strategies-- Ideas -- • Align rewards to practicing good CI to hiring & tenure practices • Define CI as an institutional competitive advantage • “Real” projects (venture capital model)

  33. Short Term Strategies-- Recommendations -- • Convene and engage prominent research faculty in ways appropriate to your campus culture • Share outputs to larger CI community • Search for compelling domain cases for highlighting CI/piloting (demo projects).

  34. Long Term Strategies

  35. Long Term Strategies-- Established Practices -- • Growing importance of data: mix public/private, library • Paradigm shift: service, collaboration, tools. • Emphasis on growth of software tools for collaboration • Greater focus on service • Continued demand for end-user support • Close alignment with existing institutional incentives • Discipline-specific recognition of unique needs and drivers for services and support

  36. Long Term Strategies-- Trends -- • The scale of collaboration will increase greatly with deepening research collaboration relationships: • Between IT and researchers • Among researchers themselves • Increased connection to libraries and digital asset collections (Information Management pillar) • CI will be leveraged in areas: K-12, learning, teaching, relationships • Manage change through transitions and paradigm shifts. • Existing physical plants need updating • Understand distinction between “domain-specific” and “discipline-specific”

  37. Long Term Strategies-- Ideas -- • The nature of higher education could change based on CI influences. • The effectiveness of technology will always be debated • Remove non-capital costs from principal investigator perspective. • Virtual Research Parks • There will always be scarce resources, but specifics will shift

  38. Long Term Strategies-- Recommendations -- • Develop assessment framework to identify trends, usage, and effectiveness of CI • Assess generality/applicability of research CI to broader communities (healthcare, K-12…) • Move in the direction of fostering development

  39. EDUCAUSE Role

  40. EDUCAUSE Role-- Ideas -- • EDUCAUSE can engage international groups to ensure that CI becomes a global focus. • EDUCAUSE should organize a focused joint meeting of CIOs and vice presidents for research. • EDUCAUSE should engage funding agencies on how to effectively fund CI • Formulate a unifying/mobilizing CI message • EDUCAUSE has not been viewed as an organization with a focus on research computing, but it needs to be.

  41. EDUCAUSE Role-- Ideas -- • CCI Working Group should organize teams to move some of the ideas reported here forward • Distribute CCI active white paper on CI which can be quickly shared by CIOs with campus constituencies* • EDUCAUSE should foster a Wiki about CI that can be used by interested institutions to post inventories of their campuses CI resources and services * CCI Focus Group Report “Creating a Five Minute Conversation About CyberInfrastructure ”

  42. EDUCAUSE Role-- Ideas -- • EDUCAUSE should facilitate a meeting with researchers to discuss CI, perhaps concurrent with the annual Supercomputing Conference. • EDUCAUSE should make extra effort to include smaller institutions in the CI discussion. • EDUCAUSE should establish a speakers bureau on CI to provide experts for a variety of forums (including the Congress of the U.S.).

  43. EDUCAUSE Role-- Ideas -- • EDUCAUSE should develop a list of national leaders who are proponents of CI to deliver keynote addresses, etc. Draw these individuals from presidents, VPs for research, provosts, deans, senior faculty, and other administrators. • EDUCAUSE should create a forum for CIOs and senior institutional leaders (such as VPs for research) to address CI issues

  44. Opportunities for Community Involvement

  45. Initial Follow-on Actions from the Denver CI Summit

  46. EDUCAUSE Action Item • Recommendation • EDUCAUSE should “digest” CI work done by others (e.g., the NSF report) into a succinct IT action plan, using “new language” to help facilitate the discussion among important contributing parties • Charge • Write a readable and compelling digest of the several long documents now describing the field (e.g., NSF Vision document) for the use of a broader audience including university presidents, campus CIOs and other university executives • Work with an extended advisory group to develop steps and strategies that can be used by university executives to move a campus ahead with respect to CI.

  47. EDUCASUE CI Document Summary • This group is just beginning its activities • Outreach to community for document preparation feedback • Advisory committee • Guy Almes, Texas A&M and co-chair CCI • Alan Blatecky, RENCI • Jim Bottum, Clemson • Patrick Dreher, RENCI and co-chair CCI • Sue Fratkin, consultant • Dave Lambert, Georgetown • Clifford Lynch, CNI • Diana Oblinger, president elect, EDUCAUSE • Craig Stewart, IU

  48. EDUCAUSE Action Item ECAR Study • Charge -- • Determine present state of CI preparation and strategies on U.S. campuses with particular attention to funding strategies • Major focus on research institutions and STEM research, but participation also from other colleges plus teaching and learning. • CIOs will probably be asked to involve their research VPs in the answers • Mark Sheehan, ECAR principal investigator playing major role in this effort

  49. ECAR Study • Advisory committee is now helping to formulate the questions for the survey: • Rosio Alvarez, LBL • Sally Jackson, UIUC • Kevin Morooney, PSU • Jim Pepin, Clemson • Peter Siegel, UCD • Joel Smith, CMU • EDUCAUSE is funding this directly so the results can be shared publicly immediately on completion

  50. Middle LayerCampus Cyberinfrastructure

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