The Netherlands present themselves at SC|08 in Austin TX with a demonstration of several innovative and interesting projects. This is a continuation of the Dutch presence in Baltimore MD (2002), Phoenix AZ (2003), Pittsburgh PA (2004), Seattle WA (2005), Tampa FL (2006) and Reno NV (2007).
The "Dutch Pavillion" is cooperation and combined show of major research institutes and not-for-profit research network infrastructure and supercomputing organisations and funding agencies.
For a view at the booth click here (only during the exhibition of course).
What can be seen?
Extreme
Temperatures in a Future Climate
Extreme
Wave Impact on Coastal Structures
Multi-Touch
Table
SARA
Networked Collaborative
Visualization
Phosphorus/Internet2
Interoperability
BiG
Grid Project
Surfnet
The "University of Amsterdam Multi-Touch Table" is a innovative graphical input device that is operated by nothing more than the touch of your fingers. It is large enough to be used by several people simultaneously which makes it well suited for collaborative and command-and-control applications.
In collaboration with TNO Information and Communication Technology we have developed a prototype for visualization and control of programmable networks.
At SC|08 SARA is partner in a number of presentations to demonstrate collaborative visualization over High Speed Networks. A 2*2 High Resolution Tiled Panel (1.7 MPixel) is connected via a 10GbE infrastructure to SCinet. This setup is called an OptIPortal and is based on the OptIPuter concept.
The availability of national and international (dynamic and static) lightpaths for researchers allows for the geographical distribution of resources like supercomputers, render farms, high resolution (tiled) displays and storage. SARA is using TOPS (Technology for Optical Pixel Streaming), developed by SARA, and SAGE (Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment), developed by EVL UIC in the OptIPuter project, to display various high volume and high resolution data sets on a 2*2 Tiled Display with 5120*3200 pixel resolution, at booth of the Dutch Research Consortium.
Visualcasting is a technique for leveraging high performance networks and computing to enable collaborative visualization at extremely high resolution on OptIPortals. Visualcasting servers at StarLight and on the SC08 floor will receive and broadcast in real-time multiple high-resolution streams, generated by visualization clusters in San Diego, Chicago and Amsterdam, mixed with HD videoconferencing facilities
HPDMnet is an experimental network research initiative that is designing, developing, and implementing the world's first international high performance service for high quality, large-scale digital media.
At the booth of the Dutch Research Consortium, SARA and the University of Amsterdam have HD camera and display configurations connected to the HPDMnet infrastructure. Data from various sources, including Amsterdam and the booth, will be multicast via the HPDMnet infrastructure, and sent to various locations, including the Dutch booth.
CineGRid's mission is to build an interdisciplinary community that is focused on the research, development, and demonstration of networked collaborative tools to enable the production, use and exchange of very-high-quality digital media over photonic networks.
SARA and the University of Amsterdam will demonstrate the transmission and display of very high resolution (4K resolution) digital media from Amsterdam to SC08, using the 10 GbE infrastructure from SARA, SURFnet, StarLight and various other collaborations in the USA.
SARA is the national Supercomputing and Networking Center in the Netherlands. Since 1985 SARA provides the Dutch National Supercomputing service. SARA delivers the operational management for the NREN SURFnet6 and many other research and educational networks in the Netherlands. NetherLight, SURFnet's GOLE (GLIF Open Lightpath Exchange) is located at and managed by SARA.
SARA is partner in the OptIPuter project, the HPDMnet community and is member of CineGrid.
University Of Amsterdam / Electronic Visualization Laboratory UIC / SURFnet
Canarie
10 GbE switch provided by Arista and Consolidate IT
Phosphorus/Internet2 Interoperability
The Phosphorus Harmony Network Service Plane (NSP) has been designed to unify access to control-planes of Phosphorus research networks, e.g., ARGIA (I2CAT) and DRAC (SURFnet), in order to request and set up paths through the different - mainly European - Phosphorus domains. In this demo, interoperability is shown between Harmony and Internet2's Dynamic Circuit Networking architecture (DCN). In the Phosphorus/Internet2 interoperability setup, Harmony interfaces with the DCN Inter-Domain Controller (IDC), that has the same purpose Harmony has for research networks in the USA. The key part of this setup is the Harmony-NSP/Internet2-IDC service-plane request translator, that allows path reservation requests to be made extending throughout the combined Phosphorus and Internet2 networks.
The combined Phosphorus/Internet2 testbed.
Introduction
BiG Grid is a large scale effort to realise a major grid for Science and Research in The Netherlands. The project has become known under the name "BiG Grid", and has been targeted to a broad range of scientific research disciplines which can take advantage of the ICT resources, available in a science grid infrastructure.
While the Netherlands has been a leading player in the development of the grid, and has considerable expertise in bio-informatics, distributed sensors networks, and particle physics, the large-scale infrastructure to fully exploit this position of leadership is missing. It has been the purpose of the BiG Grid proposal to realise such a science-wide grid infrastructure in the Netherlands.
A basic ingredient for the proposed infrastructure is the network. The Netherlands are already in an excellent position, due to the world-class network services provided by SURFnet. The currently available resources (like the National Supercomputer, compute cluster capacity, data storage facilities, etc.) will need to be "gridified" and extended to a level which enables ground-breaking scientific research.
The BiG Grid project is funded for the period 2007-2012 with a total budget of M€ 28.8. The BiG Grid project will cover a full range of hardware entities, but also a significant amount of the budget is reserved for manpower, to attract and to bring a wide range of scientific disciplines to the science grid. The project has been initiated by the Netherlands National Computing Facilities Foundation (NCF), the National institute for subatomic physics (Nikhef) and the Netherlands Bio-Informatics Centre (NBIC).
Mission
The project's mission is:
To realise a fully operational world-class and resources-rich grid environment at the national level in the Netherlands to serve public scientific research, including particle physics, life sciences and all other disciplines, and to encourage actively general grid usage across all disciplines.
The science case for the BiG Grid proposal is the integral of many different science cases, reflecting the broad scientific community base. The realisation of BiG Grid is crucial to the success and continuity of many Dutch research groups, covering important areas such as life sciences in a broad context, astronomy, particle physics, meteorology and climate research, water management, to name but a few. The very nature of the new infrastructure, a multidimensional collaboration enabler and accelerator, allows for direct participation from social sciences, humanities, and also addresses communities in administrative domains (administrative grids such as digital academic repositories).
The realisation of the grid infrastructure provides opportunities for enhanced international visibility. Dutch participation in international generic grid developments is already prominent (in flagship projects like EGEE and DEISA) and are on a national scale covered by the BSIK funded VL-e project (Virtual Laboratory for e-Science), whilst for the life sciences, coordinated by the Netherlands Genomics Initiative, NBIC (Netherlands BioInformatics Centre), partly BSIK funded as well, is the key player for enabling bio-informatics methodology.
Realisation of this major project puts the Netherlands at the forefront of grid developments. The infrastructure enables many national ambitions. The excellent position of Dutch academic hospitals in their collections of patient data can be enhanced by using the grid for biobanking. Major advances in drug discovery are enabled through combining data from various research communities as well as through the availability of massive compute resources enabling direct drug interaction modelling. The infrastructure allows industrial research labs (e.g. Philips) to profit from the available resources. It allows the LOFAR project to not only position itself as a multi sensor radio-astronomy centre but also as the European centre from which a variety of scientific communities using the LOFAR data will be served. It positions the Netherlands as one of the (worldwide only) ten Tier-1 sites for CERN's LHC experiments.
More information
More information can be obtained from the BiG Grid project office or from the BiG Grid website (www.biggrid.nl).
BiG Grid Project Office p/a NWO/NCF
Postbus 93575
2509 AN Den Haag
michielse@nwo.nl
Network facilities for higher education and research. SURFnet enables breakthrough education and research. We develop and operate the hybrid SURFnet6 network and provide innovative services in the areas of security, authentication and authorisation, group communication and video.
SURFdiensten.
Every day SURFnet provides access to the Internet to over 750,000 scientists, teachers and students in higher education and research. This allows them to securely send large amounts of data and to communicate with other network users around the world.
Collaboration and innovation
SURFnet combines the demand of institutions for higher education and research and in doing so creates advantages of scale and collaboration for all connected institutions. Sustained innovation means that users always have one of the fastest and most advanced networks in the world at their disposal. Furthermore SURFnet enables multimedia collaboration between institutions, researchers and students through advanced middleware and applications. In this manner SURFnet provides the ICT foundation that underpins innovation in higher education and research in the Netherlands.
SURFnet stimulates the telecommunications and Internet market in the Netherlands. The new possibilities thus find their way to other sectors, reinforcing the knowledge economy in the Netherlands.
A high-grade and reliable network
SURFnet provides the national and international network facilities for the higher education and research community in the Netherlands. We interconnect the local networks of over 180 connected institutions and link them to the rest of the world. Our hybrid network is among the fastest and most innovative networks in the world.
GigaPort
The development of SURFnet6 takes place within the context of the GigaPort project. This five-year collaboration between public and private sectors started on 1 January 2004 under the name GigaPort Next Generation Network. GigaPort's goal is to reinforce the national knowledge infrastructure.
Secure and advanced Internet services
SURFnet continually develops new Internet services for institutions and end users:
SURFnet's pioneering role
For years the SURFnet network and services have been recognised as leading and ranking among the most advanced in the world. In its pioneering role SURFnet puts in a sustained effort to develop knowledge and experience on new technologies. SURFnet shares this knowledge and experience with its users as well as the international community.
In order to contribute to the development and standardisation of new technology SURFnet actively participates in international projects and organisations. These include the European GÉANT project and TERENA, the collaborative organisation of national research networks. SURFnet also maintains close links with international organisations such as Internet2, the American research network, and the Canadian research network, CANARIE. SURFnet arranges standardisation agreements in these international settings to enable the use of applications in cross-border collaborations.
SURFnet is part of SURF. SURF is the collaborative organisation for higher education institutions and research institutes aimed at breakthrough innovations in ICT. Other SURF-organisations are SURFfoundation and SURFdiensten.