[tforum] [Fwd: [CAnet - news] Cyberinfrastructure Around the World]
Joe Breen
Joe.Breen@utah.edu
Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:29:24 -0700
The following article is a nice high level quick look at some of the
cyberinfrastructure activities around the world. The article also
highlights some of the changes happening in technology and support of
various discipline areas. Enjoy, --Joe
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [CAnet - news] Cyberinfrastructure Around the World
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 09:26:46 -0500
From: Bill St.Arnaud <bill.st.arnaud@canarie.ca>
Reply-To: bill.st.arnaud@canarie.ca
To: news@canarie.ca
For more information on this item please visit the CANARIE CA*net 4 Optical
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[Some excerpts from HPCwire article-- BSA]
Cyberinfrastructure Around the World
Cyberinfrastructure is now essential for advancing scientific
discovery and the state-of-the-art in engineering. It doesn't matter
whether it's the inner workings of the universe or the inner workings
of the economy, the design of a new chemical process or the design of
a new material, new insights into how cells function or the delivery
of personalized medicine, the spawning of a tornado or planning urban
development. The basic fact remains the same -- cyberinfrastructure is
now a driver of science and engineering. Without it, science and
engineering will not reach their full potential.
But, science and engineering is a global activity. There is not an
American chemistry and a French chemistry, nor is there a Japanese
electrical engineering and a Brazilian electrical engineering.
Scientists and engineers around the globe are focused on unraveling
the secrets of nature and applying this hard gained knowledge to the
betterment of humanity. Cyberinfrastructure must support this global
activity. In fact, it is our belief that cyberinfrastructure, properly
designed and constructed, will advance science and engineering as a
global activity by facilitating access to resources and expertise
wherever they are located.
There are three intertwined strands of a global infrastructure:
Cyberenvironments: to provide researchers with the ability to access,
integrate, automate, and manage complex, collaborative projects across
disciplinary as well as geographical boundaries.
Cyber-resources: to ensure that the most demanding scientific and
engineering problems can be solved and that the solutions are obtained
in a timely manner.
Cybereducation: to ensure that the benefits of the national
cyberinfrastructure are made available to educators and students
throughout the country and the world.
NSF's latest version of "Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century
Discovery" was released on January 20, 2006. One of the guiding
principles in this vision is "national and international partnerships,
public and private, that integrate CI users and providers and benefit
NSF's research and education communities are ... essential for
enabling next-generation science and engineering."
During his keynote address2 at NCSA's 20th Anniversary Celebration in
January 2006 entitled, "Un-common sense: A recipe for a cyber planet,"
Dr. Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation,
remarked that "cyberinfrastructure will take research and education to
a new plane of discovery. It is critical for advancing knowledge in
the face of a dynamic and changing global technological environment."
In discussing issues related to global competition and sustaining the
long history of technological leadership that the US has enjoyed, Dr.
Bement provided some uncommon-sense advice: "We should pursue more
global involvement, not less. The rapid spread of computers and
information tools compels us to join hands across borders and
disciplines if we want to stay in the race."
The Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) leads the
Australian National Grid Program. This program encompasses the national
facilities at APAC and the distributed partner sites, supporting
distributed research on national and international levels. As you will
read, the advanced communication infrastructure that is in place in
Australia offers many opportunities for international collaborations.
Brazilian efforts are described by Marco Raupp et. al in
"Cyberinfrastructure supporting multidisciplinary science in Brazil."
India's emerging nation-wide computational grid "GARUDA," which aims
to aggregate distributed resources of research and academic
institutions, is described by Mohan Ram and S. Ramakrishnan. The authors
also point to a couple of sample applications of
national importance in India -- sensor networks and bioinformatics --
that will be tackled using this infrastructure.
Japan's Cyber Science Infrastructure (CSI) -- the next generation
academic information environment, coordinated by the National
Institute of Informatics in collaboration with Japanese universities
and academic institutions -- is described by Masao Sakauchi et al.
They describe Japan's academic networking and National Research Grid
Initiative (NAREGI) as well as the provision of academic digital
content for CSI.
Korea's effort in the construction and utilization of
cyberinfrastructure and its current status is described by Hyeongwoo
Park et al. The phenomenal strides in broadband deployment and
adoption in Korea and the advantages it provides for establishing a
grid infrastructure, supporting middleware development, and for
undertaking cutting-edge research in grids are described. The authors
also discuss some sample e-Science projects.
South Africa's article, "HPC in South Africa: Computing is support of
African Development" by Rob Adam et al., describes the objectives and
structure of the Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) as an
arm of the Meraka Institute that facilitates needs-based research and
innovation. They discuss current progress in the establishment of
CHPC, and its implications for linking research and innovation in
addressing the needs of the South African society and economy with
further reach into the continent of Africa and the world.
"The Taiwan Cyberinfrastructure for Knowledge Innovation" article by
Whey-Fone Tsai et al. addresses how Taiwan's twin projects, Knowledge
Innovation National Grid (KING) and Advanced Research and Education
Network (TWAREN), form the kernel of Taiwan's cyberinfrastructure and
enable science and engineering innovation. The authors describe their
development and deployment efforts in the various components of the
cyberinfrastructure and in enabling grid applications in sensor
networks and in ecological and environmental domains as well as
community health.
Enabling innovation and breakthrough science seem to be unifying
themes across all institutions. Applications with a broader societal
impact -- health and human life, drug design and discovery,
bioinformatics, weather forecasting, climate change, environmental
modeling, disaster management and mitigation, natural language
processing, collecting, analyzing, mining and visualizing large
volumes of data, and so on -- are where most of the demands and
interest in the development and establishment of cyberinfrastructure
rest.
This article was provided courtesy of CTWatch. To read the complete
issue of CTWatch Quarterly describing international
cyberinfrastructure, visit http://www.ctwatch.org/quarterly/
<http://www.ctwatch.org/quarterly/>.
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Bill.St.Arnaud@canarie.ca
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