Janet- connecting e-Infrastructure

Loughborough – 20th March 2013David SalmonDavid.Salmon@ja.net

Janet

•Janet – UK’s NREN (National Research and Education Network)

•Higher Education (Universities)•Publically funded research organisations – Research Council Facilities– STFC, EPSRC, NERC, BBSRC, MRC, ESRC, AHRC

•Further education (post 16) & specialist colleges•Schools (via external aggregation networks – not direct)

•~1000 directly connected organisations•Up to 18M users

Funding

•Funding Agencies– Higher Education– Further Education– England, Scotland, (Wales), Northern Ireland

•“Top sliced” model– Agencies fund Janet to implement services– Amounts derived from organisations’ funding statistics

•Formal channels– Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)– through Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

Company Structure

•JISC – now a legal entity - charity (1st December 2012)– Company Limited by Guarantee (CLG)

•JISC collections and Janet Limited (1st December 2012)– CLG– Formed from merger of:

• JNT Association Ltd. (Janet)• JISC collections Ltd.

•JISC is the Holding company•JISC Collections and Janet Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary•So – Now all one...., but business as usual for service delivery•Funding models and structures under review and likely to

change over coming years

Network Services

•High capacity, High Quality IP service – “Internet”– IPv4, IPv6, Unicast, Multicast..

•University access 1-10Gbit/s+, resilient in some cases– STFC RAL – around 100Gb/s across all services

•100Gbit/s backbone•Interoperation with GEANT (Europe) and other R&E networks

worldwide•Lightpath (Circuit) service

– Point to point dedcicated links– Typically high capacity – 1-10Gbit/s

•VPN service in future•Janet Aurora – Dark fibre R&D platform

Other Services

•Videoconferencing•Eduroam wireless•Router management•DNS hosting....•Not comprehensive list...

•Janet Brokerage– Promote and provide a mechanism for take up of externally

provided services– Storage, compute, email, cloud....

Research support

•Research Communities– Particle Physics– Astronomy & Radio Astronomy– HPC– Bioinformatics– Natural Environment– Atmosphere, Weather and Climate– Network research – Testbeds & overlays

•Layer 2 services enabling national and International collaboration

•e-Infrastructure...

•New Janet backbone – Janet6– Optical Fibre footprint– Optical transmission equipment

•e-Infrastructure funding

Janet - Current Initiatives

Janet6

• Similar topology to SJ5.• Two north-south paths• New east-west path from

Birmingham to Nottingham– Erdington to Lowdham

• New PoP in Acton, West London

Janet6: Core Fibre and Backbone Resilience

Current Status

Lighting the fibre

•Multi-wavelength optical transmission equipment•‘Native’ capacity on the core to be 100Gbit/s per wavelength

•Theoretically up to 80 channels/waves

•Roadmap towards 400Gbit/s and 1Tbit/s per wave during network lifetime

•Will be more reconfigurable than SJ5– Flexible optical engineering

•Coherent regional and backbone optical engineering– one network with edge-to-edge optical services

•Janet will manage the network directly (not outsourced)– Optical, Layer2, IP

e-InfrastructureNetworking

Janet – e-Infrastructure networking

•£26M With HEFCE – Announced Autumn 2011

Breakdown

•£10M Contribution to Janet6 backbone

•£12M Network provision within “classic” Janet community, including key locations which may need additional fibre access

•£4M “Industry connection”

e-Infrastructure programme support

•Janet CTO Bob Day on e-Infrastrcuture Leadership Council (ELC)•Paul Lewis secondment to BIS programme Office

– ELC secretary– 8 months

•STFC secondment– Michael Wilson– ELC secretary– funded from Janet’s e-Infrastructure allocation

e-Infrastructure Strategic Sites

•Identify additional fibre / capacity requirements•Work with organisations to understand strategic requirements•Build cases for provision

•Integrate provision with deployment of Janet6

Requirements – derive from Patterns of use

•Data movement – working patterns– How much – data volume ?

• Beware Bytes vs. bits !

– How quickly ?– How often ?– Where to ?– National & International

•Network engineers need bit-rates !•Working with research communities to understand

emerging/evolving/strategic requirements

17

Norwich Bioinformatics Cluster

•The Genome Analysis Centre - TGAC

•The Sainsbury Laboratory•John Innes Centre

•Institute for Food Research•University of East Anglia•Norwich Research Park

Hinxton Genome Campus

•European Molecular Biology Laboratory - European Bioinformatics Institute

•The Sanger Centre

•Babraham Institute

Exeter & locale

•Met Office•University of Exeter

•Weather & Climate research•Monsoon HPC – NERC & M.O.

Broaden scope of Janet’s fibre infrastructure

•Complementary & integrated with Janet6

•Thames Valley regional fibre – new transmission equipment – Harwell PoP (STFC RAL etc.), Oxford

Industry access to academic e-Infrastructure

•“Access”– Access to Janet community knowledge & expertise– Access to community systems & resources connected to Janet– Network connections

• Through existing provision & peerings• Direct to Janet

•Evaluate what is appropriate

Industry connecting to Janet

•Possible for many years– “bona-fide” Industry/Academic R&D collaboration– Industry funds connection (marginal cost) plus an access fee– NOT a general “Internet” connection– Must have a separate connection for normal business

•More recently– Janet Business & Community Engagement Policy (BCE)

• Academic site hosts a connection• SME / Startup• Share a portion of their access capacity• Local decision

– Consider costs & state-aid issues

e-Infrastructure – Janet activities

•HPC consortia discussions– Specific / preferred Industry partners ?

•Clarify state-aid issues– Understand boundaries– What can & can’t be done– Andrew Cormack – Janet’s Chief Policy Adviser

• Plus Consultancy– Broader European dimension

• e-Infrastructure reflection Group (e-IRG)

•Discussions– Technology Strategy Board (TSB)– Catapult Centres

Case Studies

•Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG)– Connection being established– 1 Year– Evaluate benefits

•HPC Consortia– Pilot connections with a selected Industry partner ?– Approach being considered

•Generic connections issue within Janet– Industry – Academic OK– Industry – Industry is the challenging area– Policy study will clarify

• Perhaps “pre-competitive” notions will help

Access Management and Authentication

•Important issues for use of computing facilities•Strong interest in greater uniformity/integration within UK HPC

community– Janet promoting a more versatile technology– Single sign-on, not web based– Project Moonshot

• UK Technology pilot• Case studies

– May help with Industry access– Janet supporting from e-Infrastructure funding

Summary

•Janet– Very capable national infrastructure– Very well connected internationally

•Enabler for collaboration•e-Infrastructure support

– exploring policy position– encourage better academic/industry collaboration &

use/access to facilities• additional network connections where appropriate

– Access management