RMCMOA Workshop 13 January, 2015 First Session – IT Capabilities and Challenges

Boise State University – Supporting the research community is more challenging that faculty. Brian supports both Boise State and INL, including grant writing. Also providing programming support for researchers. Goal is to increase the amount and quality of research at Boise State. Brian is hiring CS students to support the researchers. Boise State is very cloud oriented, and is expecting to move more research computing to the cloud. Challenge is creating so much data that it cannot be stored. Another challenge is identifying bottlenecks, whether they are endpoints, wide area links, or in the middle. No Science DMZ yet, but they would benefit from that.

BYU – Kelly – Was involved with the Google Fiber initiative in Provo, UT. Fiber to the community has more challenges than just fiber. The three main schools in Utah (UU, BYU and USU) have learned to collaborate, and not compete, which helps a lot.

BYU Idaho – No research at BYUI, so challenges are related to daily operations. As they move into cloud services, how to best architect things from a networking standpoint. They have some redundancy and more bandwidth. Trying to grow their online presence, and expect that online enrollment will soon outpace resident instruction.

Colorado State University

Colorado Community College – Keith. Struggles with keeping up with bandwidth demands of students. CCCS is pushing the limits of their 10G infrastructure, and trying to do more with instructional video. There are 43 interconnected campuses. Residence halls, where they exist, are on completely separate networks. Rural schools are challenged by lack of technical staffing and expertise – cannot afford to hire and retain that talent. Funding levels are completely different from traditional 4-year institutions, so there are clear opportunities for outside funding.

Fort Lewis College – Matt’s challenges are largely connectivity related, as SW Colorado does not have a lot of options. Rural, and tough geography. FLC has received many grants that have resulted in data generation, and challenges include managing and moving those data sets. Staffing challenges as well – small staff, and retention issues. Idaho State University – Mark – One big obstacle is researchers feel like they are autonomous. ISU is motivated to step up and support the research community. Some researchers use resources at INL. Trying to convince administration to enhance infrastructure. Have applied for NSF grants previously, but faulted for insufficient involvement and support from the researcher community.

IRON

Navajo Technical University

NCAR/UCAR – not a university, so NCAR doesn’t share the challenge of separating

New Mexico State University – Norma (CIO) – New provost is very research focused. Gathering use cases, needs and requirements of the research community. Finding a real lack of technical support. They also have storage requirements, bandwidth limitations, etc. but their primary need is tech support. NMSU’s leadership has stated that if they are successful in obtaining grant funding, they will step up their funding for central IT. There is also a challenge for central IT to regain credibility with the research community.

New Mexico Tech – Dan. One primary challenge is elevating the importance of networking and appropriate funding. Would like to expand the scope of their Science DMZ. No HPC center, but utilize other resources. Insufficiently staffed. Combining academic and administrative computing departments, which should provide some continuity.

NOAA -

University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Idaho – Brian. Implemented Science DMZs at Moscow and INL, so they now have geographically diverse DMZs. Researchers now need more bandwidth, as the current (shared) 10G backbone is no longer sufficient. PrefSonar is something they are now focusing on rolling out, per feedback from recent NSF proposals. Idaho has challenges with North-South connectivity issues, presenting challenges with redundancy. There are routes they could exploit if they had the funding to do it. UNM – challenge is to change the culture on the campus, working with researchers and faculty in new ways. Have worked with the FRGP, CENIC and others to increase bandwidth. UNM and NMSU are collaborating more. Also working with the business community. Geographically challenged; not a destination but a pass-through location. Because of success with NSF grants, working with other educational at municipal entities to enhance connectivity and to make the economic development advantages known and realized.

University of Utah – UU has a Center for HPC that would like to do new and innovative things; the main campus and hospital would like to keep things the same. Center for HPC has established relationships with faculty, and their requirements come in that way. They do have a science 100G DMZ. Looking to segment the network, based on risks and roles. Becomes interesting when research involves patient health (HIPAA and other concerns).

Utah State University – has good networking infrastructure but has IT staffing resources, particularly where researchers and IT overlap. Tend to invest next to nothing in staffing resources, and their HPC talent is leaving as a result. Very expensive to bring networking to their area, and dark fiber has historically been very hard to obtain. Partnered with Syringa to establish connectivity to Salt Lake City (20-year IRU for $400K).

University of Wyoming – Doing quite a bit with HPC (NWRC) lately, lots of energy related research going on. Lost their HPC director to ALS. No Science DMZ, but they are working on designing one. Many researchers have problems with data transfer, but there is a tendency for them to work in isolation and not ask for help. Many opportunities for central IT to help, but they don’t always know about the chronic problems.