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Cyberinfrastructure to re-engineer the research process

Several elements are crucial to cyberinfrastructure. Cyber-resources that provide computing, networking, and data analysis power. Cyberenvironments enable researchers to easily tap those resources and streamline their workflows. Innovative systems research informs the development of the future's production resources. And communities of scientists and engineers are empowered by these tools and guide their creation.

Cyber-resources
NCSA operates one of the largest scientific computing facilities in the world, with more than 40 teraflops of computing capacity available to support academic research. NCSA provides the resources to store, manage, analyze, and visualize the increasing quantities of data generated by researchers -- and the network connectivity to move the data and make it available to the user community. These cyber-resources are crucial to progress in science and engineering, as well as other endeavors. They are the heart of any cyberenvironment.

The major usage mode of the past 20 years for high-end computing -- allocation of time to a single investigator, submission of jobs by the investigator and her students to a queue, progress through the queue, execution of the job, spooling of the output to a file to be analyzed later -- is giving way to new models. These new models, and the new communities using them, vary. NCSA is working closely with the scientific and engineering communities that it serves to determine how best to deliver the needed resources and services -- even as they are emerging.

Cyberenvironments
Cyberenvironments re-engineer the research process. They are end-to-end systems that integrate cyberinfrastructure -- local and shared instruments, sensor arrays, data stores and data sets, computational systems, networks, scientific and engineering applications, and data analysis and visualization tools. They go beyond simply providing access to cyber-resources by adding services that enhance researchers' abilities to manage complex projects, to automate processes, to connect projects and disciplines, and to collaborate effectively both near and far.

Cyberenvironments are built on technologies such as portals, workflow engines, and semantic data and service descriptions. This allows cyberenvironments to evolve by adding new applications, tools, and services as scientific understanding grows. They tailored to individual communities so that researchers and educators can interact with cyberinfrastructure using concepts and approaches familiar to their discipline.

Cyberscience communities
The need for cyber-resources is rapidly expanding. Many new communities now or soon will require supercomputing and related services to advance their research objectives. Many communities that have used supercomputing for years can't take full advantage because of the challenges that cyberscience presents in terms of managing complex projects, collaborating, automating processes, and connecting the community's ideas. Cyberenvironments focus on the research process, re-engineering it to take full advantage of the power this cyberinfrastructure offers.

Because of the prime role played by communities conducting cyberscience play, we engage them at every turn. We work with them to understand what they will need from emerging innovative systems. They help us devise better production-quality cyber-resources and new means of using them. And they help us build tailored, useful cyberenvironments. The constant back and forth ensures that we have a clear understanding of what the communities want to accomplish and that they have a clear understanding of what we intend to deliver. Cybereducation, meanwhile, ensures that the next generation of researchers is ready for a changing world.

Innovative systems
Petascale computing is now a realizable goal that will impact all scientific and engineering applications, not just those requiring the highest level of capability. But the optimum pathway to petascale computing is unclear. To address the issues surrounding petascale computing, NCSA created the Innovative Systems Laboratory (ISL). The ISL will allow NCSA and its collaborators to thoroughly test and evaluate the performance of new computing technologies for key scientific and engineering applications. Initial activities will be focused on high-end computing platforms. Other elements of the cyberinfrastructure will also be considered.

NCSA's ongoing relationship with research communities and with vendors affords the center a unique opportunity to bridge the two and help guide the development and use of emerging technologies. The ISL also allows us to more fully understand and better prepare those technologies before they are put to broad use as production cyber-resources.

Cybereducation
The advantages of the national cyberinfrastructure won't be realized without researchers who understand and can leverage the new capabilities that it provides. Ensuring that today's undergraduate and graduate students learn about and interact with cyberinfrastructure is key to ensuring its success and assuring its role in promoting innovations and breakthroughs.

NCSA intends to bring cyberinfrastructure into the nation's undergraduate and graduate classrooms. Just as the cyberenvironments NCSA creates will empower scientists and engineers, they also will ease the integration of computational methods into science and engineering curricula. With cyberenvironments at their disposal, educators can introduce their students to the concepts and techniques of computational science without bogging down in minutia. The focus can remain squarely on the science.