Lessons from SEEGrid/AuScope Grid

Bruce SimonsGeoScience Victoria

Why Grids?

Sustainable management of mineral, energy, environmental resources

Easy access to large volumes of geoscientific data

Visualise in 2D, 3D, 4D environments

Generic Grid technologies only provide part of the solution

Also requires community specified open standards and interfaces

Just what is a ‘GRID’

• GRIDs are persistent environments that enable software applications to integrate in real time instruments, displays, computational and information resources that are managed by diverse organizations in locations that are globally distributed

• The GRID is an infrastructure that will make access to computing power, scientific data repositories and experimental facilities as easy as the current web makes access to information

• The GRID is built on the existing Internet and World Wide Web

Lesley Wyborn, Geoscience Australia, SEEGrid 1, 2003

E-mail

Connectivity Presentation

Web pages

Programmability

Web services

TCP/IP

HTMLXML/JAVA

Historical Internet Usage

Source:http//www.dstc.edu.au

People

People

People

Machine

Bro

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Machine

Machine

Pro

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Evolution of the Web

SEEGrid

Solid Earth and Environment Grid• SEEGrid 1 July 2003• SEEGrid 2 March 2005• SEEGrid 3 November 2006

All the proceedings at:https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome

• SEEGrid Roadshow 2005– Showcasing Interoperability of Government Geoscience

(Geochemistry) Data to the Australian Minerals Industry

Lessons from SEEGrid I, II, III

I. CommunitiesThe way forward is to collaborate globally to get the content and technical standards stabilised

II. CommunitiesRight now we need the barriers between competition and collaboration to move forever in favour of collaboration

III. CommunitiesThe competitive funding paradigm has meant that people do not know how to cooperate let alone be inclusive

AuScope

• National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy

• Australian Government ~$500M committed for FY06-FY11

• 15 “Capability Areas” identified + one ICT Infrastructure (AuScope Grid)

• The research communities in each capability area were asked to work with an appointed facilitator to develop a single Investment Plan

NCRIS Principles– “Major infrastructure …should serve the research and innovation

system broadly, not just the host / funded institutions”– “…….seek to enable the fuller participation of Australian researchers

in the international research system”

AuScope – a system for earth science

Toys Trauma Thrills Treasure

Toys: Earth Imaging Transects Program

Toys: GPS, Geodesy

Toys: Earth Composition & Evolution• Geochemical Instruments

© CSIRO 2003

Toys: Virtual Core Library

Spectrometer

Telescope

Robotic x/y table

Linescan cameraControl

computer

Cooler

Profilometer

ASD spectrometer

Controllingcomputer

Robotic x-y table

Telescope

Chip tray

Quartz halogen lamps

Fibre optic cable

Chip tray carrier

Thrills: Simulation and modeling

Data Structures

Proprietary Software

Versions of Software

Client

Trauma: Data is not standardised

Community Standards

Client

A solution: Auscope Grid – access and interoperability for data services

Agreement can be achieved…GeoSciML international data transfer standard

GeoSciML Team, Uppsala, Sweden, July 2008

Australia, USA, Japan, UK, France, Canada, Sweden, Italy

Creating your own models• Interoperable communities have a community standard data model

eg GeoSciML• In a serialized form (file format) this is used for data transfer

i.e. ‘standard exchange format’– In general this is different from the storage format

• How big is your interoperable community?– Your work group?– Your organization?– Your discipline …?

• The bigger the community, the bigger the pool of resources for software development …

…but the smaller degree of semantic overlap.• Understand the scope and reach of your community

• Only maintain the elements that are:a. important to youb. not governed by someone else

Thankyou

For more information:

SEEGrid: www.seegrid.csiro.au/ AuScope: www.auscope.org.au/GeoSciML: www.geosciml.orgOneGeology: www.onegeology.orgCGI: www.cgi-iugs.org/