The Cyberinfrastructure Strategic Plan for the State of Arkansas Amy Apon, Ph.D., Director Arkansas High Performance Computing Center Professor, CSCE University of Arkansas Fayetteville Magnolia Russellville Fort Smith Arkadelphia Conway Monticello Pine Bluff Jonesboro Little Rock

A talk in four parts Three Steps in the Planning Process Arkansas Cyberinfrastructure Strategic Plan The Cyberinfrastructure Task Force Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help 2

Three Steps in the Planning Process Step 1: Engage an External Advisory Committee External input is critical to the planning process “A prophet is without honor in his own country.” Step 1.1 Get the money! –The Arkansas EAC was funded in part through a supplement from the NSF –Other funds contributed by major participants, academic (UAF, UALR) and state (Arkansas Science and Technology Authority) 3

Step 1: External Advisory Committee Step 1.2 Recruit an Internal Steering Committee This should be about two dozen leaders from within the state – we had about 30 Higher education leadership Industry partners Key state/public sector participants Don’t make it too small. Get over the state politics. 4

Step 1: External Advisory Committee Step 1.3 Recruit Key External Leadership –Leaders from our region and peer institutions –And also leaders from outside the region –Highly regarded nationally and within the region 5 Arkansas EAC members David Keyes Sara Graves Stan Ahalt Thomas Sterling Henry Neeman

Step 1: External Advisory Committee Step 1.4 EAC Starts with a Charter An external review is sought of the status of advanced computing capabilities in the state of Arkansas, and also the specific role and contributions of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. This is a first look at the infrastructure, both organizational infrastructure and cyberinfrastructure, for advanced computing at these institutions. The review should provide a snapshot of the current status and expert insight into strategic future activities. 6

Step 1: External Advisory Committee Step 1.5 EAC visits over a 3-5 day period E.g., Sun dinner, Mon/Tue meetings, Wed write and wrap up Involving leadership at major research institutions –Chancellors, Chief Research officers, Deans, faculty, IT staff Involving key industrial partners –Over a dozen companies involved Involving key state participants –Governor’s Technology Advisor, DIS, ASTA, DF&A Could have involved undergraduate serving institutions Plan the visit 4 to 6 months in advance. 7

Step 1: External Advisory Committee The External Advisory Committee helps you make the case for Return on Investment Cyberinfrastructure confers a sustained competitive advantage A base for economic development Long term expected ROI is a factor of 5 to 10 8 Average NSF funding: $30,354,000 Average NSF funding: $7,781,000 FY06: 95 of Top NSF-funded Universities with CI 98 of Top NSF-funded Universities without CI With CyberinfrastructureWithout Cyberinfrastructure

Step 1: External Advisory Committee Step 1.6 EAC Produces a Final Report –Presented to Governor Beebe the week after it was delivered –Presented to the Arkansas Broadband Advisory Council –Presented to the Joint Legislative Committee on Science and Technology –Presented to key leadership at the Universities and across the state 9

Step 2: Seed State Funding Seed funding from Governor Beebe in May, 2008, established the Cyberinfrastructure Center of Arkansas with four components –Cyberinfrastructure Including the Arkansas High Performance Computer Center –Broadband Including Connect Arkansas –Telemedicine Project funding to UAMS, match to FCC grant –Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network (ARE-ON) 10

11 Step 2: Leveraging Serious State Funding ARE-ON has four core agendas 1.Research 2.Academics 3.Telemedicine and Telehealth 4. Emergency Preparedness Fayetteville Magnolia Russellville Fort Smith Arkadelphia Conway Monticello Pine Bluff Jonesboro Little Rock

Step 3: Cyberinfrastructure Advisory Committee and Steering Committee Write the Strategic Plan The Arkansas Cyberinfrastructure Advisory Committee is very similar in membership to the EAC Internal Steering Committee Meetings were held during fall, 2008 The plan was published in October,

Arkansas Cyberinfrastructure Strategic Plan StrategicPlan pdfhttp://areon.net/resources/Cyberinfrastructure StrategicPlan pdf Words are borrowed liberally from the EAC Final Report –About ten specific recommendations Have to define what cyberinfrastructure will mean –What it is –What it is not 13

Arkansas Cyberinfrastructure Strategic Plan 14 Arkansas Cyberinfrastructure ARE-ON Supercomputing Large scale storage Telemedicine Arkansas TeleHealth Network Business Precision farming Large scale business modeling and more… Research Nanotechnology Geoinformatics and more… Education Computational science, engineering, math, and technology Emergency Preparedness Connect Arkansas Planning & Outreach Service Providers Cyberinfrastructure is in the context of many other activities in the state.

15 Communicate –Craft an engaging communication strategy and an on-going process to identify state needs and resources Develop –Develop an implementation plan for cyberinfrastructure with long-term vision Sustain –Create a sustainable funding model and advocate for sustained funding Arkansas Cyberinfrastructure Strategic Plan – Three Strategic Goals

Cyberinfrastructure Task Force Act Arkansas Act 978 is a key step to meeting our first strategic goal – communicate! es/BillInformation.aspx?measureno=hb2011http:// es/BillInformation.aspx?measureno=hb2011 Representative Jon Woods, Chair of the House Technology Committee, was our sponsor 16

Cyberinfrastructure Task Force Act As used in this subchapter, “cyberinfrastructure” means shared high performance computing, data storage systems, data repositories, advanced instruments, data center facilities, visualization environments, and people, all linked together by software and an advanced statewide optical network to improve and enable breakthroughs not otherwise possible. 17

Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help Research and undergraduate serving universities Faculty – the researchers! –The cyberinfrastructure resources have to be driven by the applications and research needs Chief Research Officer, Chief Information Officer IT staff Chief Academic Officer, deans, department heads Student organizations – help in “marketing” Graduate students and post docs – major users!! 18

Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help Large corporate partners and small business partners Including key business leaders and business organizations –For example, Accelerate Arkansas These can help to lobby the Governor and the Legislature These are key in economic development These hire the graduates with the training that has been enabled by the cyberinfrastructure 19

Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help State participants Department of Information Services (DIS) Department of Finance and Administration Department of Higher Education Governor’s Technology Advisor State legislators and legislative committees Broadband council State funding agencies –Arkansas Science and Technology Authority State EPSCoR office 20

Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help External Advisors – f rom your EAC and also in the national community Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation Educause, Educause Committee on Cyberinfrastructure Internet2 Professional colleagues at major institutions and national labs 21

Computers Leadership TeraGrid Contributor State/ Region shared computers Capability shared computers Capacity machines and Pools Research Clusters Workstations Networks Experimental National Internet2/ NLR Regional Optical Network InternetCampus Department or Building Storage National Repositories Persistent Collections Federations ILM and Metadata ArchivesBackupCommodity Infrastructure Software Multi- institutional Collaborations Fine-grained Authorization Portals User Management SecurityAuthenticationDesktop Sense Measure Analyze Multi-sensoryImmersionVisualizationAnalyticsData Capture User Experience Remote Operations Support ArchitectsEnrollmentDevelopersUser ConsultUser TrainingHelp DeskOperations Vendor Management Policies & Process Accreditation Intellectual Property Legal Support Cost Accounting/ Funding Security Organizational Structure Enablement Cross Certification State Curricula Faculty Development Staff Development CourseworkDiversityLiteracy Dimensions of Cyberinfrastructure Implementation

Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help The Computer Science Department in your Institutions They can support and create courses and curricula appropriate for computational science and engineering For CS to be helpful the institution must encourage and reward interdisciplinary educational and research activities as a part of the tenure process 23

Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help Peer Institutions in our Region ARE-ON institutions are pairing with peer institutions in Louisiana – a 1:1 match for all ARE-ON sites GPN is a source of collaboration and pairing Others examples include SURAGrid and Open Science Grid 24

25 Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure –Planning and workshop grants NSF EPSCoR –Track 1 and Track 2 now require cyberinfrastructure strategic plans Computer Information Systems and Engineering Directorate –A major funder of MRI instruments, which is a major source of campus-level high performance computers

Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help SC Education Program and Broader Engagement Talk to Henry Neeman!! Workshops, conference programs, educational materials Student volunteer program SC mentor program 26

Planners, Participants, and Sources of Help TeraGrid TeraGrid Champions program –Talk to Jeff Pummill Educational programs and materials Colleagues and programs at NSF Track 1 and Track 2 sites Support for CI Days 27

Amy Apon, Ph.D., Mike Abbiatti, Contact information