1. The NeCTAR Research Cloud: An Open Platform for Research Computing
National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources
nectar.org.au
NeCTAR is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy to establish eResearch infrastructure in partnership with Australian research institutions, organisations and research communities. The University of Melbourne has been appointed as the Lead Agent,
Objectives: to enhance research collaboration through the development of eResearch infrastructure.

2. Australian eResearch Infrastructure
NCRIS eResearch Investments (Super Science):
Shared Data:
Australian National Data Service (ANDS) AU$48M
Research Apps, Collaboration, Cloud
NeCTAR AU$47M
Data Storage
Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) AU$50M
High Performance Computing
National Computational Initiative (NCI) AU$50M
Pawsey Centre AU$80M
Networks
National Research Network (NRN) AU$37M

3. eResearch Infrastructure Compute Data Networks Tools
Use new tools, apps,
work remotely and
collaborate in the cloud
NeCTAR
Do computational modeling, complete data analysis,
visualize results
NCI
Pawsey
Keep data and observations,
describe, collect, share,
find, and re-use them
ANDS
RDSI
eResearch
Infrastructure
Compute
Data
Networks
Tools
Generate new theories
using data at scales previously inconceivable
Understand mechanisms impossible to observe or experiment with directly
Undertake novel research studies
more extensive than ever before

4. The NeCTAR Research Cloud…
A world first…
The NeCTAR Research Cloud is a partnership between 8 institutions and research organisation’s who are deploying and operating Australia’s first federated research cloud.
University of Melbourne
National Computation Infrastructure (NCI)
Monash University
Queensland CyberInfrastructure Foundation (QCIF)
eResearch SA (eRSA)
University of Tasmania
Intersect, NSW
iVEC, WA
The value of building our own cloud
- embedded, integrated and co-located with significant research and eresearch infrastructure
- the data sources
- future growth may be a mixture of embedded capacity and commercial partners
- on-shore data hosting and processing

5. NeCTAR - Research Cloud - Why???
A platform for innovation…
Reducing barriers to rapid deployment and wide sharing of research apps and services…..
Hosting research applications in the cloud…
A robust, scalable platform for research apps
Supporting cross-institution collaborative access
Computational resource … complementing HPC
A computational infrastructure for many computation needs
Cost effective and scalable for many classes of computation

6. A single, federated infrastructure
An OpenStack based cloud infrastructure
A single cloud deployed across 8 host organisations
Implemented using OpenStack Cells
So, with the middlew are all strung to a central API endpoint, how different can nodes look?

7. Leveraging OpenStack Developments
OpenStack global industry & international innovation
40% annual growth rate, $883M est. market revenue 2014
“Kilo” version - 1,500 contributors from 169 companies
6,000 at OpenStack Summit (May 2015 in Vancouver)
Enterprises using – eBay, PayPal, WalMart, Comcast, Time-Warner Cable, Yahoo, Adobe, Amex, GoDaddy, Sony
Others – CERN, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, CLIMB (bioinformatics – UK)
Each OpenStack release brings new features and improved reliability
And some problems too….

8. Any researcher, anywhere…
NeCTAR Research Cloud…
Supporting Australian researcher needs
Supporting researchers at scale
Over 7,500 research users since January 2012
34,000 CPU cores available
Low barriers to access:
Dashboard login with University username and password
Australian Access Federation
Small resource allocations available on demand.
Any researcher, anywhere…
The value of building our own cloud
- embedded, integrated and co-located with significant research and eresearch infrastructure
- the data sources
- future growth may be a mixture of embedded capacity and commercial partners
- on-shore data hosting and processing

9. Supporting the breadth of Australian research

10. Supporting Research at Scale
Self Service infrastructure - scalable
“Any Researcher, Any Where, Any time” - any timezone
Allocations to Australian researchers
Small resources available on-demand (project trials)
2 vCPU cores over 3 months
4600 project trials current: 30% have active machines now
25% go on to apply for a larger project allocation
1225 full allocations approved, 500 last 12 months, 54 research organisations
GLENN

11. Plant Energy Biology – On the Cloud
Lead: University of Western Australia
Plant Energy Biology – On the Cloud
Plant Energy Biology Centre of Excellence – Building collaboration on the Cloud.
Researchers study how plants capture energy from sunlight, how they store that energy, and how they use that energy to grow and develop.
Researchers are hosting collaborations with the Max Planck Institute and the Beijing Genomics Institute – on the NeCTAR Research Cloud.
“NeCTAR makes it much easier, much faster. It means more collaborations — projects that would have just been too hard to go ahead.”
Professor Ian Small, Director, Laureate Fellow, West Australian Scientist of the Year.

12. Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics
Use NeCTAR Research Cloud for:
Local cluster, ATLAS, Belle2
Configuration:
Scientific Linux 6 (SL6), Puppet controlled
Active instance booted from a working snapshot
different snapshot for each use case
Snapshot regularly updated with package updates
PBS/Torque for Local and Belle2. Condor for ATLAS
Storage:
CVMFS for experimental software
Ephemeral disk used for CVMFS scratch and TMPDIR
Local cluster mounts NFS home and data directories
VMs started based on queued jobs by:
Dynamic Cluster (Local and Belle2)
Cloud Scheduler (Condor) (ATLAS)
Thanks to Sean Crosby and Lucien Boland

13. NeCTAR Virtual Laboratories
Formed around engaged Research Communities…
Collaboratively creating collaborative infrastructure
Exemplars for sector adoption of capability
Building on existing research capabilities
Instruments and Data, Compute and Tools, Modelling, Analytics
Integrating access to national and institutional research infrastructure:
Research Facilities, Instruments, Laboratories, Collections, Applications, Sensor networks, Repositories, Data, Computing, Remote Access, Research Workflows
Supporting research workflows
Automating and sharing research methodologies
Across institutional and discipline boundaries
Adding value to existing infrastructure and investments

14. Genomics Virtual Laboratory - GVL
Lead: University of Queensland
Genomics Virtual Laboratory - GVL
Easy access to Genomics tools and resources for Australian biologists.
The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is using the GVL in the NeCTAR Research Cloud, allowing researchers to collaborate easily and to access their data no matter where they are.
“This is the best exemplar of this kind of platform in the world… Genomics capability for the masses."
Associate Professor Andrew Lonie, Head of the Life Sciences Computation Centre at VLSCI.

15. Biodiversity and Climate Change VL
Lead: Griffith University
Biodiversity and Climate Change VL
Simplifies biodiversity-climate change modelling.
The Virtual Laboratory accelerates biodiversity modelling, allowing researchers to integrate, analyse and model across large disparate datasets quickly and easily.
“BCCVL decreases the time to complete biodiversity and climate analysis from 2 months to 5 minutes, supporting new applications in research, government and industry.“
Professor Brendan Mackay,
Director, Griffith Climate Change Response Program

16. Characterisation Virtual Laboratory - CVL
Lead: Griffith University
Characterisation Virtual Laboratory - CVL
Integrating Australia’s key research imaging instruments with data and analysis tools on the cloud.
Building collaborative analysis workbenches in the cloud for neuroscience, structural biology, cryo-EM and X-ray science.
“The CVL project is leading the effort to move science data analysis to the cloud and provide a more flexible and more powerful research environment.“
Dr Anna Ceguerra, University of Sydney

17. Marine Virtual Laboratory - MARVL
Lead: University of Tasmania
Marine Virtual Laboratory - MARVL
Ocean observations and modelling to improve planning for marine and coastal environments.
Ian Coghlan is studying coastal erosion.
MARVL saves him 3 months effort to access local data, wave model simulations and computing resources.
“MARVL enables you to start thinking about your problem sooner.”
Dr Roger Proctor, Director e-Marine Information Infrastructure Facility.

18. NeCTAR Virtual Laboratories
Climate and Weather Science Laboratory – Bureau of Meteorology
Integrated environment for climate and weather science modelling and data
Genomics Virtual Lab – University of Melbourne
Easy access to Genomics tools and resources for Australian biologists.
Endocrine Genomics Virtual Lab – University of Melbourne
Statistical power for clinical research
Marine Virtual Lab – University of Tasmania
Ocean observations and modelling to improve planning for marine and coastal environments.
All Sky Virtual Observatory – Astronomy Australia Limited
Theoretical and observational astronomy data, simulations and tools accessible from your desktop
Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Lab – Griffith University
Simplifies biodiversity-climate change modelling.
Humanities Network Infrastructure - HuNI– Deakin University
Integrating 28 of Australia’s most important cultural datasets
Characterisation Virtual Lab – Monash University
Integrating Australia’s key research imaging instruments with data and analysis tools on the cloud.
Geophysics Virtual Lab – CSIRO
Easy access to geophysics workflows, simulations and datasets.
Human Communications Sciences – Alveo – U Western Sydney
Studying speech, language, text, and music on a larger scale
Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory – Sydney University
Supporting comprehensive environmental carbon footprinting and sustainability assessments
Also funded 16 Research Tools projects across broad research disciplines and domains.
More details at:

19. Further funding through NCRIS
National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy
Additional funding for NeCTAR operations
$9.4M through to June 2015
$3.4M Virtual Lab Support, $6M Research Cloud
$4.9M through to June 2016
$2.3M Virtual Lab Support, $2.3M Research Cloud
Objectives (NCRIS)
Continued operation and development of Research Cloud infrastructure
Support operations of Virtual Labs infrastructure aligned with national investments
Increased focus on improved operations
GLENN
Currently NeCTAR is in a phase of work that improves and continues the operations of eResearch Infrastructure, and supports the ongoing operations of Virtual Labs. There are still 2 main components to the program, the Research Cloud which will incorporate the National Server Program and the Virtual Labs.
2 components to the program
Cloud
Research software

20. Many changes (under the hood)
2015 Q1 delivered
Allocation system improvements
Federated change control process, monitoring, common tools repository
Icehouse version upgrades at all nodes, Juno at core services
2015 Q2
Additional Virtual Machine Flavours - thin VMs, memory, compute optimised etc.
Volume storage quotas
Object storage federation
Juno version upgrades at all nodes – major stability improvements
(Growing turnover of technical staff to industry)
2015 Q3 & Q4
Advanced networking services (stages 1 & 2)
Compute quotas by node
Improved orchestration (Heat) & apps catalogue (Murano)
User VM metrics
Kilo version upgrades

21. Delivering new features
Delivering advanced cloud services - OpenStack
Advanced Networking (SDN) – OpenStack Neutron
Database as a Service – Openstack Trove
Filesystem as a Service – OpenStack Manilla
Application Catalogue – Openstack Murano
Managed services and applications
Computing Cluster as a Service – eResearch SA and NCI
Hadoop as a Service – Pawsey Centre

22. Future Directions– Research Community Clouds?
Partnering with Research-domain focussed national infrastructure investments (NCRIS):
Co-plan and co-deliver e-infrastructure with research infrastructure
Leveraging a common underpinning hybrid cloud infrastructure

23. Future Directions… International Collaboration
Broadening the partnership
Technical interoperation with international research cloud infrastructures – eg. EGI, OSG, Compute Canada, …
Benefits of common approaches, shared solutions
Reducing barriers to international research collaboration (interoperability)
Also interest from the region – Japan, Malaysia, Korea, …
Supporting research community driven international collaboration
NeCTAR Virtual Laboratories -> EGI communities, VREs. Eg.
Genomics Virtual Lab (and BioPlatforms Australia) -> Elixir
Characterisation Virtual Lab <-> Human Brain Project
Biodiversity VL (and TERN) -> LifeWatch
… and many more potential opportunities

24. Thank you