1. Supporting the NRP with a Lean CI Staff
Jerry Sheehan, Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Montana State University
August 8, 2017

2. Montana State, A LEAN CI Approach
Campus is 16,440 students, 1,302 faculty and 2,016 staff
Core Information Technology Budget is ~$14M with 75 FTE
Research Cyberinfrastructure Staff: 2 FTE, positions a combination of technical and outreach
RCI supports: Community HPC cluster, Collaboration environments, and the Bridger research network
Networking Staff is 3 FTE for 35,000 (20K wireless, 15K wired) devices

3. Where is Data Intensive Research Networking in the Higher Education Technology Adoption Curve ?
Rogers Bell Curve
Where
Image from: Hoonuit.com, Understanding the Technology Curve in Education,blog.atmoiclearning.com

4. The Day Job of the CIO
The Primary Decision that CIOs make are Economic
Limited resources (financial and personnel) and unlimited demand (commoditized technology/user needs and wants)
The Smaller the Size of the Campus the More Sensitive Each Resource Allocation Decision Becomes
Smaller Research Intensive Campuses and other Universities can be Early Adopters if there is a Demand for Services
Research Networking Suffers Across All Campuses Because Most Scientists Don’t Know What’s Possible

5. Research Data Census for Montana State
Source: Data Intensive Science and Campus IT, Educause Review 2015, see

6. The Importance of the NSF CCDNI Program
Impossible to Implement our Campus Science Network Without this NSF Program
NSF Investment of $470K for the Bridger Project Would be 40% of My Annual IT Capital Budget.
The CCDNI Project Enabled Montana State:
Work with a systems architect, not on our staff, to design a no out of pocket cost to us our campus-wide networking approach to research data
Pull together our research community who had data needs, but didn’t know how the network could help address these issues

7. Early Adopters with Lean CI-Keep It Simple
As an Early Adopter vs Being an Innovator It’s Important to Keep Your Network Architecture Simple
There are Things We Won’t Adopt Until Others Have Done the Heavy Lifting of Figuring out How and Clarifying the Value Proposition
IPv4 to v6
CCDNI Calls Have a Tension to Them With This Approach, Need to Show Value of Federal Investment (What Science), but More Science Drivers Lead to Increased Complexity

8. Early Adopters Can Rely on The National CI Community
Montana State Relies on the National CI Community for Support and Leverages Existing NSF Investments for This Purpose, No Need to Go It Alone
PRP for Support for Research Data Collaborations, Human Capital, and Hardware Design, Like the FIONA
National perfSONAR end points for testing (es.net/sdsc/uhnet/gigapop)
Globus for Identity Management, Graceful Large File Transfer, and Data on Net Data Movement
Cybinf-engr listserv run by ESnet

9. The Vendor Partnership
A Lean CI Approach Makes it Imperative to Have Partnerships with the Private Sector, Not Just Vendor Relationships
CISCO has Been An Exceptional Partner for Montana State University.
Technical architecture assistance for the Science DMZ
Help in the technical review and red team of our NSF CCDNI proposal
Excited to Announce This Relationship is Advancing to the Next Level with a Montana State/Cisco Partnership for Research Networking