1. Data Intensive Research in South Africa
Anwar Vahed
March 2017
March 2017
© CSIR, 2017

2. Outline SA investment in research data NICI and DIRISA
South African National Data Infrastructure & Services (SANDIS)
Current status
Next steps
March 2017
© CSIR, 2017

3. National Data Investment
SAEON: Environmental
HSRC: Human Sciences and Humanities
DataFirst: Survey and Administrative 
Agincourt: Social and Health demographics
SANSA: Earth Observation
SADA: Survey & related
SAAO: Astronomy
Govt departments: DWA...
Academia & research councils
Meteorology, EO, Climate Change, Water, Energy, Health…
SKA projected budget
€ 2 billion to 2020 € 650 million (Phase 1)
SA so far: R2 billion

4. National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure (NICI)
Amalgamated physically distributed cyber platform for e-research
Data
Networking
HPC
Overarching coordination & national strategy
National (Tier1)
Regional (Tier2)
Institutional (Tier 3)
Priority & cross-cutting domains
Phy Sci & Eng.
Health, Bio & Food
Energy
Earth & Environment
Humans & Society
Materials & Manuf.
Data intensive research environments (Cloud)
Computing Services (CHPC +)
Networking Services (SANReN)
Data Services (DIRISA)
Core
services
Networked
resources
Skills & expertise
March 2017
© CSIR, 2017

5. DIRISA Objectives Sustained, federated and Trusted nodes
Research Ecosystems: cross & multi disciplinary research
Data Services: harmonised data management
Federated Data Infrastructure: observations (models and measurements)
Robust infrastructure & services
Sustained, federated and Trusted nodes
Enabling environments (VREs/Gateways)
Sound data management
Policies, practices and standards
Internationally benchmarked (Certification)
Capacity & expertise
Data intensive research & management
Data Science “engineers”
Advocacy & outreach
Data sharing
Stakeholder engagement
Coordination & strategy
National data intensive research activities
Inform strategic agenda
© CSIR, 2015

6. South African National Data Infrastructure and Services (SANDIS)
Collaborators RDA CODATA WDS DCC EUDAT ANDS UK D_A Data.gov
March 2017
© CSIR, 2017

7. Phase2: Collaborative Research Environments
SANDIS Services
DSubscribe
Register as DIRISA user
DataDrop
Deposit and store data reliably
FindGet
Discover, download data sets
SafeShare
Safely share data with users
DataStage
Prepare data for processing
User documentation
Help & support
Core services (DMP, DOI)
Phase2: Collaborative Research Environments
My data management plans My workflows
My data sets and outputs My communities
Community driven

8. Automated Data Lifecycle Management
PID Registries (People, Objects, Activities): DONA, DataCite; ORCID
Data must be FAIR
Tiered harvesting with Trusted Repository Certification: WDS DSA
March 2017
© CSIR, 2017

9. So far... (Current status)
Robust infrastructure and services
Regional Tier 2 data node (Western Cape): Astronomy & Bioinformatics
SANDI services: Server cluster, DCC DMP tool, DONA and DOI registry
Data management
Policies (Open and not Open): Regulatory (POPI Act), Ethical
Guidelines for EULA, SA DMP, subscription
Capacity & expertise
National MSc in eScience; NRF call for Data Intensive Research projects
Collaborations on data fundamentals courses (Data & Software Carpentry; IBM),
Advocacy & outreach
Workshops, DMP roadshow, SARDA, USAf, ASSAF, NRF (OA), DST, DHET
SciDataCon, RDA, eResearch conference; RDA, CODATA, WDS, SKA
Coordination & strategy
National data intensive research strategy
SADC Cyberinfrastructure framework

10. Next... (Roadmap) Infrastructure Data management Capacity development
Active & Passive data: 8 PB with cloud services & 40 PB tape
Domain specific scientific workflow systems (VREs)
Data management
Across entire data lifecycle
Domain specific and computer actionable policies (DMP)
Capacity development
Cross disciplinary PhD & post-doc in data sciences; engineers for the data sciences
Outreach
National Data conference; SARDA; IDW2018?
Africa take leading role
Strategy
Shared cyberinfrastructure for African solutions

11. In conclusion (Why Open Science?)
Data Driven Research: The Fourth Paradigm
Focus on data-intensive systems and rapid, trustworthy scientific communication
Increase quality: “Those who share data, do better science”
Increase depth and speed: Reused data allow us “to see further ... and to do it all more quickly and easily”
Maximise RoI: Much effort (and cost) in data collection but not rewarded. Trend is changing
Provenance: Data represents our heritage
March 2017
© CSIR, 2017

12. Thank you
October 2016
© CSIR, 2016

13. Issues Regulations & bureaucracy Resources Aging infrastructure
Attitude
Plan A, Plan B, Plan C...
Islandora for data deposit
Server cluster (March)
RFP for 8 PB upgrade + OpenStack cloud services
March 2017
© CSIR, 2017

14. October 2016
© CSIR, 2016