CANARIE’s DAIR

Digital Accelerator ForInnovation and Research

March 2011

What is DAIR?

• DAIR = Digital Accelerator for Research and Innovation– Concept developed in consultation with CANARIE stakeholders

• An integrated virtual environment that leverages the CANARIE network to develop and test new ICT and other digital technologies – combines HPC, Sensors, storage and advanced networking

• Provides capacity to:• Test innovative ICT applications, protocols and services• Perform at-scale experimentation for deployment

• Facilitates technology transfer from labs to marketplace• Supports development of new digital content

What Problems Does DAIR Address?

• How can Canada get more innovation for the invested money – Ultimately increase to GDP ?– Research– Productization– Go to market

• How can we reduce time to market?– Minimize time between Research and Revenue

How Will DAIR Address This?

• Large Scale Shared Infrastructure • Development and Testing of large-scale distributed

systems is extremely difficult– As much as 50% of the time to develop is in verification– Very capital, power, space, people intensive

• Shared Infrastructure on Demand– Reduce time to market by shrinking development and test cycle– Demonstrate and measure scalability of solutions– Improve quality by having more extensive test capability– Demonstrate to potential customers market readiness– More efficient use of capital, power, space and people

Who Will Benefit from DAIR

• ICT Researchers– Access to large scale infrastructure– Industry Collaboration

• Small and Medium Enterprises (SME)– Reduced Capital and people requirements– Reduced time to market– Proof of market readiness– Large Scale infrastructure that would otherwise be unaffordable

• Multi-Nationals (MNE)– Access to large scale infrastructure– Proof of concepts

User TimeframesObjectives of different Users

Near Term One year time horizon Existing Network and Compute environment Scale, hardening, market readiness proof

Medium Term 3 Year time horizon Future network capabilities Interoperability, hardening, scale

Long Term Next Gen networking Proof of concept Collaborate with initiatives such as those in EU, GENI in the

US and Japan

DAIR Program Overview

• Pilot Phase – March 2011to March 2012– Support 100 DAIR user organizations – mainly SMEs– Demonstrate that this environment accelerates innovation and

commercialization for SMEs– Prove Technology meets the user’s needs– Demonstrate user demand for the service

• Expansion Phase – April 2012 – March 2017– Support for > 1000 DAIR user organizations

• SME, MNE, R&E

– Broader Wireless coverage for Wi-Fi and Cellular– Network Research and Innovation to support the needs of ICT

researchers– Collaboration with other National initiatives (GENI, FIRE, AKARI, etc.)

PILOT PROGRAMMarch 2011 to March 2012

DAIR Pilot Overview

• $3M program funded from CANARIE’s current mandate• Objectives:

– Demonstrate that this environment accelerates innovation and commercialization for SMEs

– Prove Technology meets the user’s needs– Demonstrate user demand for the service

• Scope– Augment CANARIE network with additional resources required– Use Cloud Computing infrastructure

• Resource Sharing• On-demand provisioning • Instant scalability

– Additional access methods• Wireless with focus on universities and colleges• VPN for SMEs

– 100 SMEs focussed on near and medium term projects

Wi-Fi Access

• Enable access to compute resources by Wi-Fi enabled devices– Tablets– Sensors– Game decks

• Leverage Canadian Access Federation infrastructure at University and College Campuses (Eduroam)– Extensive and easily accessed in much of Canada– 7 Institutions to be supported in Pilot phase

• Authenticated by Canarie via Access Federation and connected to user’s virtual network attached to the compute nodes

Cellular Access

• Partnership with Wavefront • Mobile Software Application Testbed

– Remote Handset application Testing– Access to Orange UK Network for certification

• Machine 2 Machine prototype lab• Next Generation Network Testing with Ericsson in

Montreal– 2G, 3G, 4G– Handsets and network equipment– Test Spectrum in Vancouver

DAIR PHASE IIApril 2012 and beyond

Objectives

• Pilot program is intended to support up to 100 SME organizations

• Expand to support > 1,000 organizations– Bring the benefits demonstrated in pilot phase to a

broader audience – meet the demand• ICT Researchers• SME – over 30,000 thousand companies in ICT sector• MNEs – employing approx. 50,000 thousand people in Canada

• Additional Capabilities to Support Network Research– Alignment with multi-national research initiatives

Expansion of Pilot

• Support > 1,000 Client Organizations• Add 8 more computing nodes for a total of 10

– 1920 CPU Cores in total– Can support 100 organizations per compute node

• Expansion of Wi-Fi to all universities and colleges– Program spending with University CIOs– Some increase in Operating Expense

• Partnership with MNEs to have them contribute resources– Equipment, People, etc.– They would have access to the system for their R&D teams

Expansion - continued

• Cellular access points– Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver– Options

• Build it ourselves (Not recommended)– Test Spectrum will be needed

– Base Stations (at CANARIE Sites)

– Core Infrastructure (GGSN, SGSN, HLR, etc.)

• Partner with WaveFront (A govt funded CECR mandated to stimulate commercialization of mobile applications)

– Extend what they do across Canada

– Network will be a key asset

– Will require investment from Wavefront and CANARIE (TBD)

• MVNO– Extension of one of the mobile operators

– Allow access to CANARIE compute nodes

– Easy mechanism to sort out charges

Support for Network Research

• Network Virtualization– Multi-layer– Optical, Layer 2, Layer 3

• Support multiple Control Planes– OpenFlow or equivalent

• Bandwidth Management between nodes (OSCARS or UCLP)

• Working closely with the Research community in Canada– Alberto Leon Garcia

• Collaboration with Other national efforts– GENI, FIRE, AKARI, and others

Summary

• Extends DAIR benefits to a much wider user community in Canada

• Brings the MNEs into the program to incent them to do R&D in Canada

• Provides a platform to the Research community to enable Canada to participate in the next generation of networks