I would like to discuss-Could CASC form a committee that

explores the idea of a:CASC Annual Recommendations on the

State of our National Cyberinfrastructure?

Stan Ahalt

Why?Cons Pros

It does not need to be done.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway. Someone would be mad at CASC.

We’ve never done this.

It would reflect a biased view.

We could never agree.

Its too much work.

Why?Cons Another perspective….

It does not need to be done. I respectfully disagree.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

I respectfully disagree.

Someone would be mad at CASC. Agreed.

We’ve never done this. Agreed.

It would reflect a biased view. Perhaps.

We could never agree. Agreed.

Its too much work. Perhaps.

Why?Cons Another perspective

It does not need to be done. I respectfully disagree.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

I respectfully disagree.

Someone would be mad at CASC. Agreed.

We’ve never done this. Agreed.

It would reflect a biased view. Perhaps.

We could never agree. Agreed.

Its too much work. Perhaps.

“It does not need to be done.”

• “The Science is on the campuses.”• The students are on the campuses.• There isn’t any other group of similarly

positioned academics with our breadth of expertise trying to capture some measure of what OUR communities need.

• We are the folks who deliver cycles, and we have the first hand experience, and the SCIENCE insight, into what is needed by our community,

And…

• By issuing an annual report, we can – over time – influence our base funding (the funding that flows to higher education from multiple agencies for CI), and more importantly,

• We can influence how our funding is “earmarked, ” i.e., when funding is partitioned into programs, calls, RFPs, RFA’s, etc, it is done by a relatively small group of individuals who sometimes represent or act on the behalf of a subset of the whole (specific interests).

Stan’s gut instinct

Percent of Federal Cyberinfrastructure Research Funding

HPC

Data

Software

AnalyticsWorkforce

Past 25 Years

Computation

Data

Software

Analytics

Workforce

Next 25 Years

Lists

But alternative lists are coming…

http://topsequence500.org/

http://pathogenomics.bham.ac.uk/hts/stats

Our Nation Deserves a Strategy

I am not proposing that we presume to present a national strategy. I am proposing that we expose a national higher-ed CI strategy.

Why?Cons Pros

It does not need to be done. I respectfully disagree.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

I respectfully disagree.

Someone would be mad at CASC. Agreed.

We’ve never done this. Agreed.

It would reflect a biased view. Perhaps.

We could never agree. Agreed.

Its too much work. Perhaps.

“It wouldn’t make any difference”• If we act collectively, we could influence

outcomes. Some examples:– OOI: ~$500M over 10 years– NEON: ~$400M over 10 years– LSST: ~400M over 10 years

• NSF’s OCI challenge:– SGI’s decision to pull back from Track 2– Cray’s reduced scope in HPCS– IBM and Blue Waters What outcomes

are possible?

Why?Cons Pros

It does not need to be done. I respectfully disagree.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

I respectfully disagree.

Someone would be mad at CASC. Agreed.

We’ve never done this. Agreed.

It would reflect a biased view. Perhaps.

We could never agree. Agreed.

Its too much work. Perhaps.

“Someone will be mad at CASC”• So?• Why?• Tough.• OK.• Good.

What we really fear is disagreement.

But I honestly think we can disagree on the details, and (approximately) agree on the gestalt.

Why?Cons Pros

It does not need to be done. I respectfully disagree.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

I respectfully disagree.

Someone would be mad at CASC. Agreed.

We’ve never done this. Agreed.

It would reflect a biased view. Perhaps.

We could never agree. Agreed.

Its too much work. Perhaps.

“We’ve never done this.”

• Times change.• We are needed!• We can!• We should.• We can do a good job.

Why?Cons Pros

It does not need to be done. I respectfully disagree.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

I respectfully disagree.

Someone would be mad at CASC. Agreed.

We’ve never done this. Agreed.

It would reflect a biased view. Perhaps.

We could never agree. Agreed.

Its too much work. Perhaps.

“It would reflect a biased view”

• Yes it will, we have a biased perspective.• Bias is advocacy, and we presumably ALL… • …believe in the essentiality of CI, and we are

all…• reasonable people, so our bias(es) will be

reasonable?

Why?Cons Pros

It does not need to be done. I respectfully disagree.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

I respectfully disagree.

Someone would be mad at CASC. Agreed.

We’ve never done this. Agreed.

It would reflect a biased view. Perhaps.

We could never agree. Agreed.

Its too much work. Perhaps.

“We could never agree”

• Agreed. ;-)• So let’s disagree, but converge, so that we…• Resolve and document our disagreements.• IMHO: Diversity of opinion + ordered debate >

rational voting = robust recommendations.

Why?Cons Pros

It does not need to be done. I respectfully disagree.

It wouldn’t make any difference anyway.

I respectfully disagree.

Someone would be mad at CASC. Agreed.

We’ve never done this. Agreed.

It would reflect a biased view. Perhaps.

We could never agree. Agreed.

Its too much work. Perhaps.

“It’s too much work”

• We don’t need to hyper-survey ourselves, we KNOW what is needed,

• And we CAN find a process that allows us all to – i) express our opinions

Our underlying issue…

Motion (I move)

• I move that CASC forms an ad-hoc committee for which will meet for the next year, and who’s responsibility will be to:– Propose a voting method that will allow CASC members to

prioritize their collective requirements in a reasonable fashion. – Survey CASC members in order to assess – in broad terms

• their current CI capabilities.• their key CI requirements.

– Establish and draft a CASC recommendation on a prioritized national CI investment strategy.

– Lead a discussion at the XXX CASC meeting on how we will ratify our CASC Annual Recommendations on the State of our National Cyberinfrastructure.

We are not alone….• Towards a Unified Cyberinfrastructure: Jarek Nabrzski, Daniel S. Katz, and Ian

Foster– SC 2011 Tues, 5:30 - 7:00 pm

• What should the global cyberinfrastructure ecosystem look like in 10 years, and how will we get there?

• This BOF is a forum for the global eResearch community. It will bring together thinkers and practitioners of cyberinfrastructure, and brainstorm how to create a truly integrated global cyberinfrastructure. We intend to discuss the process by which a national, continental, or global cyberinfrastructure vision could be established. Who are the key stakeholders who need to be involved? How do we move towards truly integrating cyberinfrastructure elements at all levels, including those of individual investigators, campuses, countries, and regions? How do we move towards integrating networks, clusters, supercomputers, grids, and clouds? How do we integrate software and middleware across these systems? Our goal is to bring communities together and identify synergies and a future vision. We will follow up with a series of workshops that will include major players on all continents.