Cyber-Infrastructure for the Physical Sciences: Earth, Ocean, Sky and Space
A Workshop on Large Data Management and Cyber-Infrastructure
Please RSVP at your earliest convenience at https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032543338&Culture=en-US&community=0.
If you need further clarification, please contact Khalil Yazdi (kyazdi@internet2.edu) or Andrew Keating (Andrew@internet2.edu).
Additional information about the meeting, travel and lodging information can be found at: http://i2azure.com/Current_Workshop.html and http://i2azure.com/Logistics.html.
It is now widely recognized that many domains of research have reached an inflection point where the importance of data curation and big data analytics is exceeding the management and computational capabilities of even the larger labs and individual researchers without dedicated IT support. In addition, the growing trend toward interdisciplinary research has placed an increasing emphasis on collaboration around shared data collections. Commercial cloud-hosted data services are evolving rapidly and show promise for adaptation for use by the research community. But there are also many projects, tools and data resources being built by the research community that could productively be integrated as part of a comprehensive solution.
The purpose of this workshop is to explore ways in which public cloud infrastructure can support the emerging big data needs in research, with special emphasis on Earth and Space Sciences as an exemplar. We seek requirements and application scenarios for services across all aspects of the data lifecycle: acquisition, access and sharing, query and analytics, curation and archival, publication and provenance. We will identify linkages between these requirements and the technologies of marketplace and academic search. The desired outcome for the workshop is a plan to build an experimental data analytics cloud initially supported by Microsoft and Internet2. This data analytics cloud should
1. Build on existing community data collections and data management tools and services.
2. Provide tools that make it easy to upload data and manage cloud data collections from your laptop or pad computer – with zero programming.
3. Support “feed management” – methods to integrate streaming data into data curation workflows.
4. Provide tools to orchestrate server-side large-scale data analytics (standard statistical methods and basic query as well as advanced machine learning) processes.
5. Strengthen the ability to share queries, analysis routines, and statistical methods as easily as data itself.
6. Provide tools to create and share data mash-ups and visualizations.
7. Ensure that data can remain private to an individual researcher or small collaboration until the time of publication.
8. Provide means to link online published research papers with the associated cloud data collections and provenance.
The workshop will identify the existing data collections and tools and a team of researchers willing to build prototypes. The workshop will be hosted by the University of Hawaii, February 12th - 13th, 2013 and is co-sponsored by the University of Hawaii, the University of California, Davis, the University of Washington, Internet2, and Microsoft.
The brief agenda is provided below. A more detailed agenda will be distributed prior to the workshop.
February 11th, 2013:
Pre-Workshop dinner at 6:00 pm for those arriving on Monday.
February 12th , 2013 (Day 1 – full-day, 8am-5pm):
1. 8:00 am – 8:30 am: Breakfast
2. 8:30 am – 9:00 am: Welcome by our host and sponsors
3. 9:00 am – 9:15 am: Introduction to the Workshop Series
Summary of meeting objectives and a review of what Microsoft learned from prior workshops. (Todd Needham, Microsoft)
4. 9:15 am – 9:45 am: Setting the Stage
Overview of the research, technology, and organizational challenges facing researchers in the Earth, Ocean, Sky and Space Fields - (Dan Fay, Microsoft)
5. 9:45 am – 11:45 am: Geology, Geography and Seismology
6. 11:45 am – 12:30 pm: Lunch
7. 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Astronomy and Astrophysics
8. 2:30 pm – 2:45 pm: Break
9. 2:45 pm – 4:45 pm: Atmospheric Sciences
10. 4:45 pm - 5:30 pm: Day 1 wrap-up
11. 5:30 pm: Free time
12. 6:30 pm: Dinner and discussion
February 13th, 2013 (Day 2 – full-day, 8am-5pm):
1. 8:00 am – 8:30 am: Breakfast
2. 8:30 am – 9:00 am: Welcome and Opening Remarks
3. 9:00 am – 9:30 am: Summary of Day 1
4. 9:30 am – 11:30 am: Oceanography
5. 11:30 am – Noon: Lunch
6. 12:15 pm – 2:00 pm: Challenges and Opportunities (open discussion)
Identifying the challenges facing EOSS researchers and surfacing the areas that present an opportunity to provide enhanced support to EOSS scientists (open discussion by presenters and participants – what are the challenges and what would you like to see in terms of solutions – immediate, near-term and long-term needs)
7. 2:00 pm – 2:15 pm: Break
8. 2:15 pm – 2:30 pm: The Strategic Context
The Internet2/Microsoft Strategic initiative and how we hope to support scientific research through NET+ (or, the supporting context for new initiatives).
9. 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm: Exploring Possibilities
What are the ways in which Microsoft can better support the scientific research community? Objective: identifying research projects, requisite technology support, project timelines and participation.
10. 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Next Steps
Open discussion and coming to agreement on 3-5 projects that we can collaboratively pursue.
11. 5:00 pm - 5:45 pm: Day 2/Workshop wrap-up