The Collaboratory Inc. Reaction Draft Proposal For A Research Initiative In The Computational Arts, Sciences and Engineering A Reaction Draft Proposal Prepared for the Office of the Vice-President (Research) 11 April, 1994 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Memorial University of Newfoundland's High Performance Computing and Communications (HPC&C) Users' Group, the HPC&C Standing Committee and the Department of Computing and Communications (C&C), through the office of the Vice-President (Research) propose a research initiative in the computational arts, sciences and engineering. A fundamentally new model of research activity will be enabled through the power of high performance computation, communications and people. The proposed budget totals $5.3M over 5 years, of which 44% is for personnel, 37% for computers and 9% for a campus-wide high-speed (ATM) voice, video and data network. Existing budget and in-kind contributions of the University total 18% of the budget. Budget realities introduce the constraint that additional support for this proposal from the university budget is not available. The balance of the budget, $4.4M over 5 years, will be sought from external agencies. The primary emphasis of this proposal is on research programs that build on partnerships and collaborations with other disciplines, with other universities, with industry and with government. The activities outlined in this proposal span a spectrum from the pure arts and sciences, to the applied sciences and engineering, to the research, development and commercialization of products and services in the industrial and government sectors. We advocate an appropriate balance between infrastructure and technology. The infrastructure component proposed in this document is not less than the technology component of the overall budget. In this proposal, people are the agents of change (not technology). A fiscally responsible, modest, approach can yield benefits of true HPC&C at a cost that appropriately leverages current expenditures on researcher's salaries, that remains within current university budget commitments, and with a "no hidden costs" balanced approach that will not become an unexpected financial burden. The strategy proposes initially to have a modest local capability for high performance computation linked together by a campus-wide high performance ATM communications network. High-speed regional network linkages feeding into the national CANARIE initiative provide local researchers access to the full range of available high performance computing facilities elsewhere in Canada and in the United States. There have been several attempts since 1985 to transplant the successful U.S. model of high performance computing and communications here in Canada. These attempts have met with (at best) limited success to date, indicating that we have yet to find the appropriate "Made in Canada" model. The experiences gained to date have nevertheless been valuable and the lessons learned have been incorporated in the present proposal. It must be emphasized that the model being proposed in this document has its own potential for both successes and failures. An important feature of this proposal is a process of regular evaluations and the introduction of corrective measures as an expected and normal part of the process. Research Computing Surveys An extensive process of consultation with the wider university community was conducted to establish the needs of the research community at Memorial University that currently depend on HPC&C, to open the door for potential new users of the technology (particularly from outside of the traditional science and engineering communities), as well as initiating an ongoing process of inviting input from those who have concerns about the potential effect of the present initiative on other parts of the university community. A survey of the Memorial University community for researchers with applications requiring access to high performance computers was solicited by the Vice-President (Research). Based on the results of this survey, the following recommendations to the Office of the Vice-President (Research) were made: 1. A high performance computing facility or capability be established on campus. The facility would support a number of high-end workstation class servers (for example, the fastest machines available for under $100K), and include the appropriate level of infrastructure support in the form of personnel who have expertise in the area of Scientific Computation and/or Visualization. 2. That the national funding agencies (primarily NSERC) be lobbied to establish a good national high performance computing facility and put in place a high speed network connecting all universities and other research centres. In 1992 the Vice-President (Research) at Memorial University commissioned a companion study on "High Performance Computing (HPC) Technology in Education: An evaluation of needs, status and potential for Memorial University of Newfoundland, and potential benefits for education in Newfoundland." [1] This report, the Miminis-Tapper Report, complemented the above survey in its evaluation of research computing and its potential utility to both the research and academic infrastructure of the university. This report was released to the university community in 1993. Several concerns and priorities were raised by the university community in response to this report: * Networking is, and should remain, a high priority. * There exists a general concern that inadequately funded HPC activity could siphon funds from other areas. * Technology will not by itself provide a solution to Newfoundland's economic situation. * HPC activity at MUN should be driven by need. * There is a need for better infrastructure support for research computing. Preliminary results from an informal survey of the research community indicates that research computing expenditures at Memorial are on the order of $700K-$750K/year, indicating that research computing is a very important component of the research infrastructure of the university that must be maintained, enriched and enhanced as new technologies emerge. This value was used to establish the baseline for the present proposal. Needs This proposal to enhance the computational and communications infrastructure of the province is driven by several distinct local, regional and national needs. These can be summarized as: 1. Developing, promoting and protecting investments in people. A high priority area is developing the infrastructure that encourages highly skilled individuals to remain in the university community and in the province. 2. Local researchers at Memorial University whose research programs are severely bottlenecked at the computation stage, with turnaround time measured in months and, in one case, years. 3. Continuous evaluation of technology options to identify the most cost- effective solutions to keep researchers at or near the forefront of technological developments. 4. Need to transform the Newfoundland economy from its primary resource based industries to a more diversified economy that includes information technology and knowledge-based industries. 5. Need for an Atlantic Canada regional initiative in HPC&C to match similar developments in Western Canada, Ontario and Quebec. 6. Need for national strategy in HPC&C to eliminate geographic and economic disparities. The current lack of a coherent national strategy strongly impacts on the economic development of smaller provinces like Newfoundland. 7. Need for attitudinal change. Opportunities Research groups at MUN with the greatest need for computation are seeking increased capability at approximately the same time. There is therefore a window of opportunity for these groups to cooperate in a joint venture to obtain significantly greater computational capability than each could obtain by themselves. We are now at the threshold of a new era in the computational arts, sciences and engineering. The power of the traditional "supercomputer, which dominated research computing in the 1980s, is available on (or beside) the desktop at a cost that is now less than the cost of people. We can then ask what level of expenditure on computer technology maximally leverages the university's large investment in salaries and infrastructure support for its "computational scientists"? This is a fundamentally different view of research computing than that represented by the traditional mainframe-based supercomputer centres of a few years ago. Networking enhances the research infrastructure of all sectors of the university community. As high-speed computer networks are also essential to high performance computing, there is an opportunity to accelerate the development of computer networking at MUN and Newfoundland. MUN's Department of Computing and Communication's long-range plan includes a migration to ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) as the carrier of backbone traffic on campus to integrate voice, video and data. The installation of glass fibre on campus is well advanced, with more than 20 buildings having access to this new medium. With funding, the migration to an ATM-based backbone extending across the MUN campus and ultimately into the surrounding research and industrial community could be greatly accelerated. There are no longer any nationally-accessible university-based high performance computing centres in Canada. An initiative based in Newfoundland could stimulate a pan-Atlantic Canada collaboration (similar in scope to those in central and western Canada) that could then mount a credible bid to funding agencies for a similar level of funding ($1M/yr) as that proposed in NSERC's National Initiative in Scientific Computing (NISC). Spencer Hall, recently acquired by the university, is to become the focus of the university's efforts to build a bridge between the university research community and the private and public sectors and could be an ideal location for the facility outlined in this proposal. The building will be the new home for the Memorial's Office of Research, Seabright Corporation and the Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation. The building will also include provisions to support a "technology cluster" (or incubator) aimed at high-technology companies, with emphasis on biotechnology, computers and communications, environmental services, medical devices and ocean technologies. The proposed location will ultimately become a hub for high technology activity in Newfoundland. There is also an opportunity to enhance the professional stature and career prospects of Ph.D. graduates and research computing professionals who have acquired high levels of skill in the application of high performance computers in their respective disciplines. The unique qualities these research staff persons bring to research computing are an intimate knowledge of the needs of researchers (having themselves been a part of the research community) as well as extensive experience in computing. Proposed Facility Mission Statement Author's note: To help focus subsequent discussions and stimulate the development of a mission statement,some underlying philosophical issues in this reaction draft are presented below (in no particular order). * Transforming Newfoundland's economy through science and technology; subscribe to and promote the required partnership between industry, government and academe to effect real change; promote attitudinal change. * Place primary emphasis on comprehensive programs developing the human resources pipeline needed to support the knowledge- and information-based economy of Newfoundland in the next century; technology transfer; develop programs and linkages to provide wider access to leading edge technology; * Invest in, promote, and protect the knowledge capital represented in people; promote collaboration and multidisciplinary approaches; provide the required computational tools to maximally leverage this knowledge capital. * Play an appropriate role in advancing the information infrastructure of Newfoundland and Atlantic Canada; display leadership where appropriate * Promotion of the computational arts, sciences and engineering as a third mode of research enquiry (with theory and experiment); strive for excellence in research computation; * Lobby for and promote a national strategy in HPC&C; support national initiatives; promote "citizenship" through collaboration and cooperative programs with other institutions and facilities across Canada * Achieving and maintaining balance between the research components, between pure and applied research, between the arts and sciences. * Full scientific and fiscal accountability; social and fiscal responsibility. * Implement a full and open process of evaluation, renewal, and ongoing improvement; including mechanisms that permit identification and corrections of deficiencies and the implementation of corrections as an integral part of the process. Organization and Management The proposed organizational model is as "flat" as possible. Projects will be managed by principle investigators (PIs) on an autonomous basis. All PIs and their co-investigators are members of the HPC&C Users' Group, which is charged with the authority to set general policies and procedures affecting the operations of the facilities comprising HPC&C activities. As projects in the University community are identified, resources are directed to their support both in technological resources as well as infrastructure support. Long-term multi-disciplinary collaborations are encouraged. Initially, the proposed facility will be a cost centre within the University's Department of Computing and Communications (C&C). C&C provides the required facility management functions following the recommendations of the Users' Group. Significant cost savings are realized by not duplicating many of the services already provided by C&C. It is proposed that there be some separation between the activities of HPC&C at MUN and the activities of C&C in other areas of university computing. This will give the HPC&C initiative an opportunity to establish its own identity. Stakeholders are represented by the University's HPC&C Committee which represents the interests of the researchers as well as the wider community. The HPC&C Committee includes members of the HPC&C User's Group, the Director of C&C, the Vice-President (Research) and members of the wider university community. This body reports to the Vice-President (Research). With funding, this body could then include representation from industry and government. Proposed Location It is proposed that the facility will have offices in Spencer Hall, currently being renovated as the new Research and Technology Building, a centre for research and technological innovation focussing on high-technology research, development and technology transfer. To reduce artificial barriers of location between the Centre and its user community, satellite offices will also be supported throughout the university community. Personnel The primary resource of the facility will be a complement of highly skilled computational scientists with research experience. The computational scientists will be either recent Ph.D.s with extensive experience with a wide range of high performance computing architectures or research computing professionals with equivalent experience. Visualization specialists will enter into an apprenticeship program with the Division of Educational Technology and will gain a wide range of graphics and numeric skills in all areas of TV, video and telemedia productions as well as scientific visualization. Operations and systems support will initially be provided under facility management with the Department of Computing and Communications. Significant technical expertise is also available in the research community and this initiative will coordinate its activities with the strategic priorities of the research community. To obtain the maximum benefits from the proposed facility a minimal management and administrative structure will oversee the day-to-day operations of the facility. Financial Projections External funding will be sought to match the research community's own commitments to HPC&C in a coordinated strategy to more cost-effectively leverage these significant research investments. A five year cash flow summary is shown in the following table. To clarify the presentation of the base budget, unsubstantiated sources of revenue and financial contributions are set to zero. Reaction Draft Cash Flow Summary ('000s) Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 5 Year Totals (%) Cash Disbursements Personnel $448 $457 $461 $471 $485 $2,323 (44%) (Number of people) (8) (8) (8) (8) (8) Computers $399 $360 $384 $408 $432 $1,983 (37%) Communications $100 $100 $100 $100 $100 $500 (9%) Miscellaneous $112 $100 $100 $100 $100 $512 (10%) Total Disbursements $1,058 $1,017 $1,046 $1,079 $1,117 $5,317 (100%) Opening Bank $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 Cash Receipts $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 Total Cash Available $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 (0%) Cash Receipts Over Disbursements -$1,058 -$1,017 -$1,046 -$1,079 -$1,117 -$5,317 (100%) Financial Contributions Memorial University $191 $192 $192 $192 $192 $959 (18%) Research Grants $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 (0%) User Contributions $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 (0%) Other $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 (0%) Total Financial Contributions $191 $192 $192 $192 $192 $959 (18%) Total Funding Required $866 $826 $854 $887 $925 $4,358 (82%) Closing Bank $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 Under cash disbursements, the budget is summarized into personnel, computers, communications and miscellaneous categories. The costs of personnel (at 44% of total budget) includes salaries (32%), benefits (at 15% of salaries), overheads (at 20% of salaries), and space (at 4% of salaries). The costs of computers (at 37% of total budget) includes purchase of computer time at remote facilities (5%), purchase of computer equipment (20%), maintenance (7%), power (1%), and software (5%). [2] Communications costs are estimated as the cost of implementing a campus wide ATM backbone network ($350K in equipment and $150K in installation costs over 5 years). Miscellaneous costs (as a percentage of total budget) include the costs of preparation of seminars and workshops (5%), PST and GST (5%), auditor's fees (<1%), etc. Under cash receipts, there is no strong component in this proposal for generating revenues through the sale of products and services. Nominal fees for programs like industry workshops and seminars, sponsorships for interns and/or co-op students, for example, could generate cash receipts to offset some of the costs of delivered programs. Financial contributions to the initiative includes the following: Memorial University's contribution to the overall budget includes current line items for HPC&C in the university budget plus full cost accounting for in-kind contributions (primarily space and power). Budget realities introduce the constraint that additional support for this proposal from the university budget is not available. Additional contributions to the initiative may also come from the research community through research grants and/or user contributions. For example, this proposal is eligible for funding under NSERC's infrastructure or collaborative special projects grant programs. The balance of the funding required to meet the proposed budget will be sought externally. Risks and Benefits Risks The primary risks in HPC&C ventures are: 1. Unrealistic expectations 2. The pace of technological change 3. Underfunding 4. Political imponderables 5. Doing nothing Unrealistic expectations have crippled previous HPC&C initiatives in Canada. Obsolete models such as the centralized service bureau model have not been successful in the academic environment and there is no evidence that commercial HPC&C ventures will fare any better. Unrealistic expectations have the crippling effect of imposing impossible goals, introducing constraints that reduce flexibility in operations, and introduces the cycle of failure. Only after experience has been gained in this venture can realistic goals be set. It will take many years of effort to place the facility proposed here on a firm footing. This is in marked contrast with the very short times required to procure and install technology. The 5 years proposed here should be considered a minimum. Providing the maximum benefit for the minimum cost requires continuous technology renewal. Large systems must demonstrate economies of scale and must be renewed or replaced on a 2-3 year cycle. Since large acquisitions have a political cycle that commonly exceeds the technology cycle it is extremely difficult to pursue this strategy without strong political will and leadership. The strategy of following the rate of change in microprocessor technology requires continuous investment in technology renewal on a 6-12 month (or less) time scale. The strength of this proposal is a balance between people and technology. This balance is very sensitive to funding levels. The technology component is set at a lower threshold for providing access to new technological options such as parallel processing, for example. This is balanced with a minimum level of infrastructure support through trained personnel. Inadequate levels of funding will eliminate both technology options and jobs. Political imponderables will have an effect on this initiative. Misconceptions and myths concerning HPC&C abound. The marketing hype surrounding HPC&C can be intense. Through the active involvement of the researchers, the danger that the proposed venture could become isolated from the research community is minimized. The biggest risk is doing nothing. In the final analysis, doing nothing is the most insidious of "strategies." With nothing ventured, there is no debate of issues and no pressure to make difficult decisions. This proposal encourages a full and open process for debate on difficult issues relating to adopting and implementing new technology, but with an imperative that decisions to move forward ultimately must, and will, be made. Benefits of a Newfoundland Initiative in HPC&C Americans have hailed their NSF Centers Program as "an extraordinary success." According to a review of the program in 1992, the program has reaped the following benefits: * Enabled an enormous body of research by providing the national research community with access to state of the art facilities. * Stimulated the development of the computational arts, sciences and engineering by involving many who had not previously used high performance computers. * Contributed in important ways to education ranging from the graduate level to K-12. * Strengthened the infrastructure of the computational arts, sciences and engineering through software development, and through its major role in the development of the national network. * Played an important role in technology transfer through its interaction with vendors and its outreach to the industrial user community. We propose an initiative based in Newfoundland that emulates the successful U.S. model on a small scale for building a high performance computing, communications and people-oriented infrastructure in support of computational research to reap similar benefits for this community. The scale of the initiative is appropriate for the local environment and leverages existing resources as much as possible. The primary benefit of adopting a balanced approach to technology acquisition and infrastructure support is that the benefits delivered to the local community scale well with the expenditures. A knowledge-based economy is a people- based economy above all else and the emphasis in this proposal of balancing people with technology embraces this philosophy. In Newfoundland, we are driven by circumstance to adopt a sense of urgency in reshaping our economy. The level of collaboration and cooperation required across all sectors of the Newfoundland economy to meet this challenge is unprecedented in our history but tremendously exciting as well. This proposal highlights a modest strategy for a local community of researchers in the computational arts, sciences and engineering to participate in meeting this challenge.