SPECIAL FEATURES:
CYBERINFRASTRUCTURE OR THE GRID
--
IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?
The report envisions a future
cyberinfrastructure that will "radically
empower" the science and engineering community.
The critical needs of science and rapid progress in information technology
are converging to provide a unique opportunity to create and apply a sustained
cyberinfrastructure that will "radically empower" scientific and engineering
research and allied education, according to the National Science Foundation
(NSF)'s Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure. The committee details its
recommendations in a report, released today, entitled Revolutionizing Science
and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure.
Like the physical infrastructure of roads, bridges, power grids, telephone
lines, and water systems that support modern society, "cyberinfrastructure"
refers to the distributed computer, information and communication technologies
combined with the personnel and integrating components that provide a long-
term platform to empower the modern scientific research endeavor.
Cyberinfrastructure is "essential, not optional, to the aspirations of
research communities." For scientists and engineers, the report states,
cyberinfrastructure has the potential to "revolutionize what they can do, how
they do it, and who participates." The seeds of this revolution are seen in
community-driven efforts, supported by NSF and other agencies, such as the
Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulations (NEES), the Grid Physics
Network (GriPhyN) and the National Virtual Observatory (NVO).
"We've clearly documented extensive grass-roots activity in the scientific
and engineering research community to create and use cyberinfrastructure to
empower the next wave of discovery," said Dan Atkins, chair of the advisory
committee and professor in the University of Michigan School of Information
and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "NSF has
been a catalyst for creating the conditions for a nascent cyberinfrastructure-
based revolution. We're at a new threshold where technology allows people,
information, computational tools, and research instruments to be connected on
a global scale."
While identifying the opportunities, the committee warned that the
cyberinfrastructure that is needed cannot be created today with off-the-shelf
technology. As a result, they called for increased fundamental research in
computer science and engineering.
In addition to NSF's support for projects such as NEES, GriPhyN and NVO,
the report calls out NSF's leadership in the Partnerships for Advanced
Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program, the TeraGrid effort, the NSF
Middleware Initiative (NMI), the Digital Libraries Initiative and the
Information Technology Research program as providing a solid foundation for
the future cyberinfrastructure.
Its unique breadth of scientific scope and prior investments position NSF
to lead an interagency program to develop an advanced cyberinfrastructure for
the nation, according to the report. To reach critical mass, an advanced
cyberinfrastructure activity would require interagency partnerships as well as
collaboration between the physical and life sciences, computer science, and
the social sciences.
"On behalf of NSF, I want to extend a strong thanks to the Advisory
Committee for Cyberinfrastructure for the excellent job they have done in
highlighting the importance of cyberinfrastructure to all of science and
engineering research and education," said Peter Freeman, NSF Assistant
Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering and NSF's
coordinator for cyberinfrastructure. "The extensive efforts they have made in
bringing together in one place the ideas and visions of all segments of the
science and engineering community will be extremely useful to NSF as we move
forward to exploit the opportunities they have identified."
The report recommends that a cyberinfrastructure program encompass
fundamental cyberinfrastructure research, research on science and engineering
applications of the cyberinfrastructure, development of production-quality
software, and equipment and operations.
The report emphasizes the importance of acting quickly and the risks of
failing to do so. The risks include lack of coordination, which could leave
key data in irreconcilable formats; long-term failures to archive and curate
data collected at great expense; and artificial barriers between disciplines
built from incompatible tools and structures.
The opportunity is evidenced by both progress from developments in
information technology and the mushrooming of cyberinfrastructure projects for
specific fields, initiated by scientists in those fields. The NSF has a once-
in-a- generation opportunity," according to the committee, to lead the
scientific and engineering community in the coordinated development and
expansive use of cyberinfrastructure.
http://www.communitytechnology.org/nsf_ci_report
NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure: http://www.cise.nsf.gov/evnt/blu_rbbn.
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