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Scientists from San Diego Supercomputer Center to present discussion on cyberinfrastructure

Mar. 11, 2008—Research scientists from the San Diego Super Computer Center at University of California San Diego will present the panel discussion, "Cyberinfrastructure: Transforming the World of Data Management and Curation" at 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Monday, March 17. The event will be held in the Pleasants Family Room of the Wilson Library on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus. A reception will follow.

Reagan Moore, director of Data and Knowledge Systems; Richard Marciano, director of Sustainable Archives and Library Technologies Laboratory and lead scientist in the Data Intensive Computing Environments; and Arcot Rajasekar, director of the Data Grids Technology Group at the San Diego Super Computer Center will provide discussions on the topics of:

(See abstracts below.)

The panel discussion will be moderated by SILS professor, Dr. Helen Tibbo.

The lecture is hosted by the School of Information and Library Science at UNC at Chapel Hill. The event is free and open to the public, however seating is limited. Please send your RSVP via e-mail to mpenny@email.unc.edu or call 919.962.8366.

Cyberinfrastructure
Reagan Moore
SDSC, UCSD

Multiple scientific domains are assembling digital holdings on which their research initiatives are based.  Cyberinfrastructure provides generic software that makes it possible to conduct the research across distributed compute and storage resources.  We will examine multiple projects that are organizing experimental, observational, and simulation data into shared collections. As part of a data life cycle, the projects transform the shared collections into digital libraries, and then further transform the digital holdings into reference collections.

Cyberinfrastructure initiatives employ data grids, digital libraries, and preservation environments to organize data. Example projects include the Southern California Earthquake Center digital library, the Bio-medical Informatics Research Network data grid, the National Science Digital Library persistent archive, and the NARA Transcontinental Persistent Archive Prototype.

DataGrids 2.0—iRODS: A Second Generation Data Cyberinfrastructure
Arcot Rajasekar
SDSC, UCSD

Large-scale and long term preservation and management of data, both observational and synthesized, requires a system that needs virtualization of concepts and methodology that can work across long-periods of space (distribution) and time (preservation) in an infrastructure independent manner. First generation data grids are built upon concepts of data, resource and trust virtualization. These concepts enable the management of collections of data that are distributed across multiple institutions, stored on multiple types of storage systems, and accessed by multiple types of clients. The Storage Resource Broker (www.sdsc.edu/srb) is an exemplar data grid of this generation used in a wide variety of applications and managing Petabytes of data across the world.

The second generation data grids embody one more level of virtualization—policy or management virtualization. Management virtualization ensures that execution of management policies can be automated, and that rules can be created that verify assertions about shared collections of data. When dealing with distributed large-scale data over long periods of time, the policies used to manage the data and provide assurances about the authenticity of the data become paramount . The integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) (www.sdsc.edu/irods) provides the mechanisms needed to describe not only management policies, but also to track how the policies are applied and the results from application of the policies.

In this talk, we provide an overview of data grids spanning the two generations with particular emphasis on iRODS.

Socializing Cyberinfrastructure through Data Curation Collaboratives
Richard Marciano
SDSC, UCSD

Understanding how to harness technology for networking humanities and social sciences disciplines presents unique challenges. We will discuss a variety of projects in the digital humanities, social sciences, and cultural spaces that challenge our current understanding of cyberinfrastructure and engage digital archivists, librarians, museum curators, historians and scientists.

PRESENTER BIOS

Dr. Reagan W. Moore
Dr. Reagan W. Moore is Director of Data and Knowledge Systems at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. He coordinates research efforts in development of data grids, digital libraries, and preservation environments. Developed software systems include the Storage Resource Broker data grid and the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System. Supported projects include the National Archives and Records Administration Transcontinental Persistent Archive Prototype, the National Science Foundation National Science Digital Library persistent archive, the California Digital Library Digital Preservation Repository, and the Worldwide Universities Network data grid. An ongoing research interest is use of data grid technology to automate execution of management policies and validate trustworthiness of repositories.

Moore has been at SDSC since its inception in 1986, initially being responsible for operating system development. Prior to that, he worked as a computational plasma physicist at General Atomics on equilibrium and stability of toroidal fusion devices. He has a Ph.D. in plasma physics from the University of California, San Diego, (1978) and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (1967).

Dr. Arcot Rajasekar
Dr. Arcot Rajasekar is the Director of the Data Grids Technology Group at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego. He is the lead designer behind the concepts in the Storage Resource Broker and the iRODS data grid systems. Dr. Rajasekar has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland and has multiple publications in the areas of logic programming, dedutive databases, data grids, digital library and persistent archives. He is also a co-author of a book titled Foundations of Disjunctive Logic Programming from the MIT Press.

Dr. Richard Marciano
Dr. Richard Marciano is Director of the Sustainable Archives & Library Technologies (SALT) Laboratory and Lead Scientist in the DICE Group (Data Intensive Computing Environments) at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). He has also served as an Affiliate Professor in the Urban Studies and Planning Program in the Division of Social Sciences.

The SALT Lab is an interdisciplinary unit focused on developing information technology strategies and conducting research in the area of digital materials & records collection and preservation. Richard Marciano's interests are with data management, digital archiving and long-term preservation. Current research projects include eLegacy (preservation of geospatial data), T-RACES (cyberinfrastructure for the humanities), WRAP (preservation workflows for digital video), informatics for urban planning.