CANARIE’s mandate renewed!

Minister of Finance, the Honourable Jim Flaherty, arrives to deliver the federal budget in the House of Commons on June 6, 2011.

Contributor: Kathryn Anthonisen, Vice President, Marketing at CANARIE

Well the budget has been tabled and after almost a year of advocacy, CANARIE was successful in renewing our mandate and funding for the next two years.

Whew!

First of all, we’d like to thank everyone who took the time to write a letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Industry, or his or her local MP. These letters clearly made a difference in our efforts, by letting government decision-makers know that there is a large community of users and supporters of the network, and that the network and its programs have become foundational digital infrastructure in Canada.

The process of advocating for our mandate renewal was a fascinating journey. Sometimes, as when I watched CANARIE’s President and CEO present in front of the House of Commons Finance Committee, I was humbled and awed to be part of Canadian democracy in action. While speaking with CANARIE users across the country, I was amazed at the huge variety of research that is reliant upon the network, and fascinated by the game-changing nature of some of this research. And working with the team at CANARIE, which has been busily ensuring that our current mandate is successfully completed, I am proud to be part of a group of such committed, professional and talented individuals.

And now we’ve got our work cut out for us: delivering on the three main areas we are pursuing in this mandate. Just to refresh your memory, our plan is to:

1. Evolve the network to meet growing demand, which means:

• increasing network bandwidth to address the trend of data-intensive research
• expanding the network to connect additional institutions
• providing core network funding assistance to support regional digital equity

2. Build network tools to speed time to discovery, which involves:

• developing a generic researcher environment
• creating discipline-specific plug-ins (e.g. health, social sciences) based on existing research platforms, to enhance researcher productivity
• cultivating the next generation of GreenIT by building on existing investments and supporting made-in-Canada solutions

3. Leverage the network to commercialize innovation, which means:

• Fully implement the Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research (DAIR) Program, expanding access to a robust R & D environment where digital innovators can develop, refine, validate and demonstrate innovative products and services, and move them quickly to market.

It’s an incredibly exciting time at CANARIE – we’ll keep you posted on progress via our email blasts, website updates, CANARIE Connections newsletter and speaking engagements at conferences and events.

Stay tuned!

CANARIE a obtenu la reconduction de son mandat!

L'honorable Jim Flaherty, ministre des Finances | le 6 juin 2011

Contributrice: Kathryn Anthonisen, Vice présidente, Marketing chez CANARIE

Eh bien, le budget a finalement été déposé et, au terme de près d’un an de démarches, CANARIE a obtenu la reconduction de son mandat pour les deux années à venir.

Fiou!

Pour commencer, j’aimerais remercier tous ceux qui ont pris un peu de leur précieux temps pour écrire qui au premier ministre, qui au ministre des Finances, au ministre de l’Industrie ou à son député. De toute évidence, ces lettres ont fortifié nos propres efforts en prouvant aux décideurs du gouvernement qu’il existe bel et bien une vaste collectivité d’utilisateurs et d’adeptes du réseau, et que ce dernier, avec ses programmes, est véritablement devenu un des piliers de l’infrastructure numérique canadienne.

La manière dont nous avons défendu le renouvellement de notre mandat s’est avérée fascinante à plus d’un égard. Parfois – lorsque j’ai vu le président et chef de direction de CANARIE effectuer sa présentation au Comité des finances de la Chambre des communes, par exemple –, concourir de cette manière à notre démocratie en action m’a emplie tout à la fois d’humilité et d’admiration. Quand je me suis entretenue avec les utilisateurs de CANARIE, un peu partout au pays, j’ai été sidérée par l’incroyable diversité des recherches qui dépendent du réseau, tout comme j’ai été captivée par la nature, propre à changer les règles du jeu, de certains projets. Et après avoir travaillé avec l’équipe de CANARIE, qui n’a pas ménagé ses efforts pour s’assurer que la mission actuelle de l’organisme soit effectivement remplie, je suis on ne peut plus fière d’appartenir à un groupe de professionnels aussi déterminés et talentueux.

À présent, notre travail est tout tracé : progresser dans les trois voies que nous avons dessinées dans le cadre de ce nouveau mandat. Permettez-moi de vous rafraîchir la mémoire. Voici nos intentions.

1.    Développer le réseau pour qu’il réponde à une demande grandissante, soit, en d’autres termes :

• accroître la largeur de bande afin de suivre la tendance vers un usage de plus en plus massif des données en recherche
• élargir le réseau en y raccordant d’autres institutions;
• dispenser une aide financière aux réseaux pour garantir l’équité numérique entre les régions.

2.    Créer des outils réseau pour accélérer la découverte, ce qui suppose :

• mettre en place une plateforme générique pour la recherche;
• créer des modules spécifiques à certaines disciplines (par ex., sciences de la santé, sciences sociales) à partir des plateformes existantes, en vue d’accroître le rendement des chercheurs;
• introduire la prochaine génération de TI vertes en valorisant les investissements actuels et en misant sur des solutions typiquement canadiennes.

3.   Tirer parti du réseau pour commercialiser les innovations, c’est-à-dire :

• Mettre totalement en œuvre l’Accélérateur technologique pour l’innovation et la recherche (ATIR), ce qui permettra un plus vaste accès à une robuste plateforme de R-D sur laquelle les innovateurs du numérique pourront élaborer, perfectionner, valider et présenter des produits et des services novateurs qui parviendront ainsi plus rapidement sur le marché.

CANARIE traverse une époque palpitante – nous vous tiendrons au courant des progrès réalisés grâce à nos courriels, en actualisant notre site Web, au moyen du bulletin Connexions ainsi que lors d’allocutions aux congrès et à l’occasion d’autres activités.

Restez à l’écoute!

Open Source Culture

Many members in the IT community are long-standing supporters of the idea of open source, including Cybera. But it really became evident that this movement had gone mainstream when it is was recently featured at a TEDx talk. For Edmonton’s inaugural TEDx Salon Series, held February 8, the main topic for discussion was the benefit of open source and open source culture, and how it has already become an important function in our everyday online activities.

As Steve Fisher, one of the four presenters at the TEDx event, pointed out: “a lot of people don’t even know that they’re using [open source software].”  For example, if you’ve ever used WordPress to build a blog, or used Drupal to create and manage your business website, guess what: those are open-sourced content management systems (CMS).

The benefits of open source for a community can be as macro or as micro as you like. Fisher summed it up quite nicely when he said that open source, “at its heart, is about making things better.” It’s altruistically motivated, meaning that it is a good thing simply for the sake of being a good thing.

A good example of this is one of the open source projects that Cybera currently manages: the Water and Environmental Hub (WEHUB). This online platform connects water and environmental data gathered from open source websites or participating geo-based organizations, and makes it available in a format that users can access, share, mash-up and model. The goal of WEHUB is to not only be a one-stop shop for any water-related information, but to also make it easy for applications to be built on this data using a unified output service (API). This will enable a wide variety of useful, educational and fun applications to be created and shared with the public.

Currently, the WEHUB has both an example Apple and Android app available for free download.

Open government is a similar idea that has the same goals in mind, and benefits to the public, as an open source project. Here in Alberta, Edmonton has proved to be a shining example of this initiative. Developers and interested citizens in the city are given access to information such as neighbourhoods boundaries, garbage collection schedules, and recreation facility locations and amenities, all live-streamed via the Internet. The city also offers the added bonus of a Google Document to keep track of what data sets may become available in the near future, and when the existing data was last updated. Not many other cities have the same open source culture in government.

This information can be also used to develop applications that would be of further use to citizens. The popular “there’s an app for that” tag-line from Apple ads carries some serious weight in Edmonton; it’s likely that there is an app for most public information needs, to which Edmontonians can thank their open government.

Open source software is moving our world forward, and having the open source culture allows both source code and minds to remain open. To summarize using Fisher’s words: “I do [this] because I believe in it, I don’t do it necessarily because I get paid (although I do appreciate that). I do it because I think it’s an altruistic thing to do. I love that the world around me is improving because of some of the things that I’m doing.”

Centralizing Science?

Contributing author: Bill St. Arnaud

Years ago many universities had their own research telescopes and small accelerators. But as the demands, as well as the costs, of science increased, researchers quickly realized they had to consolidate their resources and build instruments that served the needs of hundreds or thousands of researchers around the globe. Virtually of all today’s big science instruments such as telescopes, particle accelerators, and synchrotrons are multi-country collaborations.

Research computing may be headed in the same direction.

The next generation of super-computers and research cloud infrastructure required for things like climate modeling, weather forecasting, or epidemiological studies, which will require massive amounts of energy to operate. The energy costs alone may compel international partnership to deploy and build such infrastructure on the same scale of global collaboration as we have seen for telescopes and particle accelerators.

Big Science facilities need to think about emissions.

More importantly with the growing threat of climate change it is critical that such facilities not be major sources of CO2 emissions in their own right. Some examples:

• The new climate modeling super computer in Exeter in the UK
• The recently constructed NCAR data center in Wyoming.

We are already seeing early signs of such research-computing collaborations. Examples:

• The investigation by CERN to relocate its data center to Nordic countries,
• The examination, by universities in the Boston area to relocate their computing facilities to a small municipal hydro-electric facility 90 miles west of Boston.

Potential cost savings

Global collaboration will also significantly save individual universities millions of dollars in electrical costs as research computing currently represents 15-30% of the electricity consumption at many universities. The energy savings alone could possibly pay for this next generation of research computing and still leave additional money to support critical research.

Obviously high speed optical networks and open lightpath exchanges will be critical to such a reality. But it is just as important that energy and environmental savings not be transferred to the higher costs in the network and so new low-carbon network architectures are needed as well.

Do you see this as the future of research computing?

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About the author

Bill St. Arnaud, formerly a Chief Research Officer at CANARIE, is a Green IT consultant who works with clients on a variety of subjects such as the next generation Internet and practical solutions to reduce GHG emissions such as free broadband and electrical highways. He currently also works as a consultant at CANARIE.

Disturb. Dislocate. Disorder. Disrupt?

Contributing author: Bill St. Arnaud

Some argue that the role of Research & Education (R&E) networks should only be as a low-cost Internet service provider to the R&E community.

Others counter that R&E networks should focus on providing services to support e-Science and perhaps even integrate with other e-Infrastructure providers such as High-Performance Computing (HPC) and grid.

And yet still others argue that R&E networks should work closely with industry by providing testbeds to develop and/or improve industry products and enable commercialization of university R&D.

In my opinion R&E networks can play far more important role, first in supporting e-Science, but also in helping industry and creating a knowledge society by being an innovative “disrupter.” This is where R&E networks have been hugely successful in the past:

• first in the build out of the original Internet,
• next in deployment of low-cost user-owned fibre networks,
• and more recently in areas of new architecture for low-carbon Internet networks and global authentication schemes.

These disruptive developments were first intended, in many cases, to support the needs of science, but also had a beneficial effect of creating new network business models and enabling knowledge transformation of society as a whole.

I am pleased to see that we are now on the verge of another disruptive change with respect to R&E networks.

Once again, while these network transformations are first being driven by the needs of eScience the network architectures are starting already to have a beneficial effect on broadband architectures in general. A good example, of course, is the unique facilitation role that Internet2 is playing in the rollout of national broadband through its partnership in UCAN. Other examples include the deployment of community transit exchange points by BCNET and peering points by KAREN in New Zealand.

Do you see R&E networks as disruptive technologies?

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About the author

Bill St. Arnaud, formerly a Chief Research Officer at CANARIE, is a Green IT consultant who works with clients on a variety of subjects such as the next generation Internet and practical solutions to reduce GHG emissions such as free broadband and electrical highways. He currently also works as a consultant at CANARIE.

Innovating our policies along with our practices

Richard Hawkins speaking on innovation policy at the Tech Futures Summit.

An interesting conversation was happening today at the Alberta Innovates Technology Futures Summit. Richard Hawkins, University of Calgary Professor and Canada Research Chair in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, presented on how to determine whether or not innovation policies are working.

He talked about how one of the challenges faced by government-sponsored innovation programs is to demonstrate impact from public investment, especially in the short to medium term. Unfortunately, that is not always enough time to collect conclusive data or tangible results.

According to Hawkins, the solution to this un-complementary fit is to re-calibrate performance expectations and broaden our measurements. These days, we should be looking at program impacts on multiple and different parts of the innovation system, including the social and economic sectors.

Also, developing more technology should be a means, not an end, he said. “There is no shortage of technology, but there is a shortage of innovation,” Hawkins said. Policies that focus on simply producing technology rather than deploying it are missing the point.

So, shifting our perspective from technology as the innovation to technology as the conduit (or “platform”, to give a pointed nod to CANARIE’s Network-Enabled Platforms Program as an example), we see that innovation and the resulting impacts are then driven by who uses the technology, what they use it for, and how that changes what they were doing before.

As innovation is built around change and disruption, it makes sense that our policies and policy-building approaches should evolve in response. Measuring short-term impacts will always be a challenge, but if we change what we’re looking at and where we’re looking for it, that can help uncover new measures of success.

What are your thoughts? Do current metrics accurately measure innovation impacts? If not, how should policies change? Please leave your comments below.

Canada needs to seize the green energy opportunity

The world’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector is in need of a green energy provider, and, according to Mohamed Cheriet, spokesperson for the GreenStar Network (GSN) project, that’s where Canada has the potential to make its mark.

Cheriet, a Professor in the Department of Synchromedia at the École de technologie supérieure in Montreal, gave an overview of the GSN project at the CANARIE Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on Tuesday, June 21. The virtual AGM was videoconferenced across four sites using CANARIE’s advanced network and the GSN. Cybera’s Calgary facility was one of the broadcast locations, joining Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Cheriet showed a map plotting 2,000 datacentres in the world. Of those, he said that half are based in the United States (US), 57 in Canada, and the rest are spread around the world. These centres are one of the ICT sector’s largest energy consumers. As more and more research organizations, institutions and businesses of all sizes turn to cloud, virtualization and remote storage as data solutions, the reliance on ICT — and the amount of greenhouse gases this sector produces — is expected to grow. Currently, Cheriet noted, the ICT industry in the US accounts for 8% of its national power consumption. The carbon dioxide produced from that energy consumption is growing by at least 6% per year.

This is where Canada and the GSN come in.

The Calgary-based GreenStar Network node is operated by Cybera and powered by eight solar panels located on the roof of the Alastair Ross Technology Centre.

As we’ve already noted in past blogs, the GSN project draws renewable energy from five nodes across Canada. Cybera is a local partner in the project, operating the Calgary solar-powered node located on the roof of the Alastair Ross Technology Centre (pictured at right). With a global reach in mind, the GSN project has expanded overseas to host nodes in Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, and Spain. A Memorandum of Understanding has also been signed with partners in China, and one with Egypt is in the works.

Cheriet says Canada offers unique advantages which make it an ideal green energy producer. The country’s expanding investment into hydro, wind and solar resources means energy can be provisioned at a low price. Access to high-speed optical network infrastructure (such as that provided by CANARIE) enables high-performance connections with major content providers, allowing for large-scale research projects and leading-edge network-enabled platforms. This has also set the stage for the GSN project to experiment with key areas of ICT operation and management technology, namely virtualization, cloud management, carbon monitoring and energy optimization. The next step, argues Cheriet, is to continue rallying and building government and industry support for adopting green IT and green energy platforms.

CANARIE, a major funder of the project, is on board with GSN’s vision.
“If we can become a leader in green IT, it creates economic advantages for all Canadians,” said Mark Roman, CANARIE President and CEO.

As CANARIE begins its mandate renewal process, the GSN is one of many funded projects that demonstrate CANARIE’s impact on advancing Canada’s digital economy strategy. Both Roman and Mark Whitmore, Chair of CANARIE’s Board of Directors, highlighted the following as priority areas for the organization’s mandate renewal:

• reach out to more Canadian users and enhance international collaborations
• incorporate emerging technologies such as cloud and wireless
• spearhead economic development and job creation

Strong collaborations remain a cornerstone to these plans, Whitmore noted, and CANARIE will continue to develop and support partnerships in Canada’s research, education and industry sectors.

So what does the upcoming year look like for you? Is green energy or some form of green IT on the horizon for your organization? Are you using Cybera’s or CANARIE’s advanced network for a project or pilot? We want to hear about it. Leave your comments below!

Reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated.

Mark Twain, who was the recipient of a premature obituary, cleverly quipped, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”  Likewise, despite what you may have heard in the blogosphere, CANARIE is alive and well and looking forward to a renewed mandate in the 2012 budget.

Yesterday, Nancy Leblanc wrote glowingly of CANARIE at Impolitical, but was distraught at, as she put it, “the government’s decision to no longer fund Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Network (aka the ‘CANARIE network’) as of 2012, confirmed in the budget.”

We’d like to set the record straight and ease those anxious minds …

CANARIE receives funding in five-year blocks, so the current Government estimates indicate that CANARIE’s funding is to be retired. That language can be confusing — what it really means is that this five-year funding block expires this year. BUT — CANARIE will apply for another five-year funding block, which will be included in the March 2012 budget.

CANARIE’s senior leadership team have been working closely with Industry Canada in putting the final touches on our proposal for mandate renewal, which presents a strong case for the need for ongoing funding of CANARIE if Canada is to continue to engage in world-leading science, research, innovation and discovery.

If you want more detail on the proposal, go to our website at www.canarie.ca and watch our CEO, Mark Roman present the elements we are proposing. Of course we are mindful of the fiscal environment the Government is managing right now, and our proposal reflects a balanced approach to the need for advanced digital infrastructure in a challenging environment.

The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology

The Government of Canada is committed to supporting leading-edge research in Canada, which relies on the CANARIE Network. Earlier this week Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear put it nicely:

“Science drives Canada’s economy. Our government is committed to investing in the people and ideas that will produce tomorrow’s breakthroughs, in order to create jobs and improve the quality of life of Canadians.”

Hear, hear!

So, thank you for your support (keep it coming!) but don’t fret; we’re still going strong.

But, since we’re on the topic — chime in: what would it mean to you if the government DID stop funding CANARIE?

What drives innovation?

Minister MacKay and recipients: (Left to right) Dave Davies, Managing Director, Forest Protection Ltd.; Chris Riley, Agrifor Consulting; Graham Thurston, Canadian Forest Service; Honorable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence; Dr. Kirk Hillier, Associate Professor, Acadia University; Ed Hurley, Canadian Forest Service; Ray Ivany, President and Vice-Chancellor, Acadia University; Dr. Tom Herman, Vice-President Academic, Acadia University

Minister Peter MacKay, and the Government of Canada, believe investments in science and technology are the way to go…. and they have put their money where their mouth is by committing $15M to new research projects in Atlantic Canada. These investments are part of more than $61 million being invested in Atlantic Canada in 26 innovative research and development projects. The six most recent recipients to receive funding include: Capital Health, Halifax (two projects); Immunovaccine Inc., Halifax; Dalhousie University, Halifax; Acadia University, Wolfville; Seaforth Energy Inc., Dartmouth; and B.W. BioEnergy Incorporated, Sydney. The projects will contribute to Nova Scotia’s long-term economic growth by further developing its life sciences, renewable energy, and agriculture and forestry sectors.

It’s worth noting that three of the six recipients – Acadia University, Dalhousie University, and Capital Health, are members of ACORN-NS, Nova Scotia’s advanced network. Coincidence? Or does innovation across a range of sectors rely on the capacity, speed and reach of Canada’s advanced digital infrastructure?

What do you think?

(To read more, read the release from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.)

Welcome to Digital Innovators

THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF CANADA’S ADVANCED NETWORK ALLIANCE

CANARIE, along with our provincial network partners, will add new content on a weekly basis, but encourage our partners to post more regularly. We want to make this a lively space for the community to discuss and debate issues affecting advanced networks and their users.

The primary goals of the advanced networks blog is to create a community of advanced network users, developers, visionaries and champions, together with an online space where they can share information and discuss issues affecting the community. Our audience is anyone with an interest in advanced networks – their future direction, uses, benefits, developments in Canada and internationally – that means you!