| NSF Org: |
OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | December 23, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 5, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1659210 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Kevin Thompson
kthompso@nsf.gov (703)292-4220 OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | January 1, 2017 |
| End Date: | December 31, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $422,460.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $432,460.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2018 = $10,000.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
5200 N LAKE RD MERCED CA US 95343-5001 (209)201-2039 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
5200 N Lake Road Merced CA US 95343-5705 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Campus Cyberinfrastructure |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
As the nation's first new research university of the 21st Century, the University of California Merced (UC Merced) has quickly established itself as a regional leader in emerging research across a wide variety of areas. Many of these research activities involve very large data sets, data-intensive computation and data collaboration.
These endeavors require a reliable, robust and fast network that is different in its construction, management and use from existing internet networks. This new type of network is built for science data flows, has appropriate security measures and is dedicated to its special purpose: research. The Energy Sciences Network (ESNet) has developed a model for such a network called a "Science DMZ". UC Merced is building a Science DMZ network, distinct from the 'regular' network and dedicated for these advanced science applications. This new network cuts data transfer times, allows for seamless data collaboration and sets the stage for new discoveries on the UC Merced campus and beyond.
The project includes a dedicated Science DMZ campus edge router which allows for 10, 40 and 100 Gbps connections across campus and out to the wider scientific community. Each academic building has dedicated fiber optic cables connecting many devices (data servers, clusters and even science instruments) at speeds hundreds of times faster and much more reliably than current networks provide. This project will employ a different security model: by carefully controlling the physical topology of the network, security can be provided without the use of a firewall, vastly improving performance.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
As a result of the funding provided by the National Science Foundation, under the Campus Cyberinfrastructure program, the University of California Merced now has a ScienceDMZ that spans the campus academic core and extends to the Project 2020 campus. As a fully-realized, campus wide high-speed network, the ScienceDMZ serves a wide variety of campus researchers that include: computer scientists and engineers engaged in advanced machine learning, the digital humanities, biological and physical sciences, social sciences, as well as the campus HPC cluster and the Wide Area Visualization Environment (WAVE) as part of the Center for the Digital Humanities. In addition to serving campus needs, the sDMZ also connects UC Merced to the Pacific Research Platform and the Nautilus Cluster (NSF Award Numbers: 1541349 and 1730158, respectively) through its dedicated connection to CENIC’s High-performance Research Network (HPR). As part of the PRP and Nautilus, the sDMZ network hosts three (3) Fast I/O Network Appliances (FIONAs), and over a dozen servers which contain more than 38 advanced Graphics Processor Units (GPU) that enable researchers on the UC Merced campus and beyond. Additionally, the sDMZ allows the campus to host a portion of a large, distributed Ceph storage architecture, with at least 250TBs of available storage attached to the network. The network connects scientific instruments and educational tools in research labs, server rooms, and public spaces to the wider world. Connections to research collaborators are tested every day through the wide deployment of MadDash and perfSONAR in collaboration with engineers at UC San Diego and the Energy Sciences Network (ESNet). As part of the PRP and Nautilus, the UC Merced sDMZ operates as a part of a larger whole, enabling automation for advanced cyberinfrastructure services that exceed the campus capabilities alone.
As a general purpose and widely deployed campus cyberinfrastructure, the UC Merced Science DMZ has had measurable, positive impacts on research and collaboration that will continue to enable 21st Century research from the nation’s first 21st Century research university.
Last Modified: 03/10/2020
Modified by: Suzanne S Sindi
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