| NSF Org: |
OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 27, 2019 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | April 14, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 1925482 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Deepankar Medhi
dmedhi@nsf.gov (703)292-2935 OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2019 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $999,024.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $1,015,014.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2020 = $15,990.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
3 RUTGERS PLZ NEW BRUNSWICK NJ US 08901-8559 (848)932-0150 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
NJ US 08854-3925 |
| 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): |
CISE Research Resources, Campus Cyberinfrastructure |
| Primary Program Source: |
01002021DB 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
The technological landscape of computing is changing at a phenomenal rate with recent advances in big data, deep learning, data mining, cloud services, and cybersecurity, along with many novel consumer and scientific devices. Research universities, especially IT support, are challenged to be agile in this landscape, as they must keep pace with the needs of the research and user community. To bolster researchers working on these technologies, this project seeks to support two key network-centric requirements: incorporating user-owned devices at the edge of the network and moving bulk data between data collection nodes and data processing nodes over the network.
This project will design, implement, test, and utilize a novel research testbed, the Rutgers University Next-Generation Edge Testbed (RU-NET). RU-NET is a campus-wide platform designed to simplify the deployment of new and emerging edge technologies, while preserving the stability of the campus network. RU-NET will allow integrating user-owned devices in laboratories at the edge of the network with Rutgers's three campus networks into a unified 100 Gbit/s network managed using programmable switches and host devices. The RU-NET design is multi-layered, constituting researchers' applications, RU-NET-owned physical resources, and orchestrator software mapping applications to resources and isolating different research applications.
RU-NET will serve as a catalyst to position Rutgers University researchers at the forefront of scientific discovery and to improve compute and network infrastructure that benefits the University community as a whole. The project plans to develop course material to educate undergraduate and graduate students about novel network-centric technologies, training students from Rutgers's diverse student body. The project also plans to share best practices with academic institutions and enterprise communities that are planning similar distributed computing environments, with the possibility of this project serving as a template for similar future efforts.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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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.
The project was focused on the design, implementation, testing, and utilization of a novel research testbed, the Rutgers University Next-Generation Edge Testbed (RU-NET), a state and campus-wide platform designed to simplify the deployment of new and emerging edge technologies with novel advanced networking capabilities, while preserving the stability of the campus enterprise network. RU-NET allowed integrating researcher-owned devices and instruments located in laboratories distributed throughout Rutgers (Camden, Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, and the medical school) and the state through novel edge solutions all connected by a unified fully programmable 100/400 Gbit/s network and host devices (see primary image that gives the state-wide network overview). The RU-NET design is multi-layered and includes researchers' applications, RU-NET-owned physical resources, and orchestration software that maps applications to resources and isolates different research applications. RU-NET served as a catalyst to position Rutgers University researchers at the forefront of scientific discovery and to improve computing and network infrastructure that benefits the University community. The project developed course material to educate undergraduate and graduate students about novel network-centric technologies, training students from Rutgers's diverse student body. The project also shared best practices with academic institutions and enterprise communities through conferences, publications, and workshops interested in building and deploying similar distributed environments using next generation networking.
RU-Net leveraged several NSF funded testbeds including FABRIC and COSMOS. Through these testbed platforms RU-NET connects to other national and international testbeds including those located in Japan, Ireland, and Brazil. The edge computing experimentation in conjunction with advanced networking, Data Processing Units (DPUs) and FPGA based SmartNICs led to a CryoEM pilot project (second image). The pilot project goal is to break down barriers encountered while accessing research instruments, foster team science, and democratize access to scientific instruments. By achieving this goal we have the potential to benefit the research community as a whole, especially under-represented and under-resourced colleges and institutions, who typically do not have access to these resources, nor expertise to take full advantage of them.
Last Modified: 02/08/2024
Modified by: James B Von Oehsen
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