Award Abstract # 1925484
CC* Networking Infrastructure: Building a Science DMZ for Data-intensive Research and Computation at the University of South Carolina

NSF Org: OAC
Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC)
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Initial Amendment Date: July 1, 2019
Latest Amendment Date: July 1, 2019
Award Number: 1925484
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: July 1, 2019
End Date: June 30, 2022 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $498,525.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $498,525.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2019 = $498,525.00
History of Investigator:
  • Jorge Crichigno (Principal Investigator)
    jcrichigno@cec.sc.edu
  • Steffen Strauch (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Andreas Heyden (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Neset Hikmet (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Paul Sagona (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of South Carolina at Columbia
1600 HAMPTON ST
COLUMBIA
SC  US  29208-3403
(803)777-7093
Sponsor Congressional District: 06
Primary Place of Performance: University of South Carolina
550 Assembly St.
Columbia
SC  US  29201-0001
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
06
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): J22LNTMEDP73
Parent UEI: Q93ZDA59ZAR5
NSF Program(s): Campus Cyberinfrastructure
Primary Program Source: 01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 9150
Program Element Code(s): 808000
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.070

ABSTRACT

The University of South Carolina (UofSC) is establishing a new network, namely a Science DMZ, operating at 100 Gbps. The Science DMZ supports current research moving terabyte-scale data between UofSC and national laboratories (e.g., Argonne, Fermi, Oak Ridge, Savannah River, Los Alamos), university collaborators, and the national network of supercomputer centers (XSEDE). The project serves the national interest, as it addresses the need to connect UofSC to the national "cyber-highway" system to share big science data, hence promoting collaboration and national competitiveness, aligned with NSF's mission. The new cyberinfrastructure also permits researchers to exchange large datasets with collaborators geographically distributed across the world. Examples include nuclear physics results from the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland and observation files from the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) in Italy.

The elements of UofSC's Science DMZ include: i) data transfer nodes (DTNs), built for sending/receiving data at a high speed over wide area networks; ii) high-throughput, friction-free paths connecting DTNs, instruments, storage devices, and computing systems; iii) measurement devices to monitor end-to-end paths; and iv) security policies tailored for high-performance environments. The proposed Science DMZ substantially increases the bandwidth to compute and XSEDE resources, permitting their use on digital image correlation, semiconductor material development, DNA/RNA sequencing, and other areas. Additionally, UofSC hosts key national resources and centers including the first U.S. deployed Time of Flight-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer, NOAA's National Estuarine Research Reserves database, McNair Aerospace Center, and Baruch Institute. These resources are now more efficiently used by researchers and collaborators.

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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AlSabeh, Ali and Kfoury, Elie and Crichigno, Jorge and Bou-Harb, Elias "Leveraging SONiC Functionalities in Disaggregated Network Switches" 2020 43rd International Conference on Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP) , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1109/TSP49548.2020.9163508 Citation Details
AlSabeh, Ali and Khoury, Joseph and Kfoury, Elie and Crichigno, Jorge and Bou-Harb, Elias "A survey on security applications of P4 programmable switches and a STRIDE-based vulnerability assessment" Computer Networks , v.207 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2022.108800 Citation Details
Gomez, Jose and Kfoury, Elie and Crichigno, Jorge and Bou-Harb, Elias and Srivastava, Gautam "A Performance Evaluation of TCP BBRv2 Alpha" 2020 43rd International Conference on Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP) , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1109/TSP49548.2020.9163512 Citation Details
Gomez, Jose and Kfoury, Elie F. and Crichigno, Jorge "Enabling P4 Hands-on Training in an Academic Cloud" International Workshop on Test and Evaluation of Programmable Networks , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1109/DCOSS54816.2022.00077 Citation Details
Gomez, Jose and Kfoury, Elie F. and Crichigno, Jorge and Srivastava, Gautam "A survey on TCP enhancements using P4-programmable devices" Computer Networks , v.212 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2022.109030 Citation Details
Kfoury, Elie and Crichigno, Jorge and Bou-Harb, Elias and Srivastava, Gautam "Dynamic Router's Buffer Sizing using Passive Measurements and P4 Programmable Switches" IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1109/GLOBECOM46510.2021.9685160 Citation Details
Kfoury, Elie and Gomez, Jose and Crichigno, Jorge and Bou-Harb, Elias "An emulation-based evaluation of TCP BBRv2 Alpha for wired broadband" Computer communications , v.160 , 2020 https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2020.07.018 Citation Details
Kfoury, Elie F. and Crichigno, Jorge and Bou-Harb, Elias "An Exhaustive Survey on P4 Programmable Data Plane Switches: Taxonomy, Applications, Challenges, and Future Trends" IEEE Access , v.9 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3086704 Citation Details

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 University of South Carolina (UofSC) established a new network, namely a Science DMZ, and improved connectivity to external networks. The project had two goals: 1) Create a 100 Gbps Science DMZ, purposely designed to facilitate the transfer of big science data between UofSC's researchers and collaborators. 2) Increase the connectivity from UofSC to Internet2, from 5 Gbps to 100 Gbps. By fulfilling these goals, UofSC now supports research projects that move terabyte-scale data between the new Science DMZ and national laboratories (e.g., Argonne, Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, Savannah River), universities, national computing centers (e.g., San Diego Supercomputing Center, Texas Advanced Computing Center), and international facilities (e.g., the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Swiss' Paul Scherrer Institute, Japan's National Institute of Informatics). The high throughput achieved with the new infrastructure is reflected in the increase of science data transfers between UofSC's researchers and collaborators. For example, in the last year of the project, the volume of science data transfers increased by more than 300% with respect to the previous year.

The new infrastructure is also used in other disciplines beyond science and technology, such as film digitization. For example, the U.S. Marine Corps History Division and UofSC have entered a partnership to preserve films, which are part of a larger collection that dates from World War I to the mid-1980s. By leveraging its storage and high-speed capabilities, the Science DMZ is used to store terabytes of digitized films, which are subsequently transferred to other laboratories on campus, the U.S. Marine Corps History Division, or external organizations interested in the material. Historic films that were difficult to access before are now available to the public.

The project enabled over 20 information technology (IT) undergraduate students to develop hands-on skills while assisting with the deployment of the Science DMZ. Similarly, five graduate students conducted research on new communication protocols and technologies that have been applied to the new infrastructure. Research results that have helped advance the state of the art of high-speed networks, Science DMZs, programmable switches, congestion control, and cybersecurity have been published in a book and eight peer-reviewed journal and conference articles. Finally, lessons learned have been further disseminated via over 20 workshops. The workshops were co-organized with national and regional research and educations networks: ESnet / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (CA), the Engagement and Performance Operations Center (EPOC) (IN), Western Academy Support and Training Center (WASTC) (CA), New York State Education and Research Network (NYSERNET) (NY), Great Plains Network (GPN) (MO), Southern Crossroads (SOX) (GA), Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN) (TX), and Internet2.


Last Modified: 10/30/2022
Modified by: Jorge Crichigno

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