Four no more, time to add six to the mix!

IPv6IPv6, that is. CANARIE is working in partnership with ORANs/GigaPop operators, universities and industry, providing an incentive to achieve full IPv6 deployment among Canada's research, innovation and education communities.

Lack of IPv6 support by Canadian ISPs has been a barrier to deployment of this important new protocol in the Canadian research, innovation and education communities. In order to address this gap, CANARIE has extended our IPv6 service to offer full commodity IPv6 routing to the ORANs for distribution to their connected institutions. This is will help to drive IPv6 deployment and promote the wide scale use of IPv6 among CANARIE stakeholders.

By providing direct links and connections with Internet eXchange Points (IXPs), our users will be able to connect to IPv6 commercial content, such as Google, as well as have global IPv6 connectivity. An overlay IPv6 topology has been established to support this new service, with distributed connections in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary. As well, we have established a new router in Vancouver, through a creative partnership with BCNET. By implementing a 'logical system' we can share a portion of the BCNET Juniper router, providing a cost effective and innovative way to maximize use of the a single physical device, without the additional expense of buying new hardware. Our Routing Policy is being updated to specifically address IPv6 requirements. In addition to offering IPv6 peering, CANARIE is upgrading its internal applications and services (such as our routing registry, DNS server, email, etc) to be fully IPv6 compliant. These initiatives are providing valuable hands-on experience for our partners moving to implement IPv6.

An initial survey of IPv6 readiness across the country by CANARIE showed that many ORANs are well on their way to full IPv6 support, while others are still waiting for user demand to prioritize the effort. Over 40 participants from ORANs, GigaPops, universities and industry have joined with CANARIE to form an IPv6 Working Group, whose goals include establishing detailed deployment plans, sharing of technical expertise and lessons learned, as well as hands on technical training in all aspects of IPv6. This includes not just the networking components such as routing, but other critical aspects such as strategies for updating key applications and services like email, Web servers , firewalls and DNS. With the leadership of William Maton (Federal GigaPop Operator, National Research Council) and Marilyn Hay (Network Engineering Manager, BCNET), as well as CANARIE technical staff, this Working Group will be a great resource to help move this critical deployment initiative forward.

Major milestone in green computing achieved

GreenStar NetworkCanada became a bit greener this spring, and not just because our bounty of trees burst into leaf. A major milestone was reached by the GreenStar Network when two network nodes, powered by renewable energy, were launched.

The GreenStar Network, a CANARIE-funded initiative under the Green IT program, aims to reduce the carbon impact of ICT by developing the world's first Internet network where the network nodes are powered by renewable energy. A likely outcome of the GreenStar Network is a broader market for proven Green IT and a strong Canadian leadership position within it.

The first solar powered node of the network was installed at the Communications Research Centre in Ottawa and became fully operational on May 21st. The second node was launched in Calgary, and will be managed by Cybera. This node will draw more than 230 watts of power from eight solar panels installed on roof space donated by Calgary Technologies Inc. in the Alastair Ross Technology Centre.

The GreenStar nodes will act as small datacentres - facilities designed to hold computer servers - and will draw power from renewable energy sources such as wind, water and the sun. If the node uses up its power supply before it is able to recharge, the data will be seamlessly transferred along the network to another operational node. The GreenStar Network is expected to eventually extend into the United States and overseas to Spain, Belgium, and Ireland.

Cloudy days are good news for Canadian researchers

And particularly for those involved in astronomical or high energy physics research. A joint team of developers from the labs of Dr. Randy Sobie and Dr. Chris Pritchet at the University of Victoria have made a breakthrough in using cloud computing to manage and process vast data sets across two research domains.

Two CANARIE-funded projects, the High Energy Physics (HEP) Legacy Data project and CANFAR, are reaping enormous benefit from the software developed by a team staffed by resources from both projects. The collaboration makes sense, given that both teams deal with vast amounts of data; the HEP Legacy Data team is working to preserve the particle physics data created by the BaBar experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Facility in California over the past ten years. The CANFAR team is working to harness the data collected from a series of astronomical surveys that explore the outer reaches of our galaxy.

The joint team has developed a cloud scheduling system which optimizes the use of the cloud in processing simulated data from BaBar and a large sample of astronomical survey data. The software enables the use of distributed academic and commercial cloud resources, which include a range of Virtual Machines (VMs) that are run over a number of clouds. The cloud scheduler that the team developed optimizes the way the clouds' resources (CPUs) are deployed when running the VMs. This results in optimized use of cloud resources, reduced processing times and accelerated access to data sets that will help researchers unlock the mystery of the origin of mass and of our universe. Quite simply, this innovative software maximizes virtual computing resources and enables accelerated research outcomes.

Successful collaboration among CANARIE-funded project participants is a key goal of CANARIE's programs, demonstrating how sophisticated software tools can be leveraged across several research domains. Discussions are currently underway to determine if this software could be used by the Ocean Science Virtual Organization team, another CANARIE-funded project that generates large data sets.

Congratulations to the team on their successful collaboration and achievement of this important milestone!

Canadian researchers strutting their stuff

See who's been presenting where over the past few months.

Open Grid Forum 28
March 15 - 19
Ocean Sciences Virtual Organization, GeoChronos, Global Brain Research and Imaging Network (GBRAIN)

ORION Summit
April 13
Heath Services Virtual Organization (HSVO)

BCNET Summit
May 4 - 5
Ocean Sciences Virtual Organization, High Energy Physics Legacy Data, GeoChronos, Canadian Bioinformatics Resources as Semantic Services (C-BRASS), Service Oriented Scientific Grid Computing, Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research (CANFAR)

Canada 3.0
May 10 - 11
Heath Services Virtual Organization (HSVO)

Terena Networking Conference
May 31 - June 1
Global Brain Research and Imaging Network (GBRAIN)

Canadian High Performance Computing Symposium
June 5 - 9
High Energy Physics Legacy Data Cloud Scheduler Software (see article on Clouds, above)

More information on all NEP projects may be found on the CANARIE website at /en/network-programs/network-platforms/nep/projects.

Partner support makes its mark on the Digital Economy Strategy consultation

Digital Economy ConsultationThanks to all who participated, by voting or commenting, in Industry Canada’s Digital Economy Strategy Consultation. Over 2,000 individuals and organizations participated in the online consultation. The joint submission by CANARIE, Compute Canada, CUCCIO-CDPIUC, Canadian Research Knowledge Network and Canadian Digital Media Network earned 143 votes overall for the submission Canada’s Digital Environment for Research, Innovation and Education, ranking second in the Digital Infrastructure Idea Forum.

CANARIE's second submission, written in conjunction with a team of esteemed ICT researchers, for a Canadian Innovation Testbed, garnered 31 votes and was fourth in the Innovation Using Digital Technologies Idea Forum.

Overall, the Compute Canada submission, To Compete You Must Compute, earned the most votes in all theme areas, with an impressive 463 votes, followed by Open Access to Canada's Public Sector Information and Data and Improved Access to Publicly-Funded Data.

Like to read CANARIE's submissions?

CANARIE welcomes Canadian research and technology leaders to Board of Directors

CANARIE is pleased to announce the addition of two highly esteemed individuals to its Board of Directors. Dr. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, and Dr. Howard Brunt, Vice President, Research at the University of Victoria, have accepted positions on CANARIE's Board at a time when the organization is developing the vision for its next strategic mandate. The vision for this mandate is one of leadership, ensuring Canada's digital economy is strengthened through an integrated and robust digital environment supporting research, innovation and education.

Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. Dr. Geist has written numerous academic articles and government reports on the Internet and law and was a member of Canada's National Task Force on Spam. He is an internationally syndicated columnist on technology law issues with his regular column appearing in the Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, and the BBC. Dr. Geist serves on the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's Expert Advisory Board, on the Canadian Digital Information Strategy's Review Panel, the Electronic Frontier Foundation Advisory Board, and on the Information Program Sub-Board of the Open Society Institute. His blog is required reading for Canadians interested in the intersection of law, technology, and policy. Click here to read it: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/.

Dr. Howard Brunt is the Vice President, Research, at the University of Victoria, one of Canada's leading research institutions. Prior to his appointment in 2007, Dr. Brunt was Vice President, Academic and Provost at the University of Northern British Columbia and Associate Vice President, Research at the University of Victoria. He holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Calgary and has been an active member, delegate and Chair at organizations including the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Canadian Association of University Research Administrators, and TRIUMF, Canada's National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics.

Changing of the guard at ORION...

Dr. Darin Graham, an international information communications technology and innovation leader, has been appointed President and CEO of ORANO and the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION), effective August 1, 2010, succeeding ORION’s founding President and CEO, Phil Baker. We welcome Dr. Graham and wish all the best to Phil Baker, adding our voices to the many who have praised his foresight, determination, and hard work on behalf of Ontarians. Enjoy your retirement!

...and at Canada Foundation for Innovation

Dr. Gilles G. Patry has been appointed as the fourth President and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). Dr. Patry succeeds the current President and CEO, Dr. Eliot A. Phillipson, who announced last year that he would be stepping down on June 30, 2010. Welcome Dr. Patry, and many thanks to Dr. Phillipson for his extraordinary leadership of CFI and strong support of CANARIE over the years. We wish him the best in future endeavours. In addition, CFI welcomes the appointment of Dr. Kevin P. D. Smith as the new Chair of its Board of Directors. Dr. Smith succeeds interim Chair Dr. Elizabeth Cannon who replaced Dr. William C. Leggett in January 2010.

Double-deckers aren't just for buses

CANARIE recently installed a "double-decker" optical platform for our three busiest Points of Presence (PoP): Montreal, Toronto, and Chicago. As we approached 80% capacity on these PoPs, it was clear that a powerful technical solution was required if CANARIE was to continue to support the needs of researchers, educators and innovators across Canada.

The issue was analogous to having used up all the electrical outlets in your family room: most of us would address this problem by buying a power bar, which contains multiple outlets for plugs. The CANARIE PoP solution, an optical platform with greater capacity, operates in the same way for fibre, increasing the number of ports available and adding the additional capacity required to support evolving research needs.

The technologies are powerful and the results no less so: by staying at the forefront of optical technology CANARIE enables our users to stay at the forefront of discovery and knowledge creation.

When advanced networks join forces, anything can happen

Especially when they connect thousands of Canadians across the country to the thought leaders participating in IdeaCity, Canada's Premiere Meeting of the Minds. This eclectic gathering of artists, adventurers, authors, cosmologists, inventors, musicians, scientists and technologists gathered in Toronto in June, but thousands more participated across the country via high definition campus feeds enabled by CANARIE and its provincial ORAN partners.

Turns out plenty of Canadians wanted to hear what the likes of writer Margaret Atwood, explorer Liv Arnesen, psychologist Alison Gopnik and trend expert Faith Popcorn had to say and so tuned in to the live stream of presentations from the conference in Toronto. Over 4,000 individuals across the country experienced the event live via the campus high definition feeds. If you want to find out what happened when a collection of remarkably diverse and accomplished individuals come together, be sure to check out the video presentations available on the IdeaCity website at http://www.ideacityonline.com/node/1008.

CANARIE Users' Forum dates finalized

The CANARIE Users' Forum will follow the CUCCIO-CDPIUC fall meeting, and take place on November 24 and 25 in Toronto. Stay tuned for more details on this event, and on the dates for the NEP Showcase/Workshop, which will be finalized in the coming weeks.

Indian summer days, beautiful foliage, and conference season will soon be upon us

And CANARIE will be presenting or participating in several of them, ensuring that key stakeholder communities are aware of the critical role CANARIE plays in supporting research, innovation and education.

EGI Technical Forum
Sept. 14 - 17
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Cybera Summit
Sept. 21 - 22
Banff, Alberta

ICT 2010
Sept. 27 - 29
Brussels, Belgium

IBM Summit
Sept. 30 - Oct. 1
Toronto, Ontario

GTEC
Oct. 4 - 7
Ottawa, Ontario

New Brunswick Innovation Forum 2010
Oct. 5 - 6
Saint John, New Brunswick

Canadian Science Policy Conference
Oct. 20 - 22
Montreal, Quebec

Innovation 2010 - Canada's R & D Partnership Conference
Dec. 5 - 7
Ottawa, Ontario

Video killed the radio star

YouTubeThat may be true, but there’s no questioning the power of video as a means to showcase Canada’s research stars. That’s why CANARIE has begun developing a series of new videos showcasing the innovative research supported through the Network-Enabled Platforms (NEP) program. Cybera, the partner in several NEP projects, has also developed four videos. Lastly, the ONE-ITS team, another CANARIE–funded NEP project, has produced a video. Stay tuned, more video stars are waiting in the wings!

Cracking open an old mystery of which came first...the chicken or the egg?

Scientists claim to have answered the question that has confounded philosophers for centuries: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Using a powerful computing tool called metadynamics and the UK's national supercomputer in Edinburgh, they were able to find that it was, they say, the chicken. A team from Warwick and Sheffield universities examined the formation of a chicken's egg in microscopic detail and discovered the shell was made from a protein found only in a chicken's ovaries. The protein acts as a catalyst to speed up the development of the shell. Want to know more?
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/
researchers_apply_computing/

News we can use?

Please forward newsworthy items, or feedback on the content or format of this newsletter, to Kathryn.Anthonisen@canarie.ca.