UTAS - NeCTAR

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ARCS tools and services: Questions for the sector ARCS1: What functionality delivered through the ARCS tools and services is important for your research? For our research the following are important to be sustained and operated into the future with appropriate support (both helpdesk for users and developers who depend on these services). It is important that these services are not disrupted through the transition from ARCS to <strong>NeCTAR</strong> arrangements. The following ARSC services are: • The ARCS data fabric; • The ARCS cloud or grid computing; • The AAF, essential service that improves the integration of services provided by ARCS and related service providers; • ARCS video conferencing service, which is currently EVO; • ARCS help desk and customer services that are operated nationally on a 24/7 basis; and • Professional customer and researcher support, delivered as a set of coherent working services at a national level that facilitates the research base in cross institution. Working and robust (reliable) services are central to e-Research activities, and high levels of robustness cannot be achieved with out consistent professionally applied methods of business practises that are well supported at an operational and design level. ARCS2: What changes or improvements to these services would you like to see in order to better deliver this functionality? Potential improvements and enhancements to the services ARCS has developed and delivered could include: • Systematic integration between Institutional Service Desks/Support teams (providing Tier 1 support) and a national eResearch Service Desk (providing Tier 2 and Tier 3 support) for core national eResearch services; • Improvements to the look and feel of the web interface for the Compute Cloud/Grid; • Full integration between the Compute Cloud/Grid and the ARCS Data Fabric; • Standardised interface (API) for the easy building of customised applications and portals by research communities; and • Support and integration of basic workflows and discipline-specific workflows. For the ARCS Data Fabric • Development of additional research community driven interfaces and services using the underlying Data Fabric/National File System; • A simple-to-use and automatic drag-and-drop utility to remotely move very large data sets from one place to another with high performance, e.g., either across the country, between storage sites or into and out of the Data Fabric; • Development of improved desktop and hand-held device integration including automatic synchronisation; • An increased capability to store confidential data to meet sector needs including, e.g., medical and population health data, bio-secuity data, criminal justice data, etc; • Performance improvements through closer integration with underlying storage infrastructure and, in particular, with the forthcoming RDSI nodes. ARCS Compute Cloud and Grid
• Improvements to the look and feel of the web interface for the Compute Cloud/Grid; • Full integration between the Compute Cloud/Grid and the ARCS Data Fabric; • Standardised interface (API) for the easy building of customised applications and portals by research communities; and • Support and integration of basic workflows and discipline-specific workflows. ARCS Video Conferencing • Creation of additional connectivity Bridges to enable researchers to attend EVO meetings using other services, e.g., in addition to the existing Telephone Bridge and AccessGrid Bridge, add bridges to the AARNet Video Conference service, Skype and other common video-conferencing services; • Improvements in audio quality for EVO, AccessGrid and the Telephone Bridge; • Improved and simplified user interface to provide a more seamless and enjoyable user experience; • Enhancements to meetings including "broadcast" and "plenary/teaching" modes which enable easy-to-use recording of meeting/sessions to a web based portal (using the “Data Fabric” for file storage and sharing) to enable replay and sharing of the meeting/presentation/session/lecture. (e.g., an automatic Webinar service); • Integrating AAF authentication into EVO so that users can use their institutional usernames and passwords for easy access; and • Improved Whiteboard functionality to improve the ability for users in a meeting to jointly annotate a document, photograph or image which they are simultaneously viewing. ARCS Security Services • Develop and deliver tools which allow Service Providers to deliver access to any of their non-Web-based services via the AAF, (the AAF is only designed to operate with Web-based services); • Work with the AAF, the research sector and IdPs to develop a comprehensive list of AAF attributes that are optimised to allow a significant fraction of authorisation decisions for eResearch services to be automated.
Page 1 and 2: Responses by University of Tasmania
Page 3 and 4: Virtual Laboratories: Key questions
Page 5: NS4: What sort of criteria should b

UTAS - NeCTAR

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