Under Budget and Ahead of Schedule, ESnet6 Project Receives Final CD-4 Approval

The Department of Energy’s Office of Project Assessment recently issued its final CD-4 Review Report on the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)’s ESnet6 upgrade project. The review, held on July 12 – 13, 2022, and conducted at the request of Barbara Helland, Associate Director of Science for Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), assessed the project’s readiness to proceed to the approval of project completion. The project completed all threshold key performance parameters (KPPs) six months ahead of the early finish date, two years ahead of the CD-4 Level 1 milestone date, and well under budget. The committee assessed that the project was ready to proceed to CD-4 approval, which was achieved on July 29, 2022. The Final Closeout report and Lessons Learned are being submitted next week within the specified 90-day window.

“I want to congratulate the entire ESnet organization especially the ESnet6 project director, Kate Mace, and the project team,” said Inder Monga, executive director of ESnet. “When the team set out to deliver on a project scope as vast as the ESnet6 launch, we did not imagine a global pandemic would interrupt the process. Despite that, the team delivered the entire project ahead of the deadline and, even with supply-chain issues, managed to complete the scope below the projected budget. Most of the team attended the ESnet6 Unveiling Event on October 11 and heard their accomplishments praised by the lab directorate as well as congresspeople and DOE staff.”

The committee commended the project team for their “unique and innovative approach” in completing the project objectives and complimented ESnet for their agility in following through with the project scope while dealing with the difficult environment generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The report stated that COVID-19 restrictions, limitations, and supply-chain issues presented “no significant impact” on the project’s critical path. The report also identified the distributed nature of operations and ESnet’s support for a remote workforce as an “invaluable” approach and a best practice to be shared beyond the DOE complex.

The final reports required for the official Project Closeout will be submitted to DOE this week. The ESnet team has continued to keep up the pace as they work toward additional enhancements to the ESnet6 Facility. “The #ESnet6Week festivities the week of October 9 energized the team. Not only were the project accomplishments celebrated at the ESnet6 Unveiling event, but the team also heard firsthand about the impact the project has already had on scientific discovery,” said Kathryn Mace, the ESnet6 project director, and Network Engineering group lead. “Hearing about the expansion of scientific collaborations made easier with the ESnet6 network and automated operations provided the team with newfound motivation to keep moving full speed ahead. ESnet6 sets the foundation for global scientific innovation over the next 10 years.”

The ESnet6 project team, DOE staff, IPR Committee, and members of the Berkeley Lab directorate during the final CD-4 IPR closeout session.

ESnet6 Investment Supports Next Generation Exascale Earth System Model

Scientists at Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories are collaborating on the next generation of integrated Earth climate models using Exascale Computing Project computers and simulation models. The Earth System Grid Federation program is building vast simulation models using data collected about our planet at all levels, from space to far below the surface. Predictions from these models are vital to our understanding of climate, ocean, and other complex systems that make life possible. Read more about this and ESnet’s role in this important international science conversation in a new phys.org article from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Visualization from the Earth System Model, one component of the Earth System Grid Federation program. ESnet provides the data connectivity necessary to stitch teams and computers at different labs together. Credit: LLNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

The ESnet6 Unveiling Ceremony is 4 days away!  Come celebrate our new network and the great science we support, like the Earth System Grid Federation. Join us from 9 a.m. – 12 a.m., 11 October on https://streaming.lbl.gov.

ESnet6 Unveiling in Seven Days!

On October 11, 2022, we will welcome the newest generation of our high-performance scientific network, ESnet6, at an unveiling ceremony hosted by Berkeley Lab.

ESnet6 marks a new era of our high-performance network supporting the needs of scientists. We’re able to handle massive flows of data in a reliable, nimble way, and we can specifically configure our setup to match the needs of individual experiments. The upgrade ensures that ESnet is ready to support the future of science today, including the significant increase in the amount of data produced by scientific experiments and the increasingly complex needs of scientists and the way they interact with our network. 

Come watch the ESnet6 unveiling ceremony 9AM -12 PM PT, October 11, at streaming.lbl.gov!

Science begins as a Conversation! See how ESnet creates a world where conversations become discovery. Watch our new video now!

Ever want to know how big research data moves around the globe? ESnet plays a significant role in supporting the great scientific conversations, collaborations, and experiments underway, wherever and whenever they occur. We move Exabytes of data around the world creating a global laboratory that accelerates scientific discovery.

In order to meet these needs of scientists, we are constantly looking for opportunities to expand our capabilities with our next generation network ESnet6, intelligent edge analytics, advanced network testbeds, 5G wireless, quantum networking and more.

https://www.es.net/scienceconversation/

National Science Foundation & Department of Energy’s ESnet Launch Innovative Program for Women Engineers

Women in Networking @SC (WINS) Kicks off this week in Salt Lake City!

WINS Participants
(Left to Right) Julia Locke (LANL), Debbie Fligor (SC15 WINS returning participant, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Jessica Schaffer (Georgia Tech), Indira Kassymkhanova (LBNL), Denise Grayson (Sandia), Kali McLennan (Univ. of Oklahoma), Angie Asmus (CSU). Not in photo:  Amber Rasche (N. Dakota State) and Julie Staats (CENIC).

Salt Lake City, UT – October 26, 2016 – The University of Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and The Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research (KINBER) together with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Science Network (ESnet) today announce the official launch of the Women in Networking at SC (WINS) program.

Funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and directly from ESnet, the program funds eight early to mid-career women in the research and education (R&E) network community to participate in the 2016 setup, build out and live operation of SCinet, the Supercomputing Conference’s (SC) ultra high performance network. SCinet supports large-scale computing demonstrations at SC,  the premier international conference on high performance computing, networking, data storage and data analysis and is attended by over 10,000 of the leading minds in these fields.

The SC16 WINS program kicked off this week as the selected participants from across the U.S., headed to Salt Lake City, the site of the 2016 conference to begin laying the groundwork for SCinet inside the Salt Palace Convention Center. The WINS participants join over 250 volunteers that make up the SCinet engineering team and will work side by side with the team and their mentors to put the network into full production service when the conference begins on November 12. The women will return to Salt Lake City a week before the conference to complete the installation of the network.

“We are estimating that SCinet will be outfitted with a massive 3.5 Terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth for the conference and will be built from the ground up with leading edge network equipment and services (even pre-commercial in some instances) and will be considered the fastest network in the world during its operation,” said Corby Schmitz, SC16 SCinet Chair.

The WINS participants will support a wide range of technical areas that comprise SCinet’s incredible operation, including wide area networking, network security, wireless networking, routing, network architecture and other specialties. 

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Several WINS participants hard at work with their mentors configuring routers & switches

“While demand for jobs in IT continues to increase, the number of women joining the IT workforce has been on the decline for many years,” said Marla Meehl, Network Director from UCAR and co-PI of the NSF grant. “WINS aims to help close this gap and help to build and diversify the IT workforce giving women professionals a truly unique opportunity to gain hands-on expertise in a variety of networking roles while also developing mentoring relationships with recognized technical leaders.”

Funds are being provided by the NSF through a $135,000 grant and via direct funding from ESnet supported by Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) in DOE Office of Science. Funding covers all travel expenses related to participating in the setup and operation of SCinet and will also provide travel funds for the participants to share their experiences at events like The Quilt Member Meetings, Regional Networking Member meetings, and the DOE National Lab Information Technology Annual Meeting.

“Not only is WINS providing hands-on engineering training to the participants but also the opportunity to present their experiences with the broader networking community throughout the year. This experience helps to expand important leadership and presentations skills and grow their professional connections with peers and executives alike,” said Wendy Huntoon, president and CEO of KINBER and co-PI of the NSF grant.

The program also represents a unique cross-agency collaboration between the NSF and DOE.  Both agencies recognize that the pursuit of knowledge and science discovery that these funding organizations support depends on bringing the best ideas from people of various backgrounds to the table.  

“Bringing together diverse voices and perspectives to any team in any field has been proven to lead to more creative solutions to achieve a common goal,” says Lauren Rotman, Science Engagement Group Lead, ESnet. “It is vital to our future that we bring every expert voice, every new idea to bear if our community is to tackle some of our society’s grandest challenges from understanding climate change to revolutionizing cancer treatment.”

2016 WINS Participants are:

  • Denise Grayson, Sandia National Labs (Network Security Team), DOE-funded
  • Julia Locke, Los Alamos National Lab (Fiber and Edge Network Teams), DOE-funded
  • Angie Asmus, Colorado State (Edge Network Team), NSF-funded
  • Kali McLennan, University of Oklahoma (WAN Transport Team), NSF-funded
  • Amber Rasche, North Dakota State University (Communications Team), NSF-funded
  • Jessica Shaffer, Georgia Institute of Tech (Routing Team), NSF-funded
  • Julia Staats, CENIC (DevOps Team), NSF-funded
  • Indira Kassymkhanova, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (DevOps and Routing Teams), DOE-funded

The WINS Supporting Organizations:
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
http://www2.ucar.edu/

The Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research (KINBER)
http:www.kinber.org

THe Department of Energy’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
http://www.es.net