Compute Canada and CANARIE make compelling arguments for increased investment in digital infrastructure

Pressure is mounting on the federal government to demonstrate foresight and provide sufficient resources to keep Canada's computing capacity competitive and enable greater uptake of big data by the private sector, according to pre-Budget submissions from two leading organizations. Compute Canada and CANARIE contend that further investment and a shared vision for digital infrastructure are critical if Canada is to maintain or improve its global computing-power ranking, which currently stands at 15th.

Massive advances in computing power and the growing need for a coordinated approach to data management and storage have prompted both organizations to request extensions to their current funding mandates. CANARIE's ran out in 2015 and Compute Canada's will this year.

Compute Canada, is requesting $75 million over three years to take it through to 2017, at which time "additional sustained funding mechanisms" will be required. Only part of this funding will be provided by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) which recently announced a $50-million cyber-infrastructure competition for research and data scientists as well as the computing and data resources managed by Compute Canada.

The competition — funded from interest CFI accrued over the years — will inject $15 million into computing hardware, $10 million for research groups, and $25 million for domain-specific data storage and software platform capabilities.

Compute Canada is supporting CFI's bid for recapitalization beyond 2017, particularly its support for Major Science Initiatives projects. It also recommends that CFI be given increased flexibility in imposing matching requirements on activities such as management, architectural standards development and technology planning.

Getting out the word

Compute Canada recently held information sessions on Parliament Hill and at the Ottawa offices of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) to explain the current environment and demonstrate the advances being made in science and its application utilizing Canada's digital infrastructure.

For Compute Canada president and CEO Mark Dietrich, continued and sustained funding is essential for reaping the potential rewards that could be realized by exploiting the advances in big data.

"Canada's always been good at punching above its weight but not with nothing. You can't be on a starvation diet and go into the ring. As long as we get a reasonable meal every so often we can continue to compete," says Dietrich. "I'd like to bump Canada up from 15th but it's an arms race and everybody's investing ... We hope to at least keep our position and maybe move up a couple of notches but people are investing heavily."

Dr Dugan O'Neil, a particle physics researcher at Simon Fraser University and Compute Canada's chief science officer, says the need for computing infrastructure is spreading across research disciplines in both the private sector. In a recent article in The Hill Times, O'Neil said Canada must "increase its commitments vastly just to keep up" or the world's leading scientists will gravitate to other jurisdictions to stay at the cutting edge of innovation.

Double capabilities annually or lose ground

Dietrich acknowledges that Canada must double its digital infrastructure capability every year and notes that with constant investment, Moore's Law alone will theoretically boost capability by 60% annually or 10 times over five years. He notes, however, that many competing nations are doubling each year and are on track to achieve a 30-fold increase over the same time period.

"We're going to fall behind if we continue investing at these levels," says Dietrich.

Rather than compete purely on raw computing power, Compute Canada is taking a different tact, engaging with key research groups that require massive computing power to determine their future needs. Dietrich says providing researchers with ever more sophisticated computing power, data management and storage and analytical tools will ultimately achieve "real world benefits".

Navigating the various components of digital infrastructure is complex, making the challenge of coordination between the players — each of whom have distinct funding envelopes over varying periods of time —exceedingly difficult. To help ease the confusion, Compute Canada is recommending that its mandate and funding cycle be aligned with that of CANARIE's to "allow for more cohesive and strategic planning for the foundation components of digital infrastructure." Furthermore, it notes that the two organizations are collaborating to develop and promote a shared vision and are exploring "the potential for collaboration and alignment of each organization's technical, marketing and operations programs in support of each other's respective missions".

CANARIE pre-Budget recommendation

For its part, CANARIE is calling for the "ongoing funding and strategic alignment of foundational digital infrastructures" and cites a recent report from the Leadership Council for Digital Infrastructure that recommends the creation of a pan-Canadian plan for a sustainable and integrated system". That would include an "enhanced level of collaboration" with the CFI and granting councils, both of which are key funding partners.

CANARIE built and maintains Canada's ultra high-speed backbone for high-performance computing and supports the development of research software platforms and reusable software services. They are utilized by the computing facilities supported by Compute Canada and its four regional affiliates. The result is massive amounts of data which are "stranded across the country due to lack of defined and adopted practices for curation and storage".

To address the impasse, CANARIE is recommending the development of a data management strategy and the creation of a national system for data storage "so that research data may be shared using internationally accepted data management standards and stored in reliable data repositories", according to its pre-Budget submission.

Such an approach would strengthen private sector engagement and leverage Canada's digital infrastructure, not to mention keeping pace with better-funded competing nations. Maintaining the status quo will lead to a loss of knowledge, limited access to that knowledge and a missed opportunity to engage industry.

R$