From KAREN wiki

Contents 1 Contacts 1.1 KAREN champion 1.2 Additional contacts 2 KAREN-enabled projects 2.1 Flexible Computing 2.2 Flexible Storage Architecture 2.3 High-definition and Inter-organisational Videoconferencing

Contacts

Phone

• +64 4 386 0365

KAREN champion

Dr. Michael Uddstrom

• Principal Scientist, Environmental Forecasting, Meteorology and Remote Sensing;
• Manager, High Performance Computing Facility
• Email: m.uddstrom@niwa.co.nz

NIWA Project Plan

Additional contacts

Arian de Wit

• General Manager - Information, Systems, & Technology
• Email: a.dewit@niwa.co.nz

KAREN-enabled projects

Flexible Computing

Relevant Staff:

• Arian de Wit, GM - Information, Systems, & Technology

KAREN's bandwidth has allowed NIWA to establish a small internal computing cluster for all NIWA modellers to share. This system replaces two other aging clusters that were established by individual projects some years ago, as well as a number of individual "modelling PCs" throughout the organisation. In addition, KAREN enabled "overflow" or "outsourcing" of computing jobs to clusters belonging to other organisations during periods of peak demand.

Flexible Storage Architecture

Relevant Staff:

• Arian de Wit, GM - Information, Systems, & Technology
• Anthony Cole, IT Manager

The network capacity that KAREN provides between the main NIWA sites has enabled the establishment of a large central digital storage facility at NIWA's largest site, in Wellington. This facility provide a resilient and easily expandable repository for the nationally significant environmental data and related information that NIWA holds. While the initial size is 160TB, another 100TB will be added in early 2010 and the facility can easily be expanded to 600TB using available technology and twice that as soon as higher-density commodity disk drives are released.

High-definition and Inter-organisational Videoconferencing

Relevant Staff:

• Arian de Wit, GM - Information, Systems, & Technology

KAREN's bandwidth allows high-definition videoconferencing that is much more like "being there". NIWA is providing high-definition videoconference systems at all its main sites, including smaller sites like Nelson and Bream Bay. Desktop videoconferencing and screen-casting will be made available using Tandberg's Movi endpoint software in early 2010. It is important to note that the benefit of videoconferencing is not just in reducing travel but in enabling more frequent but shorter meetings to enable more rapid progress on research projects.

In addition to high-definition videoconferencing in-house, NIWA has taken advantage of the videoconference bridge provided by REANNZ on a trial basis to easily participate in inter-organisational videoconferences. Some of these have been convened by other organisations and some have been convened by NIWA research staff working in collaborative research projects.