ESnet Site Coordinators Committee Convenes in Berkeley

On May 15, ESnet hosted its twice-a-year site coordinators committee meeting. ESnet Site Coordinators Committee (ESCC) meetings allow representatives from the research and education institutions ESnet serves to stay abreast of plans for the network, offer feedback and share best practices with far-flung colleagues.

Berkeley Lab Director Mike Witherell welcomed the 23 in-person and nine remote attendees, noting that high-speed networking is critical to the future of scientific collaboration. He also emphasized the importance of ESnet6, the next generation network that recently received a glowing green light from design reviewers.

Berkeley Lab’s Jonathan Ajo-Franklin sparked animated discussion with a presentation about his work using “dark fiber” (unused fiber optic cabling) for seismic sensing. Not only were some sites interested in putting their own dark fiber to use but engineers dug into problems of data mobility presented by Ajo-Franklin’s work.

Benjamin Brown, who manages the ESnet program for the DOE Office of Science, delivered an update from the Hill and led the group in a discussion on governance. ESCC Chair Surya Singh (PNNL) and co-chair Susan Hicks (ORNL) led discussions on subjects ranging from major incident response and communications processes to ScienceDMZ adoption and best practices. Site managers from across the country also shared their own updates.

"The meeting was attended by network engineers from nine of the 10 DOE Office of Science National Laboratories and all three National Nuclear Security Agency Laboratories. This broad representation allowed us to successfully bring common operational issues at the respective sites to the table and learn best practices from each other," says Singh.

ESnet also shared the results of its annual user satisfaction survey with attendees.

The ESCC fall meeting will be held concurrently with Internet2’s Tech Exchange meeting in Orlando in October. An archive of the May 2018 ESCC presentations have been posted here.