Documents and Background Materials

We have found that a "case study" format is an effective vehicle for capturing the network requirements of the science programs that ESnet serves.  The latest version of the case study can be found here.  The case study is a network-centric narrative describing the science from two different perspectives - instruments and facilities and process of science. When combined, these two viewpoints provide a clearer picture of network requirements than either view could provide alone. These two views are described across three timelines:

• Near term (0-2 years, or current budget horizon)
• Medium term (2-5 years, or current technology horizon)
• Long term (5+ years, strategic plans, new facilities, new experiments, etc.)

This page and the case study FAQ will assist case study authors in preparing their documents. There is a case study document template to be used as a starting point (note that the case study will be incorporated into the final report for the review, and published as part of that report). Reading the reports from previous reviews is also helpful.

The Instruments and Facilities view describes the "hardware" used to collect the data used for the science. Instruments and facilities can be particle accelerators, supercomputers, sensors, tokamaks, etc. The main idea is that this view exists to enumerate the sources of data, the quantity of data, the location of the data, and how this will change over time. The Process of Science view describes the ways in which the data produced by the instruments and facilities are used by the scientists. For example, data may be transferred to a different institution in order to be analyzed, or there may be a need to process a data set within a certain amount of time. It may be that data must be distributed throughout the world.

Each attendee (or group of attendees representing a given aspect of the program) should submit a case study document with a table containing a network-centric discussion of their science, from an Instruments and Facilities view as well as a Process of Science view. In addition, please include a discussion of needs for collaboration technologies or other network services, if any. Please also discuss needs and issues surrounding middleware, workflow tools, data transfer tools (e.g. Globus, etc) and future needs/plans for these tools. If there are outstanding issues, please enumerate them so they can be discussed at the review.

Please email your completed materials to Jason Zurawski (zurawski @ es.net) no later than one week before the meeting.