Tutorial: Cyberinfrastructure: Foundations for Large-Scale Computing (Full-day Tutorial)
Minitrack: Gregory Madey and  Stephen Kaisler

Our dependence on computers and computer-based information systems in modern life has generated the concept of “Cyberinfrastructure,” a computer infrastructure that pervades most modern human activity. This tutorial will examine the definition and description of Cyberinfrastructure and its components through examples of several systems. It will provide a design framework for developing a Cyberinfrastructure. It will examine some of the tools and techniques for building and describe the supporting management systems. Finally, it will examine a few examples of existing, successful cyberinfrastructures.

There is not a consistent or coherent framework for understanding or assessing Cyberinfrastructure beyond a rough definition (s) that shows it as both a “social” problem and a “technical” one, with the suite of resources drawn from both sources. On the social side, we have organizational practices, personal skills, and social norms to consider. Melding all resources to provide an environment for exploration, experiment, analysis, and operation is a complex problem.

Our objective in this tutorial will be to synthesize from numerous sources, a consistent definition and provide a framework in which to understand Cyberinfrastructure. We will describe the components of such a framework, discuss tools and techniques, and provide some examples. The NSF and the UK eScience initiatives view Cyberinfrastructure as applying to research environments. We take the view that Cyberinfrastructure is the foundation for any large-scale computing environment, whether or not it supports research. Thus, for example, Google’s megacomputing server facility is, in our view, a Cyberinfrastructure.

Gregory Madey (gmadey@nd.edu) is currently a Research Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Notre Dame University (NDU). His primary research interests are agent-based modeling and simulation, bioinformatics and biocomplexity, data warehousing and data mining, and e-Science. He is the lead researcher on a number of NSF-sponsored grants emergency operations systems, bioinformatics, and information technology. He has previously been a Director of Advanced Projects and Strategic Planning, Defense Systems, Loral Corporation (now part of Lockheed-Martin). Dr. Madey received his PhD from Case Western Reserve University.

Stephen Kaisler (Skaisler@Logos-Technologies.com or Skaisler1@comcast.net) is currently a Senior Scientist with Logos technologies, a firm specializing in science, engineering, and technology research, development and integration. He current is performing R&D in text mining and computational social science. Previously, he has been a Senior Associate with SET Corporation and he was Technical Advisor to the Chief Information Officer of the U.S. Senate, where he was responsible for systems architecture, modernization and strategic planning for the U.S. Senate. He is an Adjunct Professor of Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at George Washington University, where he has taught part-time since 1979. He earned a DSc (Computer Science) from George Washington University, and an M.S. (Computer Science) and B.S. (Physics) from the University of Maryland at College Park. He has written four books and published over 30 technical papers.