SCinet: Meet the teams operating behind-the-scenes
SC is a must-attend event in the high performance computing community. SC17 attendees, like those who have gathered before, can expect six days of inspiration- and innovation-packed sessions highlighting the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis lead to advances in scientific discovery, research, education and commerce.
Operating as the backbone of SC is the highly sophisticated, high performance network—SCinet— and the more than 150 volunteers who collaborate to build the network from the ground up each year.
Volunteers from educational institutions, high performance computing centers, network equipment vendors, U.S. national laboratories, research institutions, and research networks and telecommunication carriers work together to design and deliver the SCinet infrastructure. Industry vendors and carriers donate much of the equipment and services needed to build the local and wide area networks. Planning begins more than a year in advance of each SC Conference, and preparation activities culminate with a staging event in late October and a setup event just seven days before the conference begins.
To better understand the complexity of bringing SCinet to life for SC17, exhibitors, attendees and volunteers can get to know the diverse teams operating behind-the-scenes.
Architecture
The Architecture Team identifies and evaluates leading-edge
technologies to be included in the network design. They work
closely with other teams to implement best in class network
topology and orchestration to deliver the best performance and
advanced services to the end users.
Communications
The SCinet Communications Team provides marketing
communications support in advance of and during the show,
including developing online content, writing and editing the
monthly SCinet Newsletter, drafting SCinet content for the
conference program guide, writing press releases and editing
SCinet vendor communications.
DevOps
The
DevOps Team runs the internal software infrastructure for
SCinet and works to automate the flow of information to the
various entities that need it. The team administers the main
database that stores team member information and manages
access, mail servers, customer connection requests and
configurations for tools operated by other teams. The DevOps
Team also maintains the infrastructure to monitor and measure
network flows to ensure services and provide alerts when there
are issues.
Edge Network
The Edge Team provides networking services to the attendees
at the conference. This includes wireless access on the show
floor, in meeting rooms and hallways, and wired access for
tutorials, technical talks and other rooms such as the
committee offices.
Fiber
The
Fiber Team is responsible for building the physical layer of
SCinet, installing miles of aerial and floor fiber to connect
exhibitor booth equipment to the SCinet network.
Help Desk
The
SCinet Help Desk Team serves as the first point of contact for
exhibitors regarding all SCinet services. The team provides
tier-one support to exhibitors and escalates requests to other
teams as necessary for resolution.
INDIS Workshop
INDIS (Innovating the Network for Data Intensive Science),
together with the Network Research Exhibition Team, fosters
innovations in networking and computing that bring forward the
capability of exascale data processing for the big science.
The INDIS workshop is an annual event that facilitates the
discussion of network intensive demonstrations and
advancements related to high performance computing.
Interconnect
SCinet utilizes a detailed database for coordinating all
connections to booths, the network operation center,
distributed network operation centers and the wide-area
network. The Interconnect Team works with the conference
center and other SCinet teams to document and ensure correct
assignment and operation of all network resources.
Logistics/Equipment
The Logistics Team is tasked with ensuring the delivery and
logistical support for donated SCinet equipment. They work
closely with the conference to ensure that SCinet equipment is
delivered in a timely fashion for staging, setup and show.
Network Research Exhibition
The Network Research Exhibition Team empowers researchers,
computer scientists and network engineers to experiment using
the state-of-the-art SCinet network. The team helps display
new or innovative demonstrations in network testbeds, emerging
network hardware, protocols and advanced network intensive
scientific applications.
Network Security
The Network Security Team is charged with protecting SCinet,
vendor, exhibitor and attendee resources during the
conference. Activities of the team include filtering harmful
network traffic, detecting and preventing compromised systems,
and mitigating the effects of compromised systems.
Power
The
Power Team provides the basic power infrastructure for all the
SCinet gear in the NOC and DNOCs.
Routing
The
Routing Team is responsible for installing, configuring and
supporting the high performance conference network. The
Routing Team also coordinates external connectivity with
commodity Internet and R&E WAN service providers.
Volunteer Services
The Volunteer Services Team supports the integration of
SCinet student volunteers with their assigned teams and
connects them with information, resources and activities that
contribute to their incredible experience as part of the
SCinet team. During setup and conference week, the team serves
as the first point of contact for all SCinet volunteers.
WAN Transport
The WAN Transport Team is responsible for delivering multiple
wide area network circuits to the convention center. Typically
this requires utilizing dark fiber resources in the facility,
acquiring wave-division multiplexing transport equipment, and
engineering, building and supporting a metropolitan area
transport system.
