This section of the site contains a record of the deliberations that led to the stablishment of AeRIC and the investments contained in the NCRIS Capability for Platforms for Collaboration.

Overview

The NCRIS activity in Platforms for Collaboration aims to develop a coherent plan for the on-going development of Australia's national cyber-infrastructure. The recent support for that infrastructure and its development has come from the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative of Backing Australia's Ability.

The general context for the activity is described in the NCRIS web site, however detailed information about the activity will be provided only through this web site.

The final Investment Plan was considered by the NCRIS committee on 13 april 2007.

The final report along with the various development versions are available on this site here and the main report is also published on the NCRIS web site at:

• http://www.ncris.dest.gov.au/capabilities/collaborative_investment_plan_platforms.html

Implementation Actions

The implementation is moving forward as follows:

• An NCRIS agreement for the national computational infrastructure component has been signed with ANU

• An NCRIS agreement for the interoperation and collaboration infrastructure component has been signed with VPAC and the back to back joint venture agreement with the proposed partners is under development.

• Further work towards an ANDS implementation is in progress

In the case of the first two, an interim operational plan will allow existing activities to continue into the new financial year while a more detailed implementation plan is developed for agreement by the end of September.

The activities supported by APAC's existing national facility and national grid programs are able to continue either under existing arrangements or as part of these two developments.

For ANDS, the details of a further workshop held to confirm the functions and to identify interested parties is available here.

Oversighting all of this, the Australian e-Research Infrastructure Council is expected to hold its inaugural meeting on 23 July 2007.

NCRIS Decisions

At its meeting on 13 April 2007, the NCRIS Committee accepted the Investment Plan prepared for the Platforms for Collaboration capability. The main elements of the Investment Plan are:

• the formation of an Australian e-Research Infrastructure Council (AeRIC), which will be responsible for ensuring that world-class infrastructure, services and expertise are identified, developed and delivered nationwide in ways that sustain the strategic motivation and promotion of e-research;
  • AeRIC will be supported by a small secretariat, led by an Executive Director, and will report to the NCRIS Committee;

• AeRIC will oversight investments in three major components;
  • National data management infrastructure to improve the management and use of research data,
  • National high end computational facilities, and,
  • An interoperation and collaboration infrastructure to build a platform of inter-working national services across all shared research resources;

• that AeRIC host a broadly inclusive e-research forum to gather strategic input in refining its business plan and activities; and

• that AeRIC establish a National e-Research Architecture Taskforce (NEAT) to focus expertise and resources into teams targeting selected research communities or new core services.

Until AeRIC is formally constituted, decisions on actions within the PfC capability will be taken collaboratively by the Chair of the NCRIS Committee, the interim Executive Director of AeRIC and the DEST nominee to AeRIC. The capability’s reference group (see Investment Plan Development) will continue and provide advice on the implementation of the Investment Plan.

Activities

In working towards that milestone, a number of activites were undertaken, which included identifying the likely solutions to be adopted in a national authorisation infrastructure, identifying support required for improved data management and an invetigation into service needed to support grids and eResearch Toolkits.

Further information on those activities is available under the following headings.

• Summary
• Reference Group and Meetings
• AAA Consultation
• Data Management Consultation
• eResearch Tookit Consultation
• Background Documents
• Reports

The schedule of meetings is summarized here.

If you have comments or thoughts relevant to the implmenttaion of the Platforms for Collaboration investmetn plan, please email Rhys Francis

-- RhysFrancis - 24 Feb 2008