Big Bang, Big Data: Innovating ICT as a Driver for Astronomy

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Physical Sciences

Call for proposals

Big Bang, Big Data:

Innovating ICT as a Driver for Astronomy

2013

The Hague, November 2013

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1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Big data

Many sectors in our modern society are producing more and more raw data: science, medicine, finance, business, transportation, retail and telecommunication, to name a few. When the size of these data sets goes beyond the capabilities of the current processing and database technologies, they enter the realm of Big Data. Big Data are characterized by a large volume (annually dozens to hundreds of petabytes, where one petabyte equals 1015_{bytes), a high velocity (with the real-time}

generation of thousands or exceeding millions of items per minute), and/or a huge variety (‘unstructured data’).

The grand challenge in Big Data research is: How do we manage, explore and understand Big Data? Big Data force scientists to work differently than before. A classical way of doing research in the natural sciences consists of three steps: first, propose a hypothesis; second, perform an experiment to collect data; third, test whether or not the hypothesis can be falsified by the experimental data. But in Big Data there can be golden insights hidden without a scientist looking for them. Then it makes sense to dig for the golden insight without having a hypothesis. By looking for patterns or correlations in Big Data, scientists may derive interesting,

unexpected scientific hypotheses.

Additionally, it is necessary to develop novel ways to transport, process, and store these immense amounts of data. Innovative ICT research is indispensable for solving these challenges. This is the topic of the research project DOME, which addresses exascale technologies: ways to handle exabytes of data – where one exabyte equals 1018_{bytes, or a thousand petabytes.}

DOME

DOME is the research project in which ASTRON and IBM have joined forces to create new technology for handling the huge amounts of data that will be generated by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). SKA, the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope, will be based in South Africa and Australia. It should be up and running for its first phase by 2020 and fully operational by 2023. The SKA will be able to pick up even the faintest radiation, remnants from the big bang, telling us more about the origins of our universe. The DOME collaboration receives financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZ) and the Province of Drenthe.

IBM and the NWO institute for radio astronomy ASTRON are no strangers.

Previously, they have collaborated on the design, engineering and manufacturing of customized, high-performance, low-power analogue and mixed signal processing chips for an SKA prototype system. Furthermore, the two organizations worked together on implementing IBM's Blue Gene®_{supercomputer, currently being used to}

gather and analyze information from ASTRON’s low-frequency array LOFAR, the “software telescope” network located in the northern region of the Netherlands. ICT research in DOME

DOME is one of the most data-intensive science projects ever. It conducts and stimulates ground-breaking ICT research. The SKA project would be utterly

unthinkable without such innovations, which will take aspects like computing speed and capacity, storage capacity and efficiency, pattern recognition and energy reduction to a completely new level. The DOME project also opens up unique opportunities to propel green supercomputing.

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Chapter 1: Introduction / Big Bang, Big Data: innovating ICT as a driver for astronomy

Some of the topics that are being researched today in DOME: - Advanced accelerators

- Energy-efficient dense server technologies, probably extending with 3D-stacked chips

- Nanophotonics optimizing large data transfers - New optical interconnect technologies

- Next-generation tape systems and tiered storage management - Novel phase-change memory technologies

- Tailored algorithms including compressive sampling and machine learning Any new insights, technologies and applications arising from DOME-related research will quickly find their way into society. Discoveries are being shared with an SME user platform, even as the project continues. Innovating ICT has broad implications in this context, with a high probability of big societal impact. It is an example of ICT driving technological change in general, beyond the realm of astronomy.

ICT workshop

NWO Physical Sciences organised a workshop in September 2013 in order to obtain an overview of innovating ICT for (radio) astronomy within the Netherlands. A number of leading ICT researchers were selected to take part in this workshop. Furthermore, there was a general call for researchers to join the workshop. The main purpose of the workshop was to find specific areas of interest, where

innovative ICT research can create added value for all parties involved, within or on top of the current DOME research. Instead of merely adhering to pre-defined DOME outlines, the workshop was intended to make room for any topics that the ICT academia deem relevant. The workshop resulted in a focus on the DOME-challenges Algorithms & Machines, Access Patterns, Microservers, Accelerators, Compressive Sampling, and Real-time communication.

Research programme and network

With the results of this workshop, the Board of the NWO division for Physical Sciences, together with DOME, decided to start a research programme covering the aforementioned research challenges, that should lead to additional Big Data ICT innovations as a driver for astronomy and, indeed, for society at large and to build up a research network in the Netherlands. This call for proposals is the result.

1.2 Available budget

A total budget of approximately € 2 million is available, jointly provided by NWO Physical Sciences (50%), ASTRON and IBM (together 50%).

1.3 Validity of the call for proposals

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Chapter 2: Aim / Big Bang, Big Data: innovating ICT as a driver for astronomy

2 Aim

The research programme Big Bang, Big Data: Innovating ICT as a Driver for Astronomy aims at:

- Realising a coherent research programme that should lead to additional ICT innovations as a driver for astronomy, based on the ICT-challenges of DOME; and

- Building up a sustainable ICT/astronomy research network in the Netherlands.

2.1 Thematic focus

DOME tackles several ICT-related challenges:

- Transport of extremely large amounts of data (long distances and inside computer systems);

- Computationally intensive work on extremely large amounts of data;

- Streaming on-the-fly processing (shifting part of the offline processing to real-time); and

- Efficient data storage for later use.

These general challenges are worked out in seven more specific challenges. Based on the results of the aforementioned workshop, six of these challenges form the thematic focus of this call for proposals:

1 Algorithms & Machines 2 Access Patterns 4 Microservers 5 Accelerators

6 Compressive Sampling

7 Real-time communication models for exascale computing

In annex 1, a short summary is given of each of these challenges. For more detailed information, see www.dome-exascale.nl.

2.2 Formulation of a coherent research programme

The programme will be composed of individual research projects, which are proposed by researchers. This call for proposals pertains to the six research challenges described above. Each proposal should focus on one or more of these research challenges. It is possible that a project is relevant to more than one research challenge; however, each project should indicate one primary research challenge. A maximum of two secondary research challenges may be indicated. The funding structure of this programme is such that DOME contributes 50% of the research in kind. In order to formulate a coherent research programme, the relevance to DOME will be one of the criteria on which the research proposals are evaluated (see Section 4.2 for a complete overview of the evaluation criteria). As each research challenge of DOME is in a different stage (some are to be started, some have already been manned), this may be realized in several ways:

- A proposal may be comprised of two researchers (two PhD students, two Postdocs or one of each). In this case, one of the researchers is funded by

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Chapter 2: Aim / Big Bang, Big Data: innovating ICT as a driver for astronomy

DOME and one by NWO. The DOME researcher may be already appointed, in which case this should be indicated in the proposal, or a new researcher. - Alternatively, a proposal may comprise only one researcher (PhD student or

Postdoc); in this case, the researcher may be funded from the NWO budget or the DOME budget.

The research in the programme is 50% NWO-funded and 50% DOME-funded. This will be used as a precondition in the assessment by the evaluation committee. It is recommended that the research proposals are made in cooperation with DOME, or at least aligned with DOME before submitting (see Section 5.1.1 for contact information).

When the funding decision is made and the research projects are started, NWO and DOME will institute a programme committee in order to create and retain coherence between the research projects.

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Chapter 3: Guidelines for applicants / Big Bang, Big Data: innovating ICT as a driver for astronomy

3 Guidelines for applicants

3.1 Who can apply

Within this programme, individual projects will be defined by researchers or research teams, which are composed of researchers from one or more research groups.

The main applicant of an individual project should: be affiliated to one of the following institutions:

• Dutch universities;

• NWO and KNAW institutes; • the Netherlands Cancer Institute;

• the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen • Researchers from the DUBBLE Beamline at the ESRF in Grenoble; • NCB Naturalis

AND

have an employment contract for at least the duration of the application procedure and the duration of the research the grant is applied for; AND

have a PhD or an equivalent qualification.

A proposal can be written and submitted by multiple co-applicants, but should always indicate one main applicant, who will function as contact person.

Women are particularly encouraged to submit proposals. The representation and advancement of women in science regrettably lags far behind that of men. NWO and the Ministry for Education, Culture and Science are committed to rectifying this situation and hope that KNAW, VSNU and the Dutch universities will contribute to these efforts so that more women submit applications and the percentage of female applicants is at least comparable to the percentage of female researchers in the target group. NWO strives towards success rates for female applicants both on average and in the medium-term as high as those for male candidates.

3.2 What can be applied for

The proposed research projects should work toward innovation in ICT and should address one or more of the research challenges as specified in Section 2.1. For each individual project, funding can be applied for:

• employment costs of a maximum of two researchers, either of which can be a Postdoc researcher for a maximum of three years or a PhD

researcher for four years (fixed rates in accordance with the VSNU tariffs1

+ a fixed bench fee of €5000 per researcher); and

1_{http://www.nwo.nl/financiering/hoe-werkt-dat/Salaristabellen}

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• contribution to material and small equipment costs, including travel expenses and accommodation costs (maximum k€ 10 per researcher). If the proposal contains two researchers, one of these should be a DOME-funded researcher (already started or a new researcher). In this case, the DOME-funding should be arranged prior to submission.

3.3 When can applications be submitted

The closing date for the submission of proposals is January 24, 2014, 11:59

hours a.m. (CET). Proposals that are submitted after the deadline will not be

accepted.

3.4 Preparing an application

Your grant application has two parts: a fact sheet and the application form.

− You complete the fact sheet directly in NWO’s electronic application system Iris.

− The application form is on the grant page for this programme on the NWO website. As soon as you have completed it you can add this form to the Iris fact sheet as a PDF file.

Since the research project DOME is already underway, it is preferable to make a flying start with Big bang, big data: Innovating ICT as a driver for astronomy. In order to start the research programme as soon as possible, NWO and DOME have agreed on a short, swift assessment procedure with proposals that are short and to the point. The proposal consists of the following sections:

− Title, applicant (researcher/research team), keywords

− Primary DOME research challenge that the proposal pertains to, plus at most two secondary research challenge if applicable (see Section 2.2) − Short summary (max. 100 words)

− Research proposal (max. 1000 words), containing at least the following: • Motivation

• Approach/method (including work plan for PhD student/Postdoc) and risk analysis

• Expected results

− Description of relevance for DOME (max. 200 words) − Knowledge utilisation (max. 200 words)

− Budget

− CV of applicant(s) (max. 200 words in total)

− If applicable, additional IPR agreements between the project partners (see Section 3.5 below)

3.5 Specific conditions

The “NWO general terms and conditions of NWO grants” apply, unless this Call provides otherwise. Applications that are granted must start within three months after the date of granting. Appropriate action may be taken by NWO in relation to projects that have not yet started by that date.

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The applicants will agree to the IPR (intellectual property rights) guidelines as presented in annex 2. If a project involves multiple partners, these partners must sign a project agreement. The format for the agreement will be provided by NWO. Any special IPR requirements (see annex 2) should be indicated in the proposal.

3.6 Submitting an application

An application can only be submitted to NWO via the electronic application system Iris. Applications not submitted via Iris will not be admitted to the selection

procedure. A main applicant is obliged to submit his/her application via his/her own Iris account.

If the main applicant does not have an Iris account yet then this should be created at least one day before the submission. Then any possible registration problems can still be solved on time. If the main applicant already has an Iris account then he/she does not need to create a new account to submit a new application.

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Chapter 4: Assessment procedure / Big Bang, Big Data: innovating ICT as a driver for astronomy

4 Assessment procedure

4.1 Procedure

The first step in the assessment procedure is to determine the admissibility of the application. This is done using the conditions stated in Chapter 3 of this call for proposals.

The NWO Code of Conduct on Conflicts of Interest applies to all persons and NWO staff involved in the assessment and/or decision-making process.

Due to the special character of this funding instrument, in which a coherent research programme will be constructed, the Board of NWO Physical Sciences has decided not to consult external referees (cf. NWO Regulation on Granting2_{, section ‘NWO}

Assessment and Funding Allocation Procedure’, article 2.5). Instead, the proposals will be assessed by a committee consisting of independent experts on the topics of the relevant DOME research challenges.

In the first committee meeting (February 2014), the proposals are evaluated on the basis of the criteria that are mentioned in Section 4.2 below, and a preliminary ranking will be made, in which the overall 50-50 funding structure between NWO and DOME is enforced. After this committee meeting, the applicants receive a brief assessment report and are given the opportunity to submit a short rebuttal (max. 200 words), which the committee will take into account when constructing a final funding advice (including a final ranking) for the Board of NWO Physical Sciences. NWO gives all proposals a qualification based on the applicable criteria. The

applicant is informed of this qualification when the decision about whether or not to award funding is announced. For further information about the

qualifications see www.nwo.nl/kwalificaties. Timeline

24 January 2014 Deadline submission of proposals February 2014 First committee meeting

February 2014 Obtaining rebuttals from applicants; the applicants are given 5 working days to submit a short rebuttal March 2014 Second committee meeting

March 2014 Committee submits advice to the Board of NWO Physical Sciences

March/April 2014 Board of NWO Physical Sciences decides which projects receive funding

April 2014 NWO informs the applicants about the decision

The exact dates of the rebuttal phase will be communicated to the applicants after the submission deadline.

2_{http://www.nwo.nl/en/subscription-documents/nwo/legal/nwo-regulation-on-granting-may-2011}

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4.2 Criteria

Each proposal will be evaluated on three main criteria: quality of the proposal (60%), relevance to DOME (20%), and knowledge utilisation (20%). A proposal can only be funded if the committee awards it a minimum qualification of at least “very good”, according to the NWO qualification system3_{, on all three criteria.}

4.2.1 Scientific quality of the proposal (60%)

o Originality of the topic and approach;

o Challenging content, quantum leap, high risk/high reward, breakthrough research;

o Clearly formulated goals and a feasible work plan;

o Scientific relevance, potential to make an important contribution to the advancement of science;

o Effectiveness of proposed methodology;

o Quality of researcher/research team on a global level.

4.2.2 Relevance to DOME (20%)

o Relevance to DOME, potential to make a relevant contribution to the indicated research challenge(s).

4.2.3 Knowledge utilisation (20%)

o The potential impact of the research results outside the ICT academic discipline and DOME.

Knowledge utilisation

Every year, NWO invests over 675 million euros of public funds in academic

research. Such research may be anywhere on the scale from fundamental to applied and may be either curiosity-driven and response-mode or part of a thematic

programme. Use of the results of scientific research by the public and private sector can increase the prosperity and well-being of the nation, as well as helping the Netherlands to achieve its ambition of becoming a knowledge society. For this reason, NWO asks all grant applicants to provide information on the potential for the wider utilisation of knowledge resulting from their proposed research. This

information will be taken into account when assessing their proposals.

NWO defines knowledge utilisation as: a process promoting the use of the outcomes of scientific research both outside academia and by other academic disciplines. This process frequently requires interaction between the researcher and the potential knowledge user and such interaction may occur at any stage of the research, from the formulation of the research question right through to the dissemination of the results.

NWO asks applicants to consider the potential for knowledge utilisation and, where relevant, to suggest how the results of the proposed research could be used by third parties. This does not mean the use of such knowledge by fellow researchers within the same academic discipline; after all, the relevance of the proposed research to

3_{http://www.nwo.nl/en/funding/funding+process+explained/nwo+qualification+system}

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the advancement of science within the applicant’s own discipline is assessed through the application of other quality criteria. The knowledge utilisation criterion relates to the use of knowledge by third parties outside the academic sector or working in other academic disciplines.

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Chapter 5: Contact details / Big Bang, Big Data: innovating ICT as a driver for astronomy

5 Contact details

5.1 Contact

5.1.1 Specific questions

For specific questions about Big Bang, Big Data: Innovating ICT as a Driver for Astronomy and this call for proposals please contact dr. N.L. (Nieske) Vergunst,

[email protected], 070-3440747.

For questions pertaining to the DOME project and for aligning research proposals with DOME, applicants are encouraged to contact the scientific directors of DOME, Ton Engbersen ([email protected]) and Albert-Jan Boonstra

([email protected]).

5.1.2 Technical questions about the electronic application system Iris

For technical questions about the use of Iris please contact the Iris helpdesk. Please read the Iris manual before consulting the helpdesk.

The Iris helpdesk is available from Monday to Friday from 11.00 to 17.00 hours on +31 900 696 4747. Unfortunately not all foreign phone companies allow you to phone to a 0900 number in the Netherlands. You can also send your question by e-mail to [email protected].

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6 Annex 1: description of the

research challenges of DOME

1. Algorithms & Machines

Until a few years ago, optimization of computer systems was about the CPU chip. Today, scaling has basically stopped and a wealth of parameters and boundary conditions need to be observed: power envelope, performance, hardware cost, workload, CPU, memory size, accelerator technology, boards, cooling, etc.

Complexity of the design has gone far beyond what a reasonable team of people can keep in their head and reason about. IBM Zürich has embarked on developing a methodology addressing the fundamental equations which govern the system and using mathematical optimization to carve out a couple of avenues to be pursued. The methodology will allow to reason on system optimizations and parameter space. This is key for large research infrastructures like the SKA.

2. Access Patterns

How do we handle storage requirements reaching several tera- to petabytes a day? It is more than today’s state-of-the-art computers can handle. Especially if we take aspects like cost effectiveness, energy and easy access from various locations into account. Through the IBM Research work on a novel, analytics-based multi-tier storage approach, we expect tape storage to become a competitive, easy to handle component of storage systems. Tape libraries are usually perceived as cumbersome but will become fully automated. Inclusion of new storage technologies like Phase Change Memory (which is about as fast as current computer memory, but more dense and maybe 3 times cheaper) might change system design completely. However, such breakthrough technologies do require a new data life-cycle paradigm and will lead to changes in algorithm implementation.

The suitability of different storage media heavily depends on the usage patterns when writing and reading data. Smart analysis, modeling, and prediction of these usage patterns will be crucial for optimal storage utilization. We also envision an extension to proactive learning / adjustment of data storage and access strategies depending on application or user requirements, even when these change over time. 3. Nano Photonics

This DOME research challenge is not part of the research programme Big bang, big data: Innovating ICT as a Driver for Astronomy in 2013.

4. Microservers

Work at the Zurich Research lab over the last few years has shown that the Instructions Set Architecture (ISA) of a specific computer chip is not resulting in a noticeable difference in the amount of energy required per answer. Novel packaging technology developed at the IBM Research lab enables highly efficient water cooling of processor, memory and voltage-controller components. IBM has also developed 3-dimensional packaging (processor chips and memory chips stacked together), in order to achieve even higher densities of compute power.

This will define achievable and aggressive datapoints in compute density and compute performance per Watt, which is one of the challenges for SKA. The highly parallel character of these microservers also requires a step-change in algorithm design and software development – a key component of future knowledge economies for computer application design.

5. Accelerators

For the past few years, internal clock speed of computer chips has not increased. In fact, it has slowed down. Yet applications are demanding more computing

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called accelerators. We can distinguish fixed accelerators (for a single task) or programmable accelerators (for a family of tasks with similar characteristics). IBM Research has developed several accelerator approaches, one being a programmable accelerator for problems which can be formulated as finite state machines (parsing, lookup, pattern detection etc.). Some of the algorithms used for data processing in radio astronomy today might improve their performance

significantly, using this technology. 6. Compressive Sampling

This challenge consists of fundamental research into tailored signal processing and machine learning algorithms for the capture, processing, and analysis of radio astronomy data for the next generation of radio telescopes (LOFAR, SKA). The primary focus is on the use of such methods as compressive sampling (aka

compressive sensing), signal processing using algebraic systems, machine learning and pattern recognition.

Traditional capture and processing of analogue signals consists of 2 steps: sampling followed by compression. Essentially, we gather a huge amount of information, only to essentially throw most of it away. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we can recover signals with far less samples. Previously infeasible tasks become possible such as sampling a very high bandwidth signal or obtaining accuracy with far fewer sensors. The amount of power and circuitry needed can be reduced.

7. Real-Time Communication

Data motion between computers is usually fraught with a large latency caused by multiple copy operations of the data message. Over the last couple of years, a standard has been worked out to reduce the number of copy operations to zero, basically by writing the data from the originating computer directly in the application space of the receiving computer, which greatly improves performance. This new standard also provides semantics that I/O operations and application processing can overlap – a form of parallel processing. Applications which want to make use of both of these advantages need a (partial) re-write, or at least improved Operating System support.

The objective is to create a demonstrator computing architecture which is able to do real-time processing of high bandwidth, compute-intensive workload on an Exascale-class computer. The challenge is to (1) overtake the current limits of I/O subsystems to enable Exascale computers for processing application data at very high

bandwidth, and (2) apply industry standard high performance communication environments for real-time Exascale data processing.

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7 Annex 2: Intellectual property

rights

IPR (intellectual property rights) and knowledge transfer arrangement NWO research projects under this call for proposals.

General

When submitting a project proposal, the project parties shall confirm that they have taken note of the IP (intellectual property) and knowledge transfer arrangement described in this document. Before a granted project commences, the project parties will enter into a project agreement with NWO regarding IP and knowledge transfer, as well as regarding other matters such as finance, progress reviews and

confidentiality (see the project agreement model that will be available on the website in due course).

The applicant may propose specific IP rules to be applied by the partners in his or her project; these must be mentioned in the research proposal (see Section 3.5 of this document).

The conclusion of a project agreement between NWO and the project parties is one of the conditions to which the grant of a subsidy for the relevant project is subject.

Background Information

The parties participating together in a research project shall provide NWO with a written statement of the background knowledge they wish to make available for use in a project before the project commences. NWO will include the statements

obtained from the parties in an annex to the project agreement to be concluded. During the project, additional background knowledge may be contributed in an analogous manner.

Any contributed background knowledge remains the property of the contributing party (hereinafter: the provider) and may be used by the receiving party or parties solely for the purposes of the project within the context of the objectives of the research. Upon written request, the provider shall make the necessary background knowledge available to the requesting party at no cost by means of a

non-transferable, non-exclusive licence for the duration of the project. In this respect, the provider shall in good faith provide the receiving party/parties with all relevant information on the background knowledge in question, including a statement that the knowledge is free of third-party claims, or, if such claims exist, what restrictions apply to the use of the knowledge and any further exploitation of such knowledge.

Foreground knowledge – results

Initially, the results within a research project accrue to NWO. In this process, NWO acts as an intermediary and does not aim for a patent portfolio itself. If an invention is made within a project, the participating project parties shall have the first right of refusal to (cause to) protect this invention in their name and at their expense and subsequently obtain a patent on said invention in consideration of fair market compensation to NWO. The guideline for the maximum amount of compensation is formed by the project costs or sub-project costs incurred that led to the invention in question, minus the relative private contribution to said costs. The parties shall negotiate with NWO about the definitive amount of compensation and the stages, if any, of payment, and reach agreement on these issues within four months after the negotiations commenced, after which a patent application can be filed. SME parties may obtain a discount on the compensation payable by setting off the costs for obtaining IPR against the compensation to be agreed. The compensation will be

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routed, via NWO, to the project party concerned where the invention was made for further research for the purposes of the subject/programme.

If multiple project parties are interested in (causing) the protection of the same invention and obtaining a patent, they will mutually agree, if possible even before the project commences, which party or parties will be the ultimate proprietor(s). If no agreement is reached in this respect, NWO will decide with regard to the right to patent the invention after separate consultation with the project parties involved.

Publication of results

The project parties shall not publish or otherwise disclose results, other than with the other project parties’ consent. The parties involved shall respond in writing within four weeks after the request for publication. If the parties have not responded in writing within this period, this may be considered consent. Within two months after the publication request, the parties may require changes in order to protect their interests with regard to the patentability of the results, however without jeopardizing the scientific integrity of the publishing party. If the results give rise to a specific possibility for a patent application, the publication may be suspended for no more than nine months after the request for publication in order to give the opportunity to protect the results.

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Published by:

Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research Visitor’s address:

Laan van Nieuw Oost-Indië 300 2593 CE The Hague

The Netherlands November 2013