BER Science Network Requirements Workshop -- July 26-27,2007

The Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) is the primary provider of network connectivity for the US Department of Energy Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States of America. In support of the Office of Science programs, ESnet regularly updates and refreshes its understanding of the networking requirements of the instruments, facilities, scientists, and science programs that it serves. This focus has helped ESnet to be a highly successful enabler of scientific discovery for over 20 years. In July 2007, ESnet and the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Program Office of the DOE Office of Science organized a workshop to characterize the networking requirements of the science programs funded by the BER Program Office. These included several large programs and facilities, including Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program and the ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF), Bioinformatics and Life Sciences Programs, Climate Sciences Programs, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory at PNNL, the Joint Genome Institute (JGI). National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) also participated in the workshop and contributed a section to this report due to the fact that a large distributed data repository for climate data will be established at NERSC, ORNL and NCAR, and this will have an effect on ESnet. Workshop participants were asked to codify their requirements in a 'case study' format, which summarizes the instruments and facilities necessary for the science and the process by which the science is done, with emphasis on the network services needed and the way in which the network is used. Participants were asked to consider three time scales in their case studies--the near term (immediately and up to 12 months in the future), the medium term (3-5 years in the future), and the long term (greater than 5 years in the future). In addition to achieving its goal of collecting and characterizing the network requirements of the science endeavors funded by the BER Program Office, the workshop emphasized some additional points. These included the need for a future ESnet presence in the Denver area, a desire for ESnet to continue support of collaboration services, and the need for ESnet to support dedicated bandwidth or 'virtual circuit' services. In addition, it is clear that the BER facilities are going to experience significant growth in data production over the next 5 years. The reasons for this vary (model resolution and supercomputer allocations for climate, detector upgrades for EMSL and ARM, sequencing hardware upgrades for JGI), but all indicators point to significant growth in data volumes over the near to medium term. This growth in data volume, combined with the ever-expanding scope of scientific collaboration, will continue to demand ever-increasing bandwidth, reliability and service richness from the networks that support DOE science