1. “Greek Research and Technology Network: Status and Updates”
Dr. Ognjen Prnjat European and Regional eInfrastructure management Greek Research and Technology Network on behalf of GRNET Technical department
eAge 2012, Dubai

2. GRNET mission
GRNET is a state-owned company operating under the supervision of the Ministry of Education (General Secretariat of Research & Technology); non-profit
Main mission is to provide high-quality electronic infrastructure services to the Greek academic and research institutions:
National and international connectivity services
Distributed Computing Infrastructure services (computing, storage, visualisation)
Supporting activity is the promotion and dissemination of the use of ICT in the public and private sector towards an e-Government, e-Learning and e-Business environment
Main sources of funding are the Operational Programme for the Information Society, Ministry of Economy and Finance and EC projects
GRNET has been certified by ISO 9001:2000 in project management

3. Pan-EU e-Infrastructures vision
The Research Network infrastructure provides fast interconnection and advanced services among Research and Education institutes of different countries’
The Research Distributed Computing Infrastructure provides a distributed environment for sharing computing power, storage, instruments and databases through the appropriate software (middleware) in order to solve complex application problems
This integrated networking & DCI environment is called electronic infrastructure (eInfrastructure) allowing new methods of global collaborative research - often referred to as electronic science (eScience)
GRNET was one of the first NRENs in Europe to expand its services to grid and computing in general; infrastructure-oriented and application-neutral
e-Science Collaborations
Distributed Computing Infrastructure
Network Infrastructure

4. GRNET main networking tasks
Interconnects universities, research centers, academic organizations (>150), primary and secondary schools (15000)
end-users
Continuously upgrades the national backbone (Dark fiber backbone (Nx10 Gbps), institutions access (1 || 10 Gbps per institution) and international backbone (currently at 4*10 Gbps)
Operates the GR Internet Exchange (GR-IX), peering of Greek commercial Internet Service Providers at 10Gbps each
Cooperates with Greek and international research and academic institutions for the development of innovative networking services

5. GRNET network evolution: from GRNET2 to GRNET3
2,5Gbps leased lambdas, 20M€,
GRNET3:
dark fibre based, 10Gbps capable, 30M€,

6. GRNET network evolution: GRNET3
>50 PoPs
9000km fibers (IRU)
MANs Attiki & Thessaloniki
DF loops 33 cities
Single-mode fiber pair
15-years IRUs
Availability > 99%
1GbE interconnection over DF to the closest IP router
10GbE links for the “Power Users”
GRNET S.A. has already acquired 15 year IRUs for Dark Fiber (DF) links for the largest part of its core and access network. As of today, GRNET owns almost 9000 Km of dark fiber pairs in more than 50 PoPs while DWDM equipment is installed in its network backbone and the metropolitan area networks in Athens and Salonica. In addition to the networking equipment, GRNET has deployed a large computational infrastructure based on two data centers in Athens.
In 2011, GRNET extended its computational infrastructure with processing, storage and networking equipment, aiming to permit the provision of advanced cloud computing services and to enhance their scalability and reliability. These services include online storage services, virtual machines provision and group collaboration services. The new phase of the GRNET network (GRNET-4) was also designed, taking into account next generation networking trends and technologies. GRNET-4 network is going to be based on 3 service layers: the optical service layer, the carrier service layer and the IP service layer.
In 2012, GRNET-4 network is going to be realized while the specifications for the optical backbone network upgrade are going to be finalized. Regarding the expansion of the computational infrastructure, an HPC infrastructure and an energy efficient (green) data center is going to be installed, aiming at a low PUE through the exploitation of green technologies and renewable energy sources. 6

7. GRNET network evolution: from GRNET3 to GRNET4
dark fibres, 10Gbps capable, 30M€,
GRNET4:
Equipment upgrades, 8M€,
Service Oriented Design
Optical Services Layer: physical layer connectivity
Carrier Services Layer: Carrier Ethernet (MPLS) interconnection
IP Services Layer: IP interconnection among GRNET customers and the rest of Internet
40/100Gbps wavelengths based on PM-QPSK modulation

8. HELLASGRID (HG) infrastructure
HG-01 cluster (pilot phase):
@Demokritos - Athens
64 CPU, 10TB FC SAN, 12TB Tape Library, gLite middleware
HG02-HG07 clusters (HG project):
Athens (NDC/EKT,Min EDU, IASA), Thessaloniki (AUTH), Crete (ICS-FORTH).Patras (CTI)
~1200 Cores
~40 TBytes total raw SAN storage capacity
~80TBytes Tape Library
6 extra Sites offered by Greek Universities/Research institutes (FORTH-ICS, AUTH,IASA, UoA, UoI, UOI-HEPLAB, Upatras)
~600 Cores and 200 TB of Storage
Total funding ~2Me 8

9. HELLASGRID applications
HECTOR: Enabling Microarray Experiments over the Hellenic Grid Infrastructure
GRISSOM Platform: Grids for In Silico Systems Biology and Medicine
Evaluating the impact of climate change on European air quality
Density Functional Theory Calculations on Atmospheric Degradation Reactions of Fluorinated Propenes
Investigating the nature of explosive percolation transition
First-principles studies on traditional and emerging materials 9

10. High Performance Computing
Goal is the development of a national HPC infrastructure that will join PRACE Tier-1 European infrastructure
Budget 3.5MEuro
Procurement and installation of HPC infrastructure
Operation and provision of support services
Aiming for at least a ~150 Tflops system
Hosted in GRNET’s existing Datacenter
Support for a wide range of scientific disciplines:
Biomedicince, Bioinformatics, Computational Engineering, Physics, Meteorology, Climatology, Seismology, Computational Chemistry etc.
Based on the results of the HellasHPC feasibility study
National survey among 29 academic and research institutes (2010)
Collected requirements from 200 scientific applications developed by 162 research teams from various scientific domains

11. Cloud for R&E: the process
Vision: flexible, production-quality cloud services for Greek R&E community
Rationale:
Step beyond Grid in terms of flexibility and availability
Economies of scale for the community; solving understaffing problems, poor service, low maintenance
Minimizes the investment in equipment and support contracts
Know-how from NOC “Service boxes” (Vima service); as well as Grid
Policy background: existing MoU in place for Grid computing, expanding for HPC as well
Strategy:
Technical workshops and requirements capture meetings
Gradual offering of services, starting with storage, moving to VM on demand, IaaS, and then SaaS
Paving the way to public sector
Funding: in the context of GRNET4 project, 2.2ME DCs; 4.5ME s/w and services)

12. Cloud for R&E: Why?
STUDENT- It gives me the opportunity to test different kinds of software on a machine that I no longer need after my work is done
PROFESSOR - It makes it possible for me to deploy PC labs without having to worry about specific hardware or physical space. It makes me capable of providing machines to my students for a scheduled amount of time. It gives me storage space to upload content and to share data with my students or access them through my virtual hardware
RESEARCHER- It enables me to run experiments in many different environments and network topologies which I can provision easily, quickly and dynamically. I can have persistent or volatile machines according to my needs. I can also upload (besides my files) my own Images and launch Virtual Machines from them

13. okeanos service ~okeanos is set to deliver Infrastructure
Compute (Virtual Machines)
Network (Virtual Networks, private Ethernets (L2) or public IPv4/6)
and Storage (Virtual Disks)
as a Service
Alpha2: from March VMs – 1k alpha users
Beta December 2012
Target group: GRNET’s customers
direct: IT depts of connected institutions
indirect: university students, researchers in academia
Users manage resources over
a simple, elegant UI, or
a REST API, for full programmatic control

14. Virtual Machines Compute Virtual Ethernets Network Virtual Disks
okeanos service
Virtual Machines
Compute
Virtual Ethernets
Network
Virtual Disks
Storage
Virtual Firewalls
Security

15. okeanos service 1x 2x 5x 8x

16. okeanos service Compute: Cyclades Files: Pithos+ Images: Plankton
Identity: Astakos
Volumes: Archipelago
Accounting/Billing: Aquarium

17. okeanos: Design Commercial IaaS vs own IaaS Commercial IaaS
Amazon EC2 not an end-user service
Need to develop custom UI, AAI layers
Vendor lock-in
Unsuitable for IT depts
persistent, long-term servers, custom networking requirements
Gain know-how, build on own IaaS  reuse for own services

18. okeanos: Software Stack
REST API
Multiple users,
multiple resources
Synnefo
Multiple VMs
on cluster
Ganeti
Single VM
KVM

19. okeanos: Platform design
Web Client
CLI Client
Web Client 2
OpenStack Compute API v1.1
GRNET Proprietary
GRNET
datacenter
Synnefo cloud management software
Google Ganeti
Debian
KVM
Direct Out of Band Access
Virtual Hardware

20. cloud storage - Pithos
Online storage for all Greek academic and research community
50 or 100 GB/user; files, groups
Access by web browsers, native test apps, iPhone, Android
Open source implementation and API (REST)
v2 of the API, compatible with OpenStack object storage
Also used in ~oceanos:
Stores custom and user-created images
Plankton provides image registry over pithos

21. ~oceanos: stats 1000 alpha users
2000VMs (windows, ubuntu, debian in order of usage)
Storage: 20% disk usage. Average 20G/VM;
1 minute approx startup time for VM
Scalable to thousands (Pithos to 10k)
Per-VM or per-GB billing to be implemented

22. Cloud Infrastructure: Data Centers
Data Center 1 (NDC)
Status – Production operation
Location – National Documentation Center, Athens, Greece
Purpose – Central PoP of GRNET, Connection to GEANT, GR-IX, Cloud and Grid services
Number of Racks - 16
Total Power – 110KW with N+1 redundancy
Data Center 2 (MINEDU)
Location – Ministry of Education Athens, Greece
Purpose – Cloud/HPC services
Number of Racks - 28
Total Power – 450KW with N+1 redundancy
Data Center 3 (LOUROS)
Status – Design phase
Location – Hydroelectric Plant of Louros
Purpose – GRNET disaster recovery for cloud/HPC services, GREEN Data Center, PUE<1.3
Number of Racks - 14
Total Power – 250KW with N+1 redundancy

23. Cloud – MINEDU snapshots

24. Thank you!