1. Information on the National Server Program September 2013 Audience: Service Desk staff Developed as part of the Australian eResearch Organisations’ User Support Project

2. What is the National Server Program? The NSP provides an Infrastructure-as-a-Service option for organisations delivering services to researchers across Australia. NSP hosts virtual servers on which service providers run their services. The NSP will host services and applications developed and supported by institutions across Australia which are provided nationally for the use of researchers to aid in collaborations and cost effective research outcomes. The NeCTAR National Server Program (NSP) addresses the need for a robust and reliable national hosting infrastructure for those core eResearch services and research applications requiring high levels of reliability and availability. Core eResearch services are defined as those that support or underpin research activities of national relevance to researchers from multiple institutions and disciplines. ______________________________________________________________________ NSP - Robust service hosting for Australian researchers

3. Who uses the National Server Program? Any publicly funded eResearch service provider may apply through a merit scheme to have their service hosted on the NSP. The services hosted on the NSP are used by researchers across Australian. ______________________________________________________________________ NSP - Robust service hosting for Australian researchers

4. NSP Support Arrangements Note: The customers of NSP are the service providers whose services we host and support. The end users of the services provided by the Service Providers are NOT supported by NSP, but by the providers of the services. Thus, NSP’s scope of support extends only to Service Providers and NOT to their downstream users. User Support – Provided by NSP to hosted service providers (only). Note: end-user requests for support should be redirected to the appropriate Service Provider using this contact list) – Business Hours 9:00 – 17:00 (AEST) Monday to Friday – User Guides: https://wiki.nsp.nectar.org.au/display/NSPWIK/National+Server+Program#Docum entation – Support Help Desk – Webhelp Desk nsp-help@nectar.org.au Infrastructure hosting Support – Level 0 – self-help via user guides listed above – Level 1 – ITS Research Services NSP Administrators nsp-help@nectar.org.au – Level 2 – ITS Operations – Hardware hosting support ITS remedy ticket – Level 3 – Vendors techsupport_apac@citrix.com ______________________________________________________________________ NSP - Robust service hosting for Australian researchers

5. NSP The National Servers Program (NSP) of the NeCTAR Project was initiated by the Australian Federal Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE) and funded through the Australian Education Fund to implement a robust national platform to support eResearch services such as the Australian Assess Federation, RDSI, ANDS, operations for the NeCTAR Research Cloud, other NeCTAR virtual laboratories and tools. The University of Melbourne is the lead agent for the delivery of the NeCTAR project and host of the NSP. Further information Dr Steven Manos, University of Melbourne. smanos@unimelb.edu.au +61 3 9999 9999 ______________________________________________________________________ NSP - Robust service hosting for Australian researchers