1. AuScope Grid: ready to take the data plunge
Bob Haydon
AuScope
On behalf of many partners

2. What is the AuScope Grid?
AuScope Grid = Open standards based web services infrastructure
4 year project to build the IT infrastructure
a suite of IT tools for spatial data interoperability
Core ingredient is an information exchange layer that allows “Clients” to connect to “Resources” such as an organisations data
Forms a key component of the AuScope Infrastructure System

3. Simple Message
A large group of research collaborators have worked on the Grid challenge for a decade
Aimed at rectifying the national issue of information access, interoperability and cross-organisational collaboration
A solution has been developed and Australia is well positioned to lead from here
A long road ahead but we have some real and relevant examples of the infrastructure adding value to government organisations
The value will be ever so much greater with involvement by industry end users who rely on the data and information

4. AuScope and the Grid partnership
Improving our science base through research is heavily dependent on science infrastructure
Physical Equipment
Data
Software
IT Infrastructure
Much of this is relies on collaboration
AuScope Research Partners
State and Commonwealth Government CGGC and CSIRO
AuScope Grid Project lead by CSIRO

5. We rely on data for decision making?
Commonwealth
State
Local
Regional
Industry
Research
bedrock
surficial
mineral
geochemical
geochronologic
hyrdrogeological
Geo-information
geophysical
We know we all rely on data for our decision making
And in relation to Geo-information, the decision makes are from layers of government, Academia and Industry
But it’s no longer about using these systems to get data or produce a simple map display –its about analysing and using the data and information i.e “about helping people do stuff”
HOWEVER THERE HAAS BEEN A NATIONAL ISSUE OF INFORMATION ACCESS, INTEROPERABILITY AND CROSS-ORGANISATIONAL COLLABORATION.
Data
Decision makers
.... there has been a national issue of information access, interoperability and cross-organisational collaboration

6. The Grid Challenge over the past decade
To rectify the national issue of information access, interoperability and cross-organisational collaboration
Develop a suite of IT tools that permits users across government agencies and research organisations to access spatial data in public archives
Build upon existing open source Information Technologies where possible
Provide web-based tools to discover what data and information exists and to access it, use it and if necessary down load it
Develop a system sufficiently robust to deploy to a range of national organisations in a way that encourages other end users to utilise the services
An Ambitious Objective
The Grid Challenge was to rectify this issue

7. Collaborators Geological Surveys through
CGGC and Government Geoscience
Information Committee
Collaborators
Universities
ANU/RSES
Macquarie University
UWA
Adelaide University
Curtin University
Melbourne University
Monash University
Sydney University
University of Tasmania
University of Queensland
Federal Government Agencies
and Major Initiatives
State Government Agencies
for Land Management
Qld NRM
NSW Dept Lands
Tas DPIW
WA Landgate
Other State Government
Agencies participate through:
Geoscience Australia
Even More Ambitious when we look at the range of collaborators!

8. Collaboration Required Persistence and Endurance
Large number of diverse organisations
Massive amounts of historical data and information
New IT infrastructure was needed capable of providing new data streams
Users with multitude of workflows
Large range of software applications
Different Organisational IT Infrastructure

9. The infrastructure conceived a decade ago is changing...
Increasing need for:
richer content
diverse content from multiple sources
How do I connect....
my tools to
your content?
AuScope’s Infrastructure vision was an exemplar to help people do this a bit easier

10. AuScope Infrastructure System for National Data and Integration
a combination of research infrastructure
and applied science infrastructure
The AuScope Infrastructure was in a way an exemplar of an infrastructure system for National Data and Integration.
AuScope is an infrastructure system which is a combination of research infrastructure and applied science infrastructure
We have physical equipment and data at the back end
A National Spatial context for the data
Grid Infrastructure to provide access and interoperability
S&M provides a toolkit of modelling and simulation software
All to help develop testable concepts and models
Grid is also building a series of Web Portals for access to data, information and analysis tools to facilitate building Earth Models for the Australian Continent
Models and concepts for the Australian Continent
Physical equipment and datasets
National spatial framework
Grid computing infrastructure to access data
Software for analysis and modelling 10

11. The familiar data interfaces ≠ Vision
Tas
ACT
Data Providers
Vic
That was the vision but what was happening?
Most organizations already have web tools that allow users to access their data.
These have been built over many years:
Quite user friendly
Designed to meet specific client requirements
Far more functionality
However, this does not exactly match the Vision of a Nationally integrated IT infrastructure because the User must find the Provider and use the Provider’s client application NT
Provider defined
clients and formats
Users

12. The real story was reflected in hard facts
Up to 80% of project time is spent compiling and manipulating existing data (example from GSV)
20% of project time available for real work
Effective data integration remained elusive
Information access and exchange issues plagued the minerals industry and Government (as reported in the Minerals Exploration Action Agenda) and significantly impacted many minerals related research objectives which often require nationally integrated datasets.
Cost of data integration is itself a barrier to the research required to justify the investment in data integration
True for geology but pervades the entire resource value chain
The reality could be seen from some hard facts:
...There was a driver to change and ...
... an opportunity through the AuScope investment

13. Two projects addressing national data infrastructure and integration
AuScope Grid: Spatial Information Services Stack
National data sharing infrastructure
AuScope National Virtual Core Library
Hyperspectral mineral mapping
There were two projects conceived and lead by CSIRO that were part of the AuScope program.
Underpinned by Australia’s Global leadership in pre-competitive geoscience data 13

14. AuScope Community Agreements
A solution: Open standards based earth science information infrastructure
Client
AuScope Community Agreements
A solution could be seen by adopting and developing an open standards based earth science information infrastructure.
What If we could coordinate organizational behavior at the boundaries between organizations?
+ The point of truth would be corrected if an error is found for everyone that follows
+ Translating across vocabularies wouldn’t be left to assumption
+ There would be operational readiness for new events or opportunities that demand a different workflow across organisations
+ The cost of data integration would lower across the innovation system

15. Australia is well positioned to lead…
Strong industry
State and Territory Surveys and GA
Precompetitive data and knowledge
Exploration initiatives
Strong and active Chief Government Geologists Committee
World class research capability
Track record
DET CRC; CET; Universities
Supportive Ministerial Council for Minerals and Petroleum Resources
Issues recognised and reported in the Minerals Exploration Action Agenda
However, Australia is well-positioned to lead
A national competitive advantage

16. Some excellent progress has been made on a long road
NVCL – hyperspectral data from core
Earth Resources – mineral occurrence data
CSIRO MDU Earth model
Historical Reports
Yilgarn Geochemistry
National Geophysics - grav/mag/rads grids and data
WA CoE 3D Mineral Mapping
BOM Weather station data
Coastal Biophysical Modeller

17. Examples CSIRO MDU and BOM

18. Discovery Portal – combine and visualise data in different formats from different hosts
You can combine various kind of data, stored at different places and in different formats and visualise them in your web browser.

19. AuScope National Virtual Core Library
A major opportunity understand ore systems
Online,
Content searchable,
and
open standard delivery back to your application. 19

20. Unlocking National Resource Value will involve ongoing collaboration : resembles a national JV
National surveys / GA
A national ‘JV’
Unlocking
National
Resource
Value
So we are probably somewhere in this triangle but need more engagement and adoption to take us to another level.
Exploration is a knowledge business!
Explorers
Innovation & education

21. The future An Australian Geoscience portal
More earth resources-related datasets
Broader contribution of data supported by industry users
An e-Research infrastructure to provide
data management and assimilation tools to integrate, synthesise and access information and knowledge from these large and distributed data stores
infrastructure to meet future demand by enhancing multi-dimensional 3/4D data access via the web portals
a framework that will allow online access to larger volume data sets and enable processing at their highest resolution with improved model fidelity.

22. Conclusions
Federated Spatial Information Services data infrastructure is now a reality
The community has an opportunity to embrace these developments
We have only scratched the surface
Not just added another dataset or portal to the science community, but provided a new way of doing science, a true infrastructure development
We can now transform the way that data and data products are identified, shared, integrated, and reused, to unlock the benefits of true integration of research efforts across the minerals value chain