For several years, Asia Pacific Research Platform (APRP) Working Group has successfully held sessions at major conferences. The next APRP session will be virtual and held in conjunction with the SCA21 Supercomputing Asia 2021 (SCA21) conference, March 2-4, 2021. The Program Committee envisions presentations and discussions on the progress and coordination of the growing Research Platform ecosystem.
The APRP session is scheduled for the afternoon of March 3, 2021 (Singapore time), and will be co-chaired by Yves Poppe, Director of the Advanced Global Super Computing Networking at the National Super Computing Centre (NSCC), Singapore, and Jeonghoon Moon, Leader of the KREONET Center’s Network Development Team at KISTI, South Korea. A tentative agenda — still being planned — is available on the SCA21 website.
This session will feature an update of APRP activities, and presentations by Joe Mambretti (iCAIR/Northwestern University), Cees de Laat (University of Amsterdam) and Rodney Wilson (Ciena), who have all played key roles in pushing the limits of very-high-speed communications. Kevin Sale (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology [KAUST]) will provide an update of the recent multi-100Gb connection between KAUST and Singapore and KAUST and Europe, as well as KAUST’s active role in the development of the APRP and the Global Research Platform (GRP).
In addition, the Data Mover Challenge (DMC) will be introduced by Francis Lee (Nanyang Technological University and Chair of DMC20) and Andrew Howard (Australian National University and Chair of the DMC20 Judging Committee). They will present the results of DMC20 that took place in March 2020, introduce DMC22, and elaborate on the strategic context and importance of DMC to evolving Science DMZs and Research Platforms. Given the global pandemic, it was decided not to have DMC21 and to hold future DMCs once every two years. Howard and Alvin Chiam (NSCC) will share the status of the goals, plans, and schedules for DMC22.
On a related note, the morning of March 3, Larry Smarr, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, will give a SCA21 plenary talk entitled “The Pacific Research Platform — A High-Bandwidth Distributed Supercomputer.”