Date: 27 September 2023

Facilitators: Jakob Tendel, Jan Meijer

Attendees: ACOnet, AMRES, BELNET, CARNet, CYNET, DeiC, DFN, EENet, FCT, GARR, GÉANT, GRENA, GRNET, HEAnet, KIFÜ, LAT/Sigmanet, MARnet, NORDUnet, PSNC, RedIRIS, RENAM, Sikt, SUNET, SURF, SWITCH, URAN

Workshop Objective

CTO workshops are meant to guide what "What NREN and GÉANT do ?together".

This is expressly not only for the GN5x project, but in general. First figure out:

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Outcome of the workshop is a roadmap (update) outlining identified priorities for the coming multi-year community collaboration cycles.

Workshop

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The workshop was organised on Zoom, into several sections:

• Introduction 
• (5x) Thematic section with one speaker (30 mins each)
  • 7 min presentation
  • 20 min discussion
  • 3 min summary with Menti poll
• Total summary (with exit poll)
  

The topics under discussion were identified in an initial community brainstorming session some weeks before, and refined into:

• Infrastructure cloud and videoconferencing
• Joint activity towards commercial suppliers
• Research data sharing
• Education
• Artificial Intelligence - AI

Workshop Summary

Topic 1

Key points presented

Key discussion points

Key take-aways

Summary

Key points presented

Infrastructure-cloud. The current roadmap includes three key areas: service (OCRE FW), product (eduMEET), and a collective strategy. The collective strategy aims to explore areas beyond infrastructure cloud and consider joint technical platforms, personal data protection, and large-scale storage services in the EOSC context, emphasising the importance of long-term sustainability and financing. It underscores the importance of collective action, strategic alignment, and maximising impact, aligning with GN5-1, GN5-2, and research cloud initiatives. The presentation concluded with a call to dream bigger dreams and contribute to the new IaaS+ agreements in 2023 to ensure their relevance upon arrival in 2024.

Joint activity towards commercial suppliers. GÉANT has established a capability for EU wide joint procurement on behalf of the NRENs and their institutions. This has so far been applied to the OCRE IaaS Cloud Frameworks, but need not be limited to this. This procurement function represents sufficient market size to get a level of access and concessions from even the largest market Suppliers, that smaller buyer (groups) would not, and there are a number of plausible avenues for the GÉANT community to leverage this influence with commercial suppliers. Some options might be, driving the market towards addressing more specific R&E needs, procurement with European values around common good in the focus, claiming the role as procurement hub for commercial services within the EOSC marketplace.

Research Data Sharing. The presentation discussed the role of collective NREN actions in the context of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the sharing of research data. EOSC aims to create a web of scientific insight by connecting various data sources and services based on the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles. The presentation highlighted the status and future plans for EOSC, the role of NRENs, and potential areas for collective NREN actions within EOSC, such as sharing resources, procurement, and expanding services to support EOSC nodes.

Education. The presentation explored NRENs' role in educational services, focusing on requirements like identity management, new education-related needs, and the value of open-source solutions, demonstrated by eduMEET. NORDUnet highlighted the advantages of autonomy, community support, and cost-effectiveness in the development of robust, user-centric educational tools. It advocated for open-source solutions to enhance scalability and suggested an investigation into APIs for the integration of frequently used educational tools.

Artificial Intelligence. The presentation by GRNET explored the evolving landscape of AI and its implications for NRENs. It emphasised the need for NRENs to engage in discussions about the role of AI, particularly in the context of OpenAI's use of publicly available data (like training large language models). The presentation raised important questions about fairness, data attribution, the use of non-public data, and the substantial resources required for AI models. It also highlighted potential discussion points, including NRENs' role in curating datasets, promoting diversity of data, and investigating compensation models for data providers. The presentation underlined the increasing demand for AI-related resources from public cloud providers and the need for NRENs to facilitate discussions and collaborations in this evolving landscape.

Key discussion points

Infrastructure-cloud. 

Community Clouds and Commercial Solutions: The discussion touched the choices around selecting from community and commercial clouds. Participants emphasised not limiting options and the need to build communities around products like eduMEET. Maintaining and renewing the IaaS Framework into the future is now a GÉANT community priority, while further investigating options for collective action on community clouds. One likely candidate here is working together for integrating middleware layers on top of infrastructure cloud (of any origin, community or commercial) that provide seamless integration with the sovereign identity and data services provided by the NREN community. This feeds into highly current developments around Trusted/Virtual Research Environments (TRE/VRE) that are rapidly gaining traction in the research space.

Cloud Procurement and  GÉANT 's Role: The conversation touched on cloud procurement, particularly  GÉANT 's role in infrastructure services (OCRE Framework). It was noted that well-defined objectives, resources, and strategy are vital together with operational support of the Framework.

Data Protection and Digital Sovereignty: The importance of data protection laws and digital sovereignty was acknowledged, aligning with EC priorities. The key will be to refine actionable guidance for making sourcing decisions on an case-by-case basis without losing alignment with the aforementioned priorities. 

NREN Roles and Collaboration: NRENs' unique role in facilitating access to commercial tools for the GÉANT community was underlined, recognising their negotiation strength.  GÉANT 's potential role as the commercial services supplier within the EOSC context was highlighted. 

Collaboration Challenges: Challenges in collaborating across administrative domains, especially with Microsoft O365, were acknowledged, with eduMEET seen as a potential solution.

eduMEET and Collaboration Tools: Discussions focused on integrating eduMEET and similar collaboration tools, emphasising their importance in cross-border educational collaboration. For instance, Moodle integration with eduMEET was highlighted. Also, there is a real opportunity right now to lift eduMEET deployment across the NREN space to a higher level, possibly up to a GÉANT wide federation. This would fill a number of needs around sovereign communications infrastructure, community interfederation for mutual support and resilience, open systems and solutions, and a greater independence from future developments around commercial solutions, while not impeding free choices around solutions in any individual case.

Commercial providers. The discussion centred on using commercial and non-European services in education and research, with NRENs playing a crucial role in improving access to commercial tools for the GÉANT community. As cloud service costs rise, collective procurement and community cloud offerings are increasingly vital. The post-COVID era emphasises the need for expertise in videoconferencing. The main point is the significance of choosing between commercial and community clouds. For example, Zoom's success reflects the value of community demand, and there's a desire to foster communities around products like eduMEET. Data outside the network and user access from home are now important considerations. NRENs have a unique opportunity to negotiate better terms for their communities.

Research Data sharing. The discussion emphasised the value of trust within the community and the need to establish GÉANT EOSC nodes. While some participants found the concept more relatable than others, the collective engagement of NRENs was proposed as a more impactful approach, at least for those NRENs with a formal national role toward EOSC. The central question revolved around the services and resources that NRENs should provide through these channels. The discussion highlighted the importance of focusing on the services and resources NRENs can offer and the most effective means of making them available to researchers and EOSC, with GÉANT nodes serving as a practical vehicle to aggregate efforts at the GÉANT level. It was also brought up that developing the software layer of GÉANT/NREN data services could greatly increase the ability among EOSC and other research data infrastructures to optimally exploit the R&E network infrastructure while providing a common layer for greater interoperability also.

Education. The discussion focused on the need for streamlined collaborative efforts in education mobility services, highlighting the significance of thorough analysis. Legal constraints in managing academic records presented problems, leading to the exploration of personal data wallet concepts for educational data management. The discussion stressed the importance of NRENs working together to create a European higher education interoperability framework.

Education Mobility and Identity. Reps from NORDUnet, PSNC, KIFÜ, SWITCH, SURF, and GARR discussed the need for an efficient model for education mobility, emphasising EU ID wallet collaboration to explore its potential (determining its format, interoperability). The main aim is to explore the potential of the identity part.

Handling Educational Data. Insights were shared about the challenges of managing course and student records, which can differ by country, and there may be legal restrictions preventing data access. There was also a question whether these limitations were set by institutions or governments. Also the idea of a personal data wallet linked to identity for educational data management was introduced, which led to discussions about what this means.

European Interoperability Framework in Higher Education. All participants expressed interest in contributing to a European interoperability framework in higher education. Collaboration and contributions from NRENs and organisations were encouraged to drive the development of this framework.

Artificial Intelligence. The conversation revolved around AI-related matters, particularly the rising demand for GPUs in university research centres and AI services that NRENs could provide. NRENs had started dialogues with research groups to provide computing resources for AI tools. Emphasis was placed on improving access to large-scale computing and defining market conditions. The widespread use of AI in education was recognised, leading to a discussion about their role in this growing field. Plans were underway to provide compliant access to ChatGPT, including federated login, with potential future enhancements.

AI Topics: The discussion revolved around exploring AI topics, assessing AI tools, and NRENs' role in this growing field. Efforts to collaborate with research groups on digitisation and language models were noted.
Role of NRENs in AI: NRENs play a crucial role in facilitating high-scale computing and addressing the demand for GPUs in AI. Plans for compliant ChatGPT access were in progress.
AI in Education: AI's extensive use in educational activities, community organisations, and initiatives in network security data using AI models were discussed.

Key take-aways

NRENs:

• further unite their efforts around cloud procurement, as one pillar of the community's cloud service offerings
• play a crucial role in EOSC, aligning with FAIR data principles, and should prioritise collective actions for community data resource sharing
• have expressed interest in investigating research data storage and interoperability frameworks and potential future services, built on collaboration and contributions from NRENs and organisations
• recognise the necessity for user-centric educational tools, open-source solutions, and an interoperability framework to enhance education mobility and identity management. 
• will continue discussions regarding AI on fairness, data attribution, and collaboration, with NRENs facilitating dialogue and promoting data diversity
• will consider other opportunities for collective engagement with commercial suppliers where they appear

GÉANT 

• has a strong mandate for continuing operations and renewals around the OCRE 2020/2024 Framework
• has a responsibility to build sustainable communities around products like eduMEET.

Next Steps

Preparation of a roadmap update with community input by willing contributing authors, addressed to the GÉANT General Assembly, and containing:

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Selection of specific activities for inclusion in imminent project calls are made together with the GÉANT Project Planning Committee - GPPC, based upon the most current roadmap available at the time.

Lessons Learned

Conclusion

The GÉANT CTO Workshop "Above-the-net Services" proved to be a remarkable success, offering invaluable insights that both affirmed current activities and enhanced the future roadmap. The discussions not only confirmed the importance of collective action and alignment but also charted possible directions and activities for the forthcoming GN5-2 project, ensuring GÉANT's continued commitment to staying at the forefront of network research and education.

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