CC* Integration: Regional Embedded Cloud for As-a-Service Transformation (RECAST)

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

Science DMZs (SDMZ) have been widely deployed in the Research and Education networking community and recognized as a global best practice for supporting cyberinfrastructure and big data applications. Despite innovations in performance, security, and management, the SDMZs remain focused on the support of big data projects and cyberinfrastructure. It remains difficult to create physical "disk to disk" or virtual "scientist to scientist" connections. Researchers are increasingly interested in an emerging class of hybrid services focused on turnkey, on-demand integration of private/public clouds, cyberinfrastructure, scientific resources, and high performance networks. The RECAST project will develop and deploy a regional based Software Defined Science DMZ (SD-SDMZ) as a mechanism to provide flexible edge services that include traditional data transfer functions. RECAST leverages state-of-the-art Cloud and Software-defined networking technologies to transform an SDMZ -- that was historically focused on high-speed data transfer -- into a Software Defined Infrastructure that offers compute and network services in a fully virtualized, programmable and orchestrated fashion. Built upon technologies similar to those used in modern data centers, this "cloudified SDMZ" will provide a scalable, multi-tenant environment, where each user or user group can allocate dedicated resources and use the resources in an isolated, Independent, and elastic fashion. Embedding this resource in the University of Maryland Mid-Atlantic Crossroads regional network will allow the SD-SDMZ to leverage rich connectivity to advance cyberinfrastructure to provide these new and advanced services.