The National Science Foundation's Cyberinfrastructure Council, based on extensive input from the research community, has developed a comprehensive evolving vision to guide the NSF's future investments in cyberinfrastructure (CI). The final version of NSF's CI vision was recently released in an ambitious report entitled Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery. The report emphasizes the importance of a set of specific goals and strategies for the CI initiative. Also, it identifies the various challenges and opportunities in the complementary areas that make up CI. Excerpt: Call to action: While hardware performance has been growing exponentially – with gate density doubling every 18 months, storage capacity every 12 months, and network capability every 9 months – it has become clear that increasingly capable hardware is not the only requirement for computation-enabled discovery. Sophisticated software, visualization tools, middleware and scientific applications created and used by interdisciplinary teams are critical to turning flops, bytes and bits into scientific breakthroughs. In addition to these technical needs, the exploration of new organizational models and the creation of enabling policies, processes, and economic frameworks are also essential. The combined power of these capabilities and approaches is necessary to advance the frontiers of science and engineering, make seemingly intractable problems solvable, and pose profound new scientific questions. The comprehensive infrastructure needed to capitalize on dramatic advances in information technology has been termed cyberinfrastructure (CI). Cyberinfrastructure integrates hardware for computing, data and networks, digitally-enabled sensors, observatories and experimental facilities, and an interoperable suite of software and middleware services and tools. Investments in interdisciplinary teams and cyberinfrastructure professionals with expertise in algorithm development, system operations, and applications development are also essential to exploit the full power of cyberinfrastructure to create, disseminate, and preserve scientific data, information and knowledge. Across the CI landscape, NSF will:

• Provide communities addressing the most computationally challenging problems with access to a world-class, high performance computing (HPC) environment through NSF acquisition and through exchange-of-service agreements with other entities, where possible.
• Broaden access to state-of-the-art computing resources, focusing especially on institutions with less capability and communities where computational science is an emerging activity.
• Support the development and maintenance of robust systems software, programming tools, and applications needed to close the growing gap between peak performance and sustained performance on actual research codes, and to make the use of HPC systems.
• Support the continued development, expansion, hardening and maintenance of end-to-end software systems – user interfaces, workflow engines, science and engineering applications, data management, analysis and visualization tools, collaborative tools, and other software integrated into complete science and engineering systems via middleware– in order to bring the full power of a national cyberinfrastructure to communities of scientists and engineers.
• Support the development of the computing professionals, interdisciplinary teams, enabling policies and procedures, and new organizational structures such as virtual organizations, that are needed to achieve the scientific breakthroughs made possible by advanced CI, paying particular attention to opportunities to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups.
• Support state-of-the-art innovation in data management and distribution systems, including digital libraries and educational environments that are expected to contribute to many of the scientific breakthroughs of the 21st century.
• Support the design and development of the CI needed to realize the full scientific potential of NSF’s investments in tools and large facilities, from observatories and accelerators to sensor networks and remote observing systems.
• Support the development and maintenance of the increasingly sophisticated applications needed to achieve the scientific goals of research and education communities.
• Invest in the high-risk/high-gain basic research in computer science, computing and storage devices, mathematical algorithms, and the human/CI interfaces that are critical to powering the future exponential growth in all aspects of computing, including hardware speed, storage, connectivity and scientific productivity.
• Provide a framework that will sustain reliable, stable resources and services while enabling the integration of new technologies and research developments with a minimum of disruption to users.

To implement its vision, NSF will develop interdependent plans for each of the following aspects of CI, with emphasis on their integration to create a balanced science- and engineering-driven national CI:

• High Performance Computing
• Data, Data Analysis, and Visualization
• Virtual Organizations for Distributed Communities, and
• Learning and Workforce Development.

In a letter, Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., Director of National Science Foundation said: "I am pleased to present NSF’s Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery. This document, developed in consultation with the wider science, engineering, and education communities, lays out an evolving vision that will help to guide the Foundation’s future investments in cyberinfrastructure." "At the heart of the cyberinfrastructure vision is the development of a cultural community that supports peer-to-peer collaboration and new modes of education based upon broad and open access to leadership computing; data and information resources; online instruments and observatories; and visualization and collaboration services. Cyberinfrastructure enables distributed knowledge communities that collaborate and communicate across disciplines, distances and cultures. These research and education communities extend beyond traditional brick-and-mortar facilities, becoming virtual organizations that transcend geographic and institutional boundaries. This vision is new, exciting and bold." "Realizing the cyberinfrastructure vision described in this document will require the broad participation and collaboration of individuals from all fields and institutions, and across the entire spectrum of education. It will require leveraging resources through multiple and diverse partnerships among academia, industry and government. An important challenge is to develop the leadership to move the vision forward in anticipation of a comprehensive cyberinfrastructure that will strengthen innovation, economic growth and education." Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery is available at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf0728/index.jsp Courtesy: National Science Foundation