The FlowSurge project leverages cyberinfrastructure (CI) resources for Software Defined Networking (SDN) on the FIU campus network, at the AMPATH International Exchange Point, regional, national and international multi-organizations to enhance support for end-to-end Science flows from a researcher's laboratory. FlowSurge's major research contribution is a science network and Science DMZ at FIU tailored to support high-performance science applications and data-intensive flows. The method of installing "FlowSurge Racks" optimized for high-performance and programmability of science flows, and instrumented for monitoring and measuring science flows right in the researchers' laboratories achieves that objective.
FlowSurge is motivated by researchers' requirements to: (1) generate science flows to shared CI or CI-connected resources on the campus; at other campuses; or at regional, national or international sites; and (2) Orchestrate and participate in "at-scale" experiments by using FlowSurge to tailor the end-to-end path for optimized high-performance science applications and data-intensive flows. FlowSurge enables IT and network staff at FIU to partition the campus network infrastructure to support Science flows without causing impact to general-purpose flows on the campus. The impact of FlowSurge is an environment that introduces new practices for researchers and their students at FIU (the largest Hispanic minority serving institution within the continental U.S.), and motivates the adoption and use of the FlowSurge rack, the Science network and the Science DMZ collectively as if it were a research instrument for resources needed for at-scale experimentation.
