Speaker
Description
When we start a relationship with a new research institution, we are often met with skepticism by the IT manager and the researchers. The first believes that there is no one better than him to understand his own institution, after all he is the local security hero who needs to protect his kingdom from intruders. The researchers, on the other hand, are extremely independent and creative in their solutions for transferring data to his partners around the world (We’ve heard recently that some of them still transfer data physically using bus/plane to transport hard drives.). So, theoretically, they don't need us to support their job. On the other hand, we must adjust our NREN’s cyberinfrastructure and services in order for them to improve the performance of their massive scientific data transfer.
The solution we found was precisely to use scientific thinking to shorten this barrier. We drew up a process organized in stages to introduce ourselves. We started with online meetings with the IT manager, in which we asked about the challenges faced in transferring massive volumes of scientific data over our network. After a few meetings in which we gradually discuss their greatest problems, our relationship is established and we invite the researchers of the most demanding use cases to unravel the mystery of their scientific workflow. Hence, we start to collaboratively design the architecture (equipment, configuration and security policies) enable them to experiment a high-performance scientific network. We believe that the secret to success in this construction is sharing the context, building the relationship in an incremental and structured way, like scientific thinking, which allows us to break the ice with even the most suspicious scientists.
