CENTER FOR COMPUTATION & TECHNOLOGY

Business Report By Steve Clark A year and a half after the state announced plans for an ambitious supercomputer fiber-optic grid, no director has been hired, and officials in charge are still trying to figure out whether there's enough money to both build the network and hire enough staff to run it. The harshest critics say the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative is bogged down by a lack of leadership, undermining its economic development potential. Even Ed Seidel, director of LSU's Center for Computing Technology and LONI's chief scientist, admits frustration at the hiring delays. But Seidel, who is a member of the Louisiana Board of Regents' LONI Management Council, also says he's amazed at how much progress has been made in such a short time: from literally no funding to a $40 million commitment from the governor and a network nearing deployment. By tapping into a national grid, LONI will allow researchers to coordinate supercomputers all over the country to work on a particular problem. Yet Seidel says no matter how wonderful the facility, LONI will only be as good as the people who run it and those who teach researchers around the state how to use it. "It's going to take a lot learning, not just because this is complicated stuff, but because it's also a new technology," Seidel says. "Even the experts who are developing the technology haven't got it all figured out yet." Seidel says the staffing plan he put together months ago drew on his CCT team's expertise and that of experts around the world familiar with optical networks, grid computing and collaborations similar to LONI. "We put together what we thought was a pretty comprehensive plan," he says. "I think actually it was very widely supported. But the issue was in particular that the Board of Regents wanted to make sure we didn't go too hastily toward hiring a staff when we hadn't even decided what the cost of the hardware and the fiber would be." Seidel says he'll be glad when the cost structure gets sorted out, something he thinks will happen soon. "I think that's where its primary focus needs to be right now," he says. Leslie Guice, chairman of the LONI management council, says the council is looking at ways to provide staffing. Seidel's model looks good, he says, though the question of whether to take that particular approach is one of resources. "We might not wind up with an answer that looks just like what he wants, but he is certainly driving a lot of the discussion about what this needs to be," Guice says. The project is working with a budget of $4 million a year. Charles McMahon, LSU's director of telecommunications, says it's not clear yet how much will be spent on infrastructure versus staffing, though he thinks both components will be adequately funded while staying within budget. LSU in Baton Rouge should be "lit up" in September, just in time for a Sept. 9 meeting of the National LambdaRail board. The LambdaRail is a national fiber optic network that will connect with LONI. Louisiana paid $5 million for the privilege of being a part of it. Other university campuses around the state should be hooked up in the fall. As to why LONI still doesn't have a director, Guice says it has taken time "to understand exactly what the role of this director is going to be." The Board of Regents has given the council approval to hire a director, he says, and advertising for the position should begin soon. Seidel says a job description and advertisement for the director's job was drafted six months ago. He was ready to start shopping it around then and even approached some international candidates with experience in the field. "I was frustrated that we couldn't move more quickly on it, but now that I see it coming back around again and people are finally understanding in a very broad sense that we need this, those people will be available pretty soon," he says. Seidel says some opportunities for scientific collaboration have been missed since the status of staffing and a director have remained up in the air. At the same time, he says, LSU has already landed major government research grants on the strength of LONI--even before it's done. Kyle Poulsen, a former Cisco Systems sales rep who negotiated with the state to contract with the company for LONI's hardware requirements, is now a lobbyist representing a technology firm that wants a piece of the action. Poulsen says an economic development marketing strategy--aimed at potential tech transfer partners--should have been developed over the past year and a half in tandem with the building of the actual network infrastructure. Other states are putting together their own optical networks, he notes, and Louisiana may be missing the chance to beat them out of the gates by not emphasizing marketing and business partnerships early on. "If used correctly, from an economic development perspective, it could be used to target the film and movie industry, video gaming, manufacturing--all kinds of industries. If it's done correctly," Poulsen says. He says the lack of a coherent vision means questions about how best to exploit LONI commercially won't be seriously addressed until the project is finished. "They'll spend a year and half debating: Does ULL focus on oil and gas? We'll waste time debating who will do what," Poulsen says. Guice counters that Poulsen is "absolutely incorrect" in saying economic development isn't part of the discussion. While the main focus is indeed getting the infrastructure built, a business plan is being done to answer the economic development questions. And though Seidel agrees with Poulsen that things could have moved faster, he doesn't think the management council and the Board of Regents have lost sight of economic development, even if no solid plan for it is in place yet. "We're still in the formative stages of pulling the whole thing together," Seidel says. "I identify with some of Kyle's frustrations, and I have some of the same ones. I just think we're going to have the right thing emerge from this. I'm confident of that."