What is the NSP?
For the last five years, the NeCTAR National Server Program (NSP) housed and managed at Melbourne University addressed the need for a robust and reliable national hosting infrastructure for those core eResearch services and research applications requiring high levels of reliability and availability. Core eResearch services are defined as those that support or underpin research activities of national relevance to researchers from multiple institutions and disciplines.
The NSP hosted services and applications developed and supported by institutions from across Australia and provided nationally for the use of researchers to aid in collaborations and cost effective research outcomes.
The future of the NSP
In 2015 the NeCTAR program and partners carefully considered the future of the National Servers Program (NSP) under NeCTAR research platforms program. After much deliberation, in March 2016 a decision was reached that the NSP service will be devolved to services operated directly by the NeCTAR Nodes. The new NSP operators will establish services at several new locations to support national research.
The new NSP operators will include:
- the University of Melbourne (the existing NSP operator),
- Monash University,
- the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI),
- the Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF), and
- University of Tasmania (TPAC).
NeCTAR and the NSP will be working with the new operators to grow their local server hosting capacity and to increase support during 2016 to facilitate users in this transition.
We expect the type of hosting service and support offered by these new services to be similar to the existing NSP but with access to much newer infrastructure. The new NSP operators may also offer value added services or additional resources. Contact information will be given below. Specific service details, as well as potential costs beyond the transition period can be discussed with the liaison person. All operators have expressed their intention to continue service for at least 3 years.
Who to contact
- Current NeCTAR NSP support – via a support.ehelp ticket request
- or contact your NeCTAR Node directly
NeCTAR would like to formally thank the NSP staff and the University of Melbourne for their efforts which have built, improved and supported the National Servers Program over the past 5 years. The recent user consultation has reaffirmed that the NSP service has been greatly appreciated and valuable in support of significant national research projects and collaborations.
Lyle Winton, Deputy Director, Nectar Research Platforms
