We created ACCESS Credits to give researchers the flexibility to request from any resource while also enabling them to “spend” in a manner that could potentially stretch their allocation. We started with fixed exchange rates for each resource. But with the Variable Marketplace pilot, we are allowing resource providers to adjust the value of their resources to either give discounts or increase the rate of ACCESS Credits per unit of resource. By doing so, they can manage resource demand or attract targeted research activities.

The ACCESS web site doesn’t need to be the only place you can discover and explore ACCESS resources. With the On-Ramps pilot, we are allowing campuses and other organizations to embed the ACCESS resource catalog right into their own web site. In doing so, we hope to increase the reach of ACCESS resources by connecting with researchers and educators where they already turn first to look for research computing and data services to meet their needs.

You can deploy an ACCESS On-Ramp on your site today! See the On-Ramps page. 

Commercial and academic cloud-based resources have become an integral part of the research computing landscape but lack robust allocation processes to manage these resources. In this pilot we have adapted XRAS and the CIDeR repository to better support the integration and allocation of cloud resources for ACCESS and the NAIRR Pilot.

Our original plan was to enable researchers to request allocations for “packages” of resources to support complex computational workflows and environments, such as science gateways, to simplify the complex resource landscape for investigators. 

Over the course of the ACCESS award period, however, we have shifted efforts to streamlining the workflows for researchers and allocations staff who have to deal with tens of thousands of allocation requests and management actions during the year.

While computing and storage resources can be continuously shared by hundreds or thousands of researchers, some classes of resources — instrumentation, sensor networks, software-defined networks, and human support staff — can only be used by a small number of researchers or research teams simultaneously. Our original plan was to support allocations on resources that required calendar-based scheduling to support their shared use by different research teams.

For now, this effort has been tabled to focus on streamlining the allocation process workflows.