Question: What is a science gateway?

Answer: A science portal or science gateway is a community-developed set of tools, applications, and data integrated through a web-based portal or a suite of applications. They provide access to tools used in cutting-edge research – telescopes, seismic shake tables, supercomputers, sky surveys, undersea sensors, and more. These gateways often connect diverse resources and make them easily accessible, lowering the barriers traditionally required to access these resources. You can learn more about science gateways at sciencegateways.org.

Question: What is SGX3?

Answer: SGX3 is the Science Gateways Center of Excellence. They are a team of science gateway technical and community experts available to provide advice and consulting. They also have an annual conference, Gateways, in which paper submissions about science gateways and cyberinfrastructure are welcomed. Learn more at sciencegateways.org.

Question: What is involved with adapting a science gateway?

Answer:

• You can join an existing science gateway by creating an account or communicating to the team hosting the science gateway with an inquiry to join. Many science gateway teams hope you will join them and look to grow their communities. 

• If you would like to establish your own science gateway, you can work with these science gateway providers to request a new science gateway for your project. When you do create your own science gateway, you have the opportunity to design it to fit your project’s needs. Some of the below projects are open source and some offer full support in managing and hosting your science gateway. The benefit of working with a fully hosted team is you can outsource the management, development, and security to these experienced and fully staffed teams.

Question: How can I get science gateway support?

Answer: ACCESS provides several ways to support science gateways. They support community accounts, provide Virtual Machine hosting for science gateways and their related services, and offer MATCH support services for science gateway support. Additionally, the Science Gateways Center of Excellence (SGX3), an independently funded ACCESS service provider, provides support for different frameworks that can be used to build science gateways. SGX3 also provides support around usability enhancements for science gateways, technical advice, financial sustainability training, and workforce development. You can request support from SGX3 on the Science Gateways Consulting Services Request Form.

Question: How can I get a science gateways allocation?

Answer: A Science Gateway is a community-developed set of tools, applications, and data that are integrated via a portal or a suite of applications, usually in a graphical user interface, that is further customized to meet the needs of a specific community. Gateways enable entire communities of users associated with a common discipline to use national resources through a common interface that is configured for optimal use. Each gateway is associated with at least one active ACCESS allocation. For more details, see the Gateways for PIs page.

Question: How do I go about choosing a science gateway?

Answer: Choosing a Science Gateway depends on your needs. Gateways can provide features like high-performance computation resources, workflow tools, user and group management, data management, analytic and visualization software, collaborative interfaces, job submission tools, and education modules. You can build your own gateway, work with third party science gateway framework and middleware providers, or choose a middle path by selecting services from third party providers. You can also work with the Science Gateways Center of Excellence (SGX3) to develop additional aspects of your Science Gateway. Existing science gateways can be found at the Science Gateways Catalog.

Question: What are the research software options?

Answer:

• Research software refers to third-party software that you can download and install in your own account for research purposes. This software is often built from source code to be compatible with specific software environments, such as Stampede2. 

• Research software can also be installed on science gateways. An example of a free resource is the Delta Science Gateway for researchers to install their research software they have authored onto the Delta Science Gateway where it taps into some of the Delta System, a part of ACCESS’s Resource Providers.