**Resource Provider: Lisa Perez

By Christine Golus
10 min

perez@tamu.edu
Texas A&M
High Performance Research Computing
Timezone: Central

Director for Advanced Computing Enablement at Texas A&M University, High Performance Research Computing
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaperez-io/

Availability:

Monday 1/27 from 1 pm -3 pm

 

Via sign up form:

Please describe your experience with supercomputing
I use supercomputers often

Are you familiar with the U.S. National Science Foundation's ACCESS program?
Yes, I have used ACCESS in my research

 

Via pre-survey:

How should we address you?
Lisa

Please describe your experience using advanced research computing?
I have over 30 years of experience in advanced research computing as a researcher, and more than 20 years as an HPC sysadmin and research support specialist.

If you've used ACCESS, what allocation level did you start with?
Explore

What have you used or hope to use the ACCESS website to do?
I have used the ACCESS website to apply for allocations, obtain usage stats, find allocation policies, manage my projects. I hope to use the ACCESS website to login to resources directly.

Remind us what your role is, as it applies to working with ACCESS:
Resource Provider

What is your research domain?
No answer

What courses do you teach?
No answer

What is advanced research computing is your resource particularly well suited for?
AI/ML and computational workloads that can utilize multiple GPUs and/or novel accelerators.

Who are your stakeholders?
No answer

What one thing do you appreciate most about the program?
The Explore level allocations

What one thing would you change about the program?
The high barrier to bring in new resource providers.


Interview guide:

RECORDING: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SitbhLQMjVWTtZCe54-Uk_lKhqQGXflU?usp=sharing

60-90 minute interview. Each task will take approximately 5-10 minutes.

  • Login, introductions, set up screen share, record

  • Task 1: Do you know how to set up an ACCESS training session for your resource?
    Interview notes here

I go in and get an allocation specifically for our training sessions, and then I collect access IDs from those that register and have them added to my training allocation. And then I make sure they're activated on my system training.

We have a staff member that goes in creates the public facing events. We have an affinity group for our system and I they know where to go in for news to publish that news and the buttons to click to make sure it goes to our affinity group.

And then accesses it. And I know they send it out in their newsletter. And then we also have the ones that we know which ones to click if we needed also publish to the page.

  • Task 2: Do you know how to announce outages or other type of news about your resource?
    Interview notes here

  • Yes, that goes in the system news affinity group and our affinity group. It depends on what level it is. But yeah, we definitely have it for our affinity group.

  • Our lead sysadmin posts about system outages. he also selects the Aces affinity group to make sure that it goes to the right system. Okay, so that the email gets sent out. But yes, we are also reviewing the, best practices document to ensure that we are in line with what's in the best practices, document.

  • There is still some confusion as to what each button does and who gets messages. When we click set buttons, I will just tell you that the last time we had an outage for Aces, we had, you know, maintenance, it did go to the ACES affinity group. I'm not entirely sure where else it went. So. So yes, there's still room for improvement.

    NOTE: RPs can use clear and concise documentation about distributing news

  • Task 3: Do you know how to update resource information and resource contacts?
    Interview notes here

  • Yes,

  • Likes the new information (fields) captured by CiDeR. Thought User URL field might have lost when an additional field was added and she noticed on ACES or FASTER.

  • Task 4: Where can you find XDmod? Do you know how to use this tool?
    Interview notes here

  • She Googles to find it and the address pre-populates the next time she wants to go there

  • Knows how to tool use it.

  • Struggles,to get information that I need

  • The main request is to make it responsive, as most RPs use phones. She is on the go a lot and it's difficult to use on mobile, and needs to access information. (She knows this is a big ask )

  • FOLLOW-UP?: Would you say that that's a in general a problem across all of the access websites?
    No I don't think so.

 

  • Task 5: Where can you find Systems Status information?
    Interview notes here

  • Mainly Uses Affinity Group

  • looking in news was most intuitive

  • tends to use search

  • Suggested News could be a dropdown

    NOTE: Make Systems Status news more findable

  • Task 6: Where can you find news just for RPs?
    Interview notes here
    Wouldn’t check the website for Operations News - wants to have it emailed, thinks people like to customize email notifications frequency.

  • Doesn’t know how to get to Affinity Groups?

  • Doesn’t know where to get News for RPs?

  • Not sure she is in the ACCESS Systems News Affinity Group

She searched for operations in the Affinity Groups expected more

System Status News Affinity Group she joined as soon as she heard about it she relies on notifications ie CILogin maintenance potential conflict with workshops.

At RP Meetings when she hears about a new Affinity Group she joins right away, so she won't lose it.

Lisa try to keep up with ACCESS features discussed in the RP forums etc. but has missed the Integrating News Publishing feature(available as a link on the ACCESS RP Integration Affinity Group). When we visited the page she mentioned that she is not going to go to a web page for integration news and would like it emailed or slack post.

NOTE: Can we improve searchability of Affinity Groups by anticipating what RPS may be searching for?

NOTE: Integrating News Publishing feature(available as a link on the ACCESS RP Integration Affinity Group) needs to be more findable.

Integration and other news should be emailed, or let people choose notification preferences, daily, weekly. Urgent emails can be sent right out to the Affinity group.

(Integration news is on average generated once or twice a week. )

RPs may miss things in the ACCESS newsletters because it has a broad base. (25.52

Task 7: Where can you go for help?
Interview notes here

Thinks wording is confusing - staff chooses “Our System” and it goes internally not to ACCESS. Staff needs training on which to go to and what to select.

Generally doesn’t use RP “open a ticket” form.

Lisa said most of the tickets her staff opens is around AMIE and XDMoD

She also ask questions in Slack

RP staff may need better ticketing documentation. If RP staff is recommended to use RP ticketing form we need to make sure they are finding it easily.

  • Task 8: Where would you go to join the RP Slack channel?
    Interview notes here

  • Didn't know link to RP Slack channel was on the ACCESS site / wouldn’t know where to find the link / hadn’t looked. She tried typing in “slack” and “rp slack channel” in QA bot

  • Discussed Operations ticket form and confusion around tagging “Which Resource is this request related to?” Some RPS may want to see ticket because they opened it. Lisa is fine with this but they also get a lot of tickets that have nothing to do with them because they are top of list.

  • Jp mentioned that showing “This is intentional by design here. If it's showing up in your queue, that's something that we can fix, but we still want to know that it's ACES related.” Lisa said they were told not to list themselves here (as the related resource) in the past tickets would languish because they would assume they were for us.

  • Lisa said she would encourage her staff to read (Lon)documentation about recommended procedures and also stressed that the dropdown is long.

  • Lisa noticed that queues have been monitored better by ACCESS in the last 6 months, including things that wind up in the ACES cue unintentionally

  • Did not find the landing page dropdown easily. Once she became acquainted she appreciated what was on it and thought she would send new staff here. Does not send new staff to Roadmaps - too confusing.

  • Prefers opening in new tabs.

  • Lisa mentioned the importance of keyword searches, when she watches, students and graduate students and new faculty, they don't read a page, they search for keywords. Recommends having students help with selecting keywords, Suggests getting their input on keywords in interviews. Also suggests they do wild-clicking

  • Took her a few years to understand roadmaps

  • Lisa brought up a point of confusion she has noticed some undergraduates, and some graduate students, are not sure whether they are eligible for Discover projects. Even though I'm on the the eligibility page, it says graduate students have to have a letter to get an explore allocation. There's no mention of undergraduates. And I've seen multiple graduate students apply by themselves because they consider themselves staff. So that is something that could use some clarification. (47:00)

  • NOTE: We should make RP Slack space easier to find

  • NOTE: Would be helpful to improve RP ticketing procedure documentation.

  • NOTE: Make landing page drop down look clickable

  • NOTE: See where we can improve keywords for typical user searches.

  • NOTE: How can we make integration roadmap less confusing, or at least guide the right audience there but not confuse new people who are still getting the basics.

  • NOTE: Clarify eligibility text for Discover, Explore related to students and staff.

  • NOTE: RPS may have the perception that the site is not for them, and this may make it harder for them to find the information for them. How can we make a more findable place for RP info?

  • Task 9: How can you join the RP Forum?
    Interview notes here

  • Lisa found the communications links circular, and not clear, and the Integration Roadmap content confusing.

  • NOTE: Explanation of RP Forum can be improved, perhaps with a summary at the top, so people can quickly understand what it is, and if they can join.

  • NOTE: On the Get Involved page the link off of the accordion was not working for her, possibly because she had logged out.

  • How can RPs get involved in the ACCESS community?

    ** Link Join the Resource Provider forum link doesn’t work for everyone / may need to go to login page?

  • The quick link to the RP Forum goes to a slack login. - FIXED THIS. - CG

  • Directs people to do things in private mode when there are conflicts with authentication

    NOTE: check Join the Resource Provider forum link for a variety of users and logged in states

  • Task 10: If you want to get involved and volunteer with the ACCESS community as an RP, where would you go?
    Interview notes here

  • Looked on Support/Community

  • Didn’t realize the current projects page was live, and would never have found it through the menus

  • NOTE: Is there a operations redirect issue here (1:02:02)

  • NOTE: we could make current projects more findable? in about? People may not look in ACCESS Impact > Current Projects

  • Task 11: interview would you be willing to review this pages?
    https://access-ci.org/about/resource-providers/
    https://access-ci.org/get-started/for-resource-providers/
    Interview notes here

  • Sending staffs to the roadmaps are too overwhelming, wouldn't start with those, too confusing until people are ramped

  • Undergrads confused about whether they can get a Discover project types because they conside themself staff

  • Videos like preparing an allocation request could be linked to from

  • NOTE: had trouble getting to ACCESS home page

  • Task 12: Are you seeing any trends in types of allocation requests?
    Interview notes here

  • Lot of Explore requests , and underrepresented in HPC Explore requests, she believes this comes out of training sessions, and she advertises widely in and out of ACCESS.

  • Fewer Discover, probably because of their model (charing by Susan and core hours, not node hours) and upcharge for accelerators etc.

  • People are pretty loyal and remain

  • Students need a lot of support getting their first allocation, it is very confusing for them, and they provide a lot of support.

  • Short videos about how to get your access ID, was very much appreciated. But they only illustrated it for people who were at entities that were, incorporated into CI log on with authentication (affiliated)

  • If you are not affiliated then it is more complicated, and there is no video, (#1 she thought there was a video, #2 Register without an existing identity:)and the people don;t have resources at their institution.

  • Many things that can go wrong with the sign-up instructions, and believes a video is crucial

  • Does outreach for community colleges they spend 2-3 days walking through process of getting ACCESS ID and logging into system. there have been some improvements, it used to be worse, but still confusing. Even with affiliated.

  • A short video on simple explore request, this is how you get it, then it has to be approved, and then you have to exchange it And then that has to be approved. Then your account gets activated. Then you get an email from the RP.

  • They get a lot of emails from people who can't login because it hasn't been processed yet.

  • NOTE: Can we create some short videos or timeline/flowchart of account process about getting ACCESS IDS (#2 Register without an existing identity)

On Landing Page:

NOTE: Look more carefully these key pages and improve as we can: Get your first Project page and ACCESS User Registration.

NOTE: Link to videos like Preparing an allocation Request, Managing your allocation, etc. Possibly use tiny url to streamline updating.

 

NOTE: ACCESS User Registration can use page title and possible remove or move down XSEDE info.



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