2022-06-21 ACCESS EC Meeting Agenda & Summary

Attendees:

(v) indicates a voting member

Agenda/Notes

1. Approval of 14 June 2022 Interim EC summary (5 min)

   1. No changes noted. Meeting summary approved.

2. Informational Items (5 mins)

   1. RAMPS @Shawn Brown (Unlicensed)

      1. Shawn Brown announced that this is his last week at PSC. Pending NSF approval, Stephen Deems will be taking over the PI role for RAMPS.

   2. MATCH @Shelley Knuth

      1. NTR

   3. CONNECT @Amy Schuele (Unlicensed)

      1. Operations: We are collecting volunteer RPs for the pilot of the 1st Roadmap for currently allocated/integrated systems -- have Bridges2 and Jetstream2, inquiry with UDel-Darwin.

      2. RP Forum: We are holding 2 open houses for XSEDE L1 SPs this week to share info/plans for how they will integrate into ACCESS. We will also attend the SP forum meeting this Thursday to share info/plans and answer any questions.

   4. MMS @Tom Furlani

      1. NTR

   5. OpenCI @John Towns

      1. John talked to Ruth Marinshaw about continuing the SP Forum, post-XSEDE, and interacting with ACCESS until a new charter is developed and approved. Ruth agreed to take this to the SP Forum for discussion. Track 2 has a User Advisory Board in their proposal. Shelley spoke with current XSEDE User Advisory Board (UAB) Chair, Emre Brookes, who agreed to continue UAB’s interaction with ACCESS. Shelley will discuss this option with her team. January seems a good time to have this in place.

3. EC Charter / Code of Conduct @John Towns (15 mins)

   1. Code of conduct: A few people have been in the document. John made some changes and additions. Interim EC members asked to review the updated document, edit as needed, offer comments, and respond to comments.

   2. Membership to EC text has been updated. Please review and provide input. Amy asked if only PIs have vote. John felt that was the spirit of the discussion last week. Dave Hart asked if PI can delegate vote if they cannot attend EC meeting. PI is the official voting member—the intention is for PIs to attend. Delegation of votes should be the exception rather than the rule. There is a feeling that voting will be rare. John will update the draft EC document.

   3. Tom Furlani suggested that the chair of the External Advisory Board be added as a voting member of EC. Tom Gulbransen mentioned that this might be beyond the scope of what EAB members are expecting to hold. XSEDE had members of the UAC and SP Forum as voting members of the Management Team, but not the XAB. Dave Hart felt that there might be some EC meetings that EAB members would attend, but that it should not be standard practice to include them. General feeling is to not specify additional voting members in the charter at this moment, but to reconsider in January, when EC has been operational for a while.

   4. Tom F suggests we not name Chair/co-Chair, but appoint a coordinator to fill duties

      • Tom Furlani is concerned that PIs will not have time to serve as rotating EC chair and co-chair. He wonders if the ACO can take on some of the duties of the chair (facilitation and organization) to make that job more palatable. John said that the EC Chair should be designated to speak for all ACCESS PIs and is not sure if the ACO is in the position to do that. John Goodhue suggested that with only 4 PIs, it may not be necessary to have a chair or co-chair. Tom Gulbransen mentioned that there may be a need to have a PI represent the group---might be situational depending on the issue. Shelley suggested that we defer a bit—see if a chair is necessary and if it is, discuss process at that time. John is fine with representing the EC (like he did in discussions with Ruth Marinshaw) as long as the EC charges him to do that. Amy S. feels that if the representative is required to make a decision on behalf of the EC, then their should be a more formal process. Dave Hart recommends that more detail be added to the role of the ACO in facilitating the EC. John feels that there is a statement of the role of the ACO. At the end of the discussion, the group recommended proceeding to appoint a chair and co-chair as noted in the draft document and see how it works. Shawn Brown suggested that Chairs could be any member of the EC, not only PIs. Others felt that it was best to stick to PIs as chair and co-chair.

4. Requests for XSEDE to continue services beyond August 31, 2022 (10 minutes)

   1. Last week, John (as XSEDE PI) went to a meeting with representatives of various service tracks to see if some XSEDE services could operate for up to 6 months after the award ends. John needs specific requests for XSEDE to consider. Another constraint is whether budget and staff resources will be available. John discussed this with XSEDE program officers about whether continuation of operational services was allowed during a no cost extension. Bob questioned whether this should be funded by ACCESS resources. Bob took this as an action to determine the allowability of this request with NSF. Any request for continuation of XSEDE services will have to come through ACCESS EC. Bob Gulbransen suggested that there may be other ways to address this issue. He requested a list of these services and he will begin to talk with NSF colleagues as well. John encouraged discussions to continue to surface what services are in question.

   2. Amy suggested that EC discuss which services might be continued so that we see if EC is supportive and if it is possible. That way they will know if there is a possibility that XSEDE will continue to provide service or not and will help them decide how to proceed with their own projects. Shawn Brown does not want to have to support both the XSEDE portal and the allocation system that Track 1 is planning to implement---he supports early discussion in the EC. John Goodhue mentioned that this is the first time EC has actually conducted business. John concluded by saying that formal requests will have to come through the EC.

5. Discussion of XUP -> AMP Transition Plan @Shelley Knuth (10 Mins)

   1. Shelley presented the Track 2 request to have XSEDE maintain certain functions of the XSEDE User Portal (see Agenda—XUP-AMP Transition Plan Summary). John Goodhue mentioned some dependencies that are important in the transition: Track 1 API; how people will get to RT; look and feel work of ACO, etc. Dave Hart assumes that the new portal will not be feature identical with the XSEDE portal---so what is needed? Amy what is missing is Add User.  Dave Hart says it will be supported on Day 1 by Track 1. Shelley agrees the they do not need to replicate the XUP by September 1, but feels that the community has come to expect certain functionality and there will be problems if those needs are not met or if changes are not communicated well. John stated a need to set expectations in the community about what is changing and what they can expect on September 1. Dave suggested that some form of the XUP should be left running—at least to direct the community to the right places in ACCESS. Track 2 has done its best estimate of what is feasible (see XUP-AMP Transition Plan in Agenda). John asked everyone to think about their need to have the XUP continue in some way and we will discuss this at the next call. John also expressed concern that “password reset” was not planned as a service. Dave Hart suggested that we ask Maytal for Google analytics of XUP. Dave Hudak said this is being done.

   2. Amy is concerned that these decisions need to be made quickly. John suggested that site meetings may need to occur in the next week and we need to get NSF input. Shelley suggested that sharing Track 2 XUP-AMP transition plan with other tracks might raise other issues that should be considered. We will spend next week’s meeting discussing XUP continuation.

      John T. asked that all Tracks review the Track 2 transition plan and 1) identify if they will provide one or more of the Track 2 needs and 2) add their own needs.

6. 1 Sept. 2022 Critical Path @John Towns (5 mins)

   1. Topic not discussed

   2. Entries need to be completed by EoD June 22

7. EC Backlog Review: Update priority/indicate items for next EC meeting @John Towns (5 mins)

   1. Topic not discussed

Action items (formally tracked in Jira)

Next EC Meeting: 28 June 2022