ACCESS Resource Provider Communication - August 10, 2022

Owned by Leslie Froeschl
Aug 17, 2022
7 min read

I am sending this on behalf of the ACCESS Track 3/CONECT/Operations team. For the short term, we are going to use the sp-forum and sp-software email lists to communicate with you about important transition information you’ll need to successfully integrate into the ACCESS ecosystem. This email includes important information and actions. Please forward this message to any resource provider (RP) staff that may not be on these email lists but need to know this information. Please note that in ACCESS, we will use the term “resource provider” (RP) instead of “service provider.” We plan to send out a weekly communication with pertinent information, so please be on the lookout for those weekly emails! 

Join the ACCESS Resource Provider Slack Space! 

We have established a new Slack space for ease of communications between RPs and staff from across the ACCESS tracks. Please join this space by clicking : https://join.slack.com/t/slack-vfd7173/shared_invite/zt-1dl2y5qj6-aP20gjyxwGTGIF3w3aZzeg.  

Integrating Allocated Resources with ACCESS

 

On August 1, 2022 ACCESS released to resource providers (RPs) instructions for becoming “ACCESS-Allocated Production Compute/Storage/Cloud” by September 1, 2022. RPs with questions or needed assistance may:

The ACCESS allocations team is preparing for our September start date, maybe you’ve seen us at one of our presentations to the community: Campus Champions meeting, the Service Provider Forum, the XSEDE Resource Allocation Committee, SURA, NSF ACCESS Town Hall, at PEARC22, and more. We have covered the following topics that are also included below for your reference: 

  1. Inviting you and your colleagues to join the ACCESS Allocation Review Committee

  1. Tiered Opportunities: Explore, Discover, Accelerate, Maximize

  1. The Allocations Marketplace

If you have any questions or comments on these materials, we welcome your input via our feedback form— https://go.illinois.edu/ACCESSallocations —and we look forward to sharing more information in the coming months. Watch as the ACCESS website comes together this month as well: access-ci.org. Stay tuned!

Sincerely,

The ACCESS Allocations Team

Inviting you and your colleagues to join the AARC!

What Is ACCESS?

The new NSF-funded program for advancing computational and data-intensive research – the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) – offers significant opportunities for community involvement. One of those is ensuring that requests for resource allocations meet the program’s requirements in careful merit reviews by a diverse group of reviewers.

What Is AARC?

The ACCESS Allocation Review Committee (AARC) is a panel of volunteer experts from the faculty and staff of U.S. universities, laboratories, and other non-profit and commercial research organizations. All members have expertise in at least one area of computational science or engineering and serve a term of approximately three years, with the possibility of a one-time renewal. PI and co-PIs of ACCESS allocation awards may serve on the AARC. The AARC will review requests for the Maximize Tier as well as the Accelerate Tier through a separate subcommittee.

Why Should You Join?

Serving as an AARC member is a great opportunity to provide a valuable service to ACCESS, the NSF, and the national research community. You will participate in merit reviews of ACCESS allocation requests that meet the highest thresholds. In the process, you will broaden and deepen your network interacting with colleagues, ACCESS staff, and staff from the various resource providers. You'll gain insight into the allocations process and how to craft your own successful requests. Plus, if chosen as a reviewer, you will receive an honorarium for your participation!

How Does It Work?

Each member will receive allocation requests for each bi-annual review in advance of the remote meetings. The time commitment would include review and preparation time plus any review committee meeting time. As an AARC member, you can submit your own allocation requests but not participate when those requests are reviewed. Honorariums are available to all reviewers to ensure we have the broadest participation of reviewers from a diverse range of R1 and non-R1 institutions including MSIs, HSIs, TCUs, and HBCUs.

Interested?

To learn more or volunteer for this rewarding service on the AARC, please contact the Manager of Allocations, Ken Hackworth, at hackworth@psc.edu or complete our feedback form: https://go.illinois.edu/ACCESSallocations

Tiered Allocations Opportunities 

We’ve organized your options for requesting access into a set of tiered opportunities, designed to support needs ranging from entry-level exploration to the largest-scale computational experiments. 

You should pick the opportunity that aligns with your best estimate of your project’s needs. And don’t worry about starting too small. As you clarify your needs, you can upgrade to a larger-scale project when you’re ready.

  • Explore ACCESS

  • Discover ACCESS

  • Accelerate ACCESS

  • Maximize ACCESS

Except for the Maximize tier, allocations are awarded in ACCESS Credits, which are exchanged for resource-specific allocations after a project is created. Resource providers may approve, modify, or decline an exchange based on the appropriateness of the resource for the proposed work as well as its availability. Researchers can use this calculator to determine the exchange rates on the various resources. 

Explore ACCESS

Explore ACCESS allocations are intended for purposes that require small resource amounts. Researchers can try out resources or run benchmarks, instructors can provide access for small-scale classroom activities, research software engineers can develop or port codes, and so on. Graduate students can conduct thesis or dissertation work.

Discover ACCESS

Discover ACCESS allocations are intended to fill the needs of many modest-scale research activities or other resource needs. The goal of this tier is to allow many researchers to request allocations with a minimum amount of effort so they can complete their work.

To submit a request, you will need to submit a one-page description of the project to address the review criteria. You can also ask for an advisory review from the community to guide you to appropriate resources.

Accelerate ACCESS

Accelerate ACCESS allocations support activities that require more substantial resource amounts to pursue research objectives on ACCESS-allocated resources. Researchers are expected to define plans for their resource use and to submit a 3-5 page project description for merit review. Reviewers may recommend all or some of a request or recommend a Discover ACCESS award.

Maximize ACCESS

For projects with resource needs beyond those provided by the Accelerate ACCESS tier, a Maximize ACCESS request is required. ACCESS does not place an upper limit on the size of allocations that can be requested or awarded, but resource providers may have limits on allocation amounts for specific resources. The review process is similar to the XSEDE process for large allocations.

The Allocations Marketplace

The objectives of the Allocations Marketplace are to align the proposal-writing effort with the level of resource needed, adjust the review panel effort in anticipation of increasing volumes, and ensure allocations staff can keep up with the steady stream of requests. The objectives of the marketplace for resource providers (RP) is to give them control of which projects are granted access to their resources, allow them to control their exchange rates for ACCESS credits, enable resource providers to benefit from diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the community, and include more types of resources that are able to be handled via the allocations process.

A few highlights of policy changes that will further democratize access to computing and data resources explicitly allow for resource-specific RP-defined eligibility requirements:

  • Graduate students are eligible PIs for entry-level awards, with advisor letter

  • NSF Graduate Fellows are eligible PIs for small-scale awards

    • I.e., dissertation work need not be entangled with advisor’s research activities

Policy changes: projects per PI

  • PI can have one project for each merit- reviewed funding grant

  • Or may combine grants under one project

  • Only one (research-oriented) project per PI without supporting grant

    • Education, gateway exceptions remain

  • No explicit project “types” (e.g. Education, Champion)

  • We will track these and other types (e.g., gateways) via other means

Policy changes: award duration

  • Small- and mid-scale awards made 

  • for duration of supporting grant

  • Classroom projects will align with the course length

  • Awards with no supporting grant made for one year, extensible up to 5 years

  • Largest-scale awards for 12 months

Policy changes: managing projects

  • Small- and mid-scale awards made 

  • for duration of supporting grant

  • Classroom projects will align with the course length

  • Awards with no supporting grant made for one year, extensible up to 5 years

  • Largest-scale awards for 12 months

We welcome your questions or input via our feedback form: https://go.illinois.edu/ACCESSallocations

For any other questions or feedback, please email help@xsede.org with a subject line “ACCESS Feedback.”