2024 RP Forum BoF Information

Owned by Jeremy Fischer
Last updated: Jul 25, 2024
4 min read

Pearc24 BoF submission text/info. Slides linked at bottom

BoF - Fantastic ACCESS Cyberinfrastructure Resources and Where to Find Them

RP Representatives 
Jeremy Fischer - Jetstream2 IU - jeremy@iu.edu
Carol Song - Anvil Purdue - cxsong@purdue.edu
Honggao Liu - ACES/FASTER Texas A&M  - honggao@tamu.edu 
Sergiu Sanielevici - Bridges-2 PSC sergiu@psc.edu
Brett Bode - Delta/DeltaAI NCSA brett@illinois.edu
Eva Siegmann - Ookami Stony Brook - eva.siegmann@stonybrook.edu
Nicole Wolter - Expanse, SDSC - nwolter@ucsd.edu
Mahidhar Tatineni - Expanse, SDSC - mahidhar@sdsc.edu
Christopher S. Simmons - Open Storage Network, MGHPCC - csim@mghpcc.org
Vikram Gazula - KyRIC, Kentucky - gazula@uky.edu
Daniel Howard - Derecho & Casper, NSF NCAR - dhoward@ucar.edu
Dan Stanzione - Stampede3/Vista, TACC  - dan@tacc.utexas.edu

Abstract

In this session, the ACCESS Resource providers (RP) will give a brief overview of the available resources and their unique characteristics. The presentation portion of this BoF will highlight the variety of available resources and will be followed by a discussion with the community, allowing the audience to directly interact with the RP representatives. We hope to seed the discussion with topics but allow attendees to steer the discussion, perhaps uncovering topics not suggested here.

Long description

ACCESS (Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support) [1] utilizes a network of human and technical resources to pair researchers with the appropriate resources for their research and education needs. Computational researchers and educators can submit allocation requests to ACCESS and exchange their credits for appropriate service units at ACCESS-aligned resources (e.g. core and node hours, GPU hours, storage) when awarded.

These resources are provided by ACCESS Resource Providers (RPs).  Each RP received their own National Science Foundation award(s) to provide particular research and education systems and support to the national cyberinfrastructure via coordination with ACCESS. The resource providers offer a wide range of cyberinfrastructure assets available for use. Some of the many resources in the ACCESS portfolio include: 

  • Traditional high-performance computing clusters utilizing batch schedulers

  • Cloud resources where researchers can launch and run virtual machines and containerized workloads.

  • Storage resources for storing and managing large amounts of data for processing

  • Testbeds offering new computing capabilities

  • Scientific support to help researchers and educators use these resources

In this BoF session, various RPs will give a brief overview of their unique resources. ACCESS Allocation staff will also give a brief overview of the ACCESS allocation process. We anticipate representatives from ACCESS to be present at the BoF to answer any audience questions about this process. They will highlight the characteristics of the systems and services. This session encourages participants to have open and unscripted conversations. The panel will keep their system remarks brief and encourage those attending to steer the discussion, perhaps uncovering topics not suggested here.

After the presentations, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss with the RP representatives. This can include a discussion about each resource's characteristics, how to choose the right resource for a specific task, roadmap discussions, as well as time for answering any other questions the community brings up.

We encourage people to submit questions, topics they are interested in, and any other feedback before the session. Please use following link for this BoF Sandstorm

Suggested “seed” questions

These questions are meant to start the conversation. They will not be used to steer the conversation unless no other questions are being asked. The priority is to try to address questions from attendees and foster conversations.

  • How do we ease the process of getting researchers and students onto ACCESS-allocated resources and help them be productive quickly?

  • What kinds of applications software are to be accepted on these machines?

  • What would be most helpful for researchers and educators that are new to national CI resources?

  • What sort of resources are missing from the national CI? What needs are not being addressed well?

Session format

We will introduce the BoF organizers/facilitators and then start the RP resource presentation - allowing for up to 2 minutes per RP. This will comprise approximately 20-30 minutes of the event and the remainder of the time will be dedicated to fostering discussions and interactions between all participants. The team will gather topics from attendees to continue the conversation and identify opportunities for future joint discussions.

Prospective attendees

This BoF will engage cyberinfrastructure professionals, researchers, educators, and students who may need to use computation, cloud, and storage resources to further their research and education goals. 

Sustaining the conversation

This session will provide attendees the opportunity to share contact information with each other. We hope to continue the conversation asynchronously, identify future opportunities to meet, and recruit key interested persons who will sustain the discussion.

Recent offerings

This BoF session took place for the first time at Supercomputing 2023. It was attended by around 100 people and very well received by the community. Since many ACCESS users attend the PEARC conference series, the suggested session at PEARC24 is an answer to the clearly communicated request from the community to repeat this event. While the Supercomputing audience has a broader reach, the PEARC event is more directed towards those that may already be aware of the ACCESS ecosystem and have more specific questions or needs to address at this BoF. This BoF has the intent of lowering the walls between RPs and the researchers and educators they serve, allowing for unfettered conversations. 

A/V Requirements

This BoF requests a projector and screen so that the organizers can first display slides on the various resources being discussed and then display a real-time collaborative editor (such as Etherpad) for participants to build notes. The organizers will supply their own laptop. Mics will be needed for speakers and questions from the audience. 

References

ACCESS - Home - Access - https://access-ci.org/
ACCESS RP Forum - Resource Provider (RP) Forum | Operations - Resource Provider (RP) Forum | Operations

BoF Presentation order (by resource in alphabetical order for the most part):

  • ACES - Honggao Liu

    • FASTER - Honggao Liu

  • Anvil - Carol Song

  • Bridges-2 - Sergiu Sanielevici

    • Neocortex - Sergiu Sanielevici

  • Delta - Brett Bode

    • Delta-AI - Brett Bode

  • Derecho - Daniel Howard

  • Expanse - Mahidhar Tatineni, Nicole Wolter

  • Jetstream2 - Jeremy Fischer

  • KyRIC - James Griffioen/Vikram Gazula

  • Ookami - Eva Siegmann

  • Open Storage Network - Christopher S. Simmons

  • Stampede 3 - Dan Stanzione

  • ACCESS Allocations - Ken Hackworth

Link to EtherPad - https://bit.ly/pearc24rp