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Update from PI John Towns
All  My apologies for failing to provide a message for Inside XSEDE for several months. It has been a quite busy few months and there were holidays. First and foremost, I want to thank the leadership team in XSEDE for performing most excellently during our review by NSF in January. As some of you may know, I was down with a bad case of the flu and was unable to participate myself. This was quite frustrating for me, but provided a wonderful opportunity to show the strength of the team to perform admirably without the leader present at an NSF review. Again, my heartfelt thanks to the team.

Evidence of the success of the review came through in the review panel's report which had some very strong positive statements, most notably, in their introduction they stated:
The panel observed that the XSEDE2 project continues to be very high performing, meeting operations objectives while continuously improving in many areas—including operations, leadership, workforce development, and processes. The staff are world-class leaders and top performers in their respective areas, and the virtual organization has reached a level of maturity that is remarkable when compared to similar organizations. As a result, many of the panel’s findings relate to opportunities for improvement, even though overall, we recognize the strength of the current management, governance, operations processes, and coordinated approach.
This statement is a testament to the excellence of the entire XSEDE collaboration. Everyone should take pride in this collective success.

On the heels of this review we have been rapidly moving forward not only with reporting, but also with planning for PY8. IPR5 (Interim Project Report #5) was submitted on time on February 16. This is a process that has also been improving and I am very happy with our collective ability to complete this with a special note of appreciation to the PM&R team who does much of the heavy lifting in this process.  

PY8 planning is underway and I am encouraged by the development of plans thus far. We internally reviewed plans during our most recent Quarterly Meeting and will be engaging the SP Forum and the XSEDE Advisory Board in the coming weeks for feedback from them. We will also being engaging everyone to complete the annual reporting requirements which will be part of our annul single document submission of the Annual Report and Program Plan for PY8.  

There are so many other good things going on to complement the excellent daily work XSEDE engages in the XRAC Reviewers Manual, Metrics Dashboard, improved measures of impact, further maturing of the Champions organization, and providing services to other CI operators to name just a few. The Inside XSEDE editors have asked me not to be overly long in these messages, however, so I will refrain from a long note on the many cool things happening.  

As always, I want to reiterate my appreciation for the efforts of everyone in the collaboration. It has evolved into something that is very effective and a tremendous asset to the research enterprise of this nation. You should all be proud of this I know I am.

Thanks!
-John
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XCI Updates
The Globus team at the University of Chicago stopped development of the Globus Toolkit at the end of 2017 and plans to stop providing security patches by the end of 2018 . XSEDE uses Globus Toolkit components in day-to-day operations. XCI began developing plans in response to this significant announcement in 2017. The XSEDE plan consists of the following key steps:

1) confirm that we will continue to receive support from Globus for our current Globus Toolkit services as we modernize them (this has been done);
2) add replacement services that use: (a) newer mechanisms, or (b) the original mechanisms with support provided elsewhere (this is in progress); and
3) monitor how and why the original services continue to be used and assist their users to transition to the replacement services (this is in progress). For more details please see the Community Software Repository announcement .

A collaboration between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and XCI has created a pilot portal at UIUC that enables campus researchers to discover technology resources (e.g., infrastructure, software services, professional services, training) available from their local campus and from research infrastructures like XSEDE. In the first phase of this collaboration, XSEDE created a cross-institutional catalog of resource information, enabled mirroring of campus resource catalogs in the cross-institutional resource catalog, and provided a programming interface for campuses to build cross-institutional resource discovery into their local research portals. Building on XSEDE's cross-institutional catalog, UIUC released a new UIUC Research IT discovery portal in March of 2018. In the second phase of, UIUC researchers will be able to use this portal to discover resources offered by the XSEDE program. XSEDE and UIUC are looking for new campus collaborators who would like to provide their campus researchers the ability to discover resources outside their institution. If you are interested in bringing this capability to your campus, contact help@xsede.org .

We want your software ideas! If you have ideas on new software and software based services that would help you use cyberinfrastructure more effectively, or how XSEDE could improve existing software and services, please send them to help@xsede.org . The mission of the XSEDE Cyberinfrastructure Integration (XCI) team is to enable users to leverage national CI using advanced software and services. We look forward to your input.
OpenMP Trainings at TACC
TACC is pleased to announce two OpenMP training events being offered to both in-person and webcast participants April 12 & 13, 2018. The courses include hands-on exercises on TACC systems. Local participants are strongly encouraged to attend in person. Instructors will be available after class to consult on individual projects with in-person participants.

Apply for a One-on-One Engagement with Trusted CI by April 6
One of Trusted CI's core activities is conducting one-on-one engagements with NSF projects and facilities. Application deadline for engagements to be executed July December 2018 is April 6, 2018. Topics for engagements include anything broadly in the scope of information security and can include development of new cybersecurity programs, assessing existing cybersecurity programs, software assurance, identity management, recommendations on new software features.

Gateways 2018 Submissions due by May 7, 2018
Gateways 2018 (September 25–27, at the University of Texas at Austin) is now accepting submissions of papers, demos, tutorials, and panels (2-4 pages) on the topic of science or engineering gateways. Gateways are user-friendly interfaces to scientific computing, data, and other domain-specific resources to support research and education. Topics may include their design, use, impact, development processes, sustainability, best practices, or any other aspect that you think fellow gateway creators or users will find interesting to learn. We also welcome educational topics directed toward the next generation of gateway creators. The primary submission deadline is May 7, 2018, and a poster session deadline (open to all) will be August 1.

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