A note from XSEDE PI, John Towns
|
|
All
—
I am remiss in not providing an update via Inside XSEDE in a while. My apologies for that and I am working to provide more regular updates here going forward.
It has been a rather busy first half of the calendar year with a big part of that being the preparation of our XSEDE 2.0 RY3 Annual Report and PY9 Program Plan that we submitted on May 17, 2019 to NSF. This is our most significant reporting and planning effort of the year and we continue to improve on how well we can execute the many steps of this process. I want to thank everyone for their contributions.
The fruits of that effort were initially realized at our annual review two weeks ago. The annual review is the mechanism by which NSF assesses our progress and performance and is the basis on which they decide to release funds for the coming year. I am happy to say that our review went very well
—
another tribute to the entire team. The report from the panel was delivered to us and I wanted to include the recommendation statement from the report for all to see:
The panel finds that the XSEDE 2.0 project team has effectively executed the project over the past year. The panel unanimously highly recommends that the XSEDE 2.0 project be continued and supported in their critical services provided to NSF and the scientific community.
The current status of the XSEDE 2.0 project represents a mature and functional project which operates efficiently and effectively. It consistently delivers value to its target user community and retains a high level of reported satisfaction from that community.
Overall, the panel concluded that XSEDE 2.0 has met their commitments and deliverables in Project Year 3 (PY3). The panel unanimously recommends that the XSEDE 2.0 project continue uninterrupted into Project Year 4 (PY4) as it provides critical support to the research community and the NSF. The XSEDE 2.0 project has matured to the stage where it is routinely and reliably providing allocations of computing resources for research, as well as education, training, and workforce development services to the science and engineering communities. These high-level services are critical and are making positive impacts for all stakeholders, as evidenced by the XSEDE 2.0 Key Performance Indicators (KPI) presented during the review.
We only reach this state through the collective and coherent efforts of everyone working on XSEDE. Everyone should be very proud of this.
Looking forward, July will be a very busy month. Over the next few weeks, we will develop our response to the recommendations of the panel and make any necessary adjustments to our PY9 plan. This will happen as many summer programs will be running and, of course, the PEARC19 conference at the end of July. I look forward to seeing as many of you that can make it and be at the XSEDE All Staff Meeting on the afternoon of August 1st.
I hope everyone is as excited about moving our PY9 plans forward as I am. I look forward to the further success we will have and to sharing in that success with all of you.
|
|
XSEDE Staff Climate Study
|
|
On May 21, everyone should have received an invitation from
Lorna Rivera
through the Qualtrics online survey platform to complete the 2019 XSEDE Staff Climate Study. Please check your spam folders or contact Lorna directly if you did not receive an invitation to participate in the survey. All responses are
completely confidential to the external evaluation team (Lizanne DeStefano, Lorna Rivera, and Julie Wernert) and XSEDE leadership will not know who said what in response to the survey.
Project decisions are reached based on the data from the climate survey, so
please take the time to complete it before it closes on July 8, 2019.
|
|
Help engage undergrads in the work of XSEDE!
|
|
Application deadline for Fall 2019 XSEDE EMPOWER internships and mentor positions is August 2, 2019!
An XSEDE-wide effort is underway to expand the community by recruiting and enabling a diverse group of students who have the skills
–
or are interested in acquiring the skills
–
to participate in the actual work of XSEDE. The name of this effort is XSEDE EMPOWER (
E
xpert
M
entoring
P
roducing
O
pportunities for
W
ork,
E
ducation, and
R
esearch).
|
|
|
We invite the whole XSEDE community
—
staff, researchers, and educators
—
to recruit and mentor undergraduate students to engage in a variety of XSEDE activities, such as computational and/or data analytics research and education in all fields of study, networking, system maintenance and support, visualization, and more. The program provides a stipend to students and resources for the training of those students who work on XSEDE projects for one semester, one quarter, one summer, or longer.
|
|
Community Announcements & Events
|
|
PEARC Conference seeking nominations for 2021 General Chair, Steering Committee Members-at-Large
|
|
The PEARC Conference organization is accepting nominations for the 2021 General Chair role and PEARC Steering Committee Members-at-Large roles. If you are interested, please self-nominate or nominate someone else who might be a good fit for the
role by June 30, 2019.
|
|
Registration now open for InCommon BaseCAMP
|
|
Have a few tough questions relating to access management? Want to find out how your friends at other organizations are solving them? Want a crash course in InCommon Federation or open-source identity and access management software? There's a workshop for that! InCommon BaseCAMP (August 13-15 in Milwaukee) brings together all those interested in the basics of identity and access management—whether you manage identities, make resources available to folks from other organizations, or both. Get your questions answered and find out about the InCommon Federation and how the community-developed identity and access management suite (the InCommon Trusted Access Platform) can play a part.
|
|
Blue Waters Petascale Computing Hackathon now accepting applications
|
|
Team applications for the
Blue Waters Petascale Computing Hackathon
are available until July 8, 2019. The Hackathon will take place September 9-13, 2019 at NCSA and will connect research teams with expert mentors to improve scientific codes and enable them to take full advantage of HPC systems. The research groups selected to participate will send teams of at least two developers along with a working application that has the potential to benefit from the petascale-class computing systems to accelerate their research productivity. The end goal is to have applications running efficiently at scale, or with a clear roadmap for enhancing code performance.
|
|
Apply now for Science Gateways' Gateway Focus Week (formerly Bootcamp)
|
|
Want to learn gateways, from start to finish? Apply by July 19 for SGCI's next Focus Week, September 9-13, 2019 in Chicago, IL.
Gateway Focus Week will help you learn how to develop, operate, and sustain a gateway (also known as portals, virtual research environments, hubs, etc.).
Why apply? You’ll...
- Leave behind day-to-day tasks to tackle big questions that will help your team articulate the value of your work to key stakeholders.
- Create a strong development, operations, and sustainability plan.
- Walk away with proven and effective strategies in everything from business and finance to cybersecurity and usability.
- Network, collaborate, and establish relationships with others doing similar work.
- Do it all at minimal cost (currently, participants only pay for travel, lodging, and a few meals).
|
|
Upcoming dates and deadlines
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
