Program Announcements
A note from XSEDE PI, John Towns
Friends —

First and foremost, I hope that you, your family, your friends, and your colleagues are all healthy and safe. The global experience the human race is going through has affected all aspects of our lives. I want to be clear that, while the work we are doing is very important, the health and well-being of you and your families take precedence and needs to be attended to first.

Like many of you, I have been spending considerable time on efforts supporting our global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a project, XSEDE has not only proactively worked to put resources, services, and support in the hands of those who can help us better understand how to fight SARS-CoV-2, but has also responded to a call from our country asking us to play a key role in coordinating efforts well beyond our own scope. On March 19, I was asked by the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House if XSEDE could support the efforts of a newly formed collaboration under the moniker of the  COVID-19 HPC Consortium , which brings together federal agencies, academic institutions, and private companies across the nation to bring the collective resources to bear on addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

While there is much more to the story, and I look forward to the day where we might reminisce about current events and the full story, XSEDE has been playing a central role in the Consortium. In particular, XRAS (XSEDE Resource Allocation Service) has been used as the platform for proposal submission and review for the Consortium and we are managing the scientific review process. The array of resources is truly impressive and represents a collaborative effort that has never before taken place. I encourage you to look at the  XSEDE-hosted page  which provides information on submitting resource requests. The collection of resources listed there is truly impressive and continues to grow.  

These efforts are complemented by projects that have been provided access to resources managed by our Service Provider Partners as well as other NSF-funded resources not allocated via XSEDE. They are supporting additional projects working to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and I have been pulling together a weekly update to NSF summarizing the work supported via XSEDE and by other NSF awardees contributing toward this effort. As of this writing, we are collectively supporting 29 specific projects and nine gateways in our collective response to the crisis.  

While this global experience has taken the headlines in nearly all we do, it cannot be forgotten that XSEDE continues to provide resources, services, and support to the national community as we have for nearly a decade. This includes the important work of preparing our Annual Report and Program Plan to be submitted to NSF by May 20. The program plan section of this has come along nicely and I will be reviewing the annual report content as it is being prepared over the next couple of weeks. This will culminate in our annual review scheduled for June 9-11. I have great confidence in this team and expect we will do well in this again.

As you also know, we are also in the midst of preparing a supplement request to NSF to extend the XSEDE project for 12 months (through August 31, 2022). The development of that request is also proceeding well and I hope to submit that very soon. At this point, the expectation is that we will be able to continue largely as we are, projecting our efforts forward 12 months. I am very optimistic that this request will be supported and will be an endorsement of the success of our team.  

Having said all of that, I continue to be impressed by the XSEDE team in that we continue to perform and excel at pursing our vision and executing on our mission, even in light of making the adjustments to working from home and all the complications that entails. It is exactly the capability of this team that has allowed me to turn attention to larger collaboration and coordination and for the team to shine in that.

Often I express how much of an honor it is to be leading this team. Over the past couple of months, I have asked various members of the team to step up and take on various tasks, the response to which has been tremendous and heartwarming. I cannot express the depth of my appreciation to everyone in the collective handling of this crisis. I have seen various folks jumping in to contribute, to cover the duties of others, and to provide thoughts and ideas. I am, once again, humbled.

Stay safe and healthy!

John
2020 XSEDE Staff Climate Study now available
On Monday, April 20, you should have received an invitation from Lorna Rivera through the Qualtrics online survey platform to complete the 2020 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.
Over 100 attendees at inaugural Code Performance and Scaling webinar
When it comes to requesting XSEDE allocations, of the new Research requests that are rejected, the majority are declined because of poor information in the code performance and scaling documents. To help potential users overcome this challenge, the RAS and ECSS teams recently joined forces to offer an informative webinar for those using traditional CPUs. The webinar, Code Performance and Scaling, was held on April 1 and had over 100 attendees! This talk will be given again at the ECSS Symposium at 12 p.m. CT on Tuesday, May 19 and all are invited to join. Future webinars for GPU/AI/machine learning performance and scaling are in development.
XSEDE Cyberinfrastructure Integration (XCI) updates
XCI is providing remote support to Bentley University on using their local campus cluster, built with the XSEDE-Compatible Basic Cluster , for efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Bentley’s campus cluster is being used to enable protein-folding research that will support research on the novel coronavirus.

Users normally use campus-specific credentials to ssh login to campus resources, and XSEDE credentials to ssh login to XSEDE resources. A new feature from XCI now makes it possible for users to use one set of credentials, their XSEDE username, password, and a second factor, to securely ssh to multiple campus HPC resources as well as XSEDE allocated resources. This simplifies the login process for users and enables campuses to leverage XSEDE’s authentication and login services including two-factor. To use this feature, a campus HPC resource does not have to be compute allocated through XSEDE. For more information, please see the  Campus Cluster Login using XSEDE SSO  documentation.

New  XSEDE Data Analysis documentation  introduces users to data preparation and analysis resources by:
  • Listing data analytics computational resources, software, and services and related user guides
  • Providing information on moving data and managing data integrity
  • Describing how to request normal and advanced XSEDE support for doing data analysis
As data analysis capabilities and resources continue to evolve, we invite the XSEDE community to suggest improvements to this documentation, or to submit requests for additional data analysis resources, software, services, training, or consulting by emailing the XSEDE Help Desk .

An updated version of the  XSEDE Web SSO for Application Developers  guide that includes a new section on how applications can access and use information about a user's affiliated institution is now available. An application may want to use affiliated institution information to either customize the user's experience or log the information for statistical purposes. The  XSEDE Web SSO service  offers XSEDE users a uniform and consistent process to sign on to applications. It is intended to be used by the XSEDE User Portal, science gateways, training websites, the Research Software Portal, XSEDE staff applications, and any application that is part of the XSEDE user experience.
Computing4Change now accepting applications
Do you know an undergraduate student who wants not just to enhance their skillset, but also to create positive change in the community?

Computing4Change is a competition for students from diverse disciplines and backgrounds who want to work collaboratively to:
  • Learn to apply data analysis and computational thinking to a social challenge
  • Experience the latest tools and techniques for exploring data through visualization
  • Expand skills in team-based problem solving
  • Learn how to communicate ideas more effectively to the general public

The Computing4Change competition will be held at SC20 in Atlanta, GA, Nov. 14-20, 2020.  Applications will be accepted through May 17, 2020 .  Learn more and apply here .
Submit content to Inside XSEDE
This newsletter is produced by XSEDE staff, for XSEDE staff. It's sent on the last Thursday of every month. If you or your team have something to share with the rest of the project, please send your update to XSEDE's External Relations team at er@xsede.org .