ACO Updates

ACCESS Resource Providers Join NAIRR Pilot

Several ACCESS Resource Providers have joined the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot, a collaboration led by the National Science Foundation to strengthen responsible AI development and research. Four existing and one anticipated resource in the ACCESS portfolio have been selected for NAIRR, along with two DOE resources. The AI supercomputers chosen to participate in the pilot will support novel and transformative AI research and education at the national scale. PSC’s Neocortex AI system, NCSA’s Delta and DeltaAI (once it’s deployed and accepted by NSF) and TACC's Frontera and Lonestar6 supercomputers will all participate in the NAIRR pilot. The NAIRR pilot will use allocations software and procedures developed by PSC and its partners (NCAR and NCSA) as part of the ACCESS project. Further, SDSC’s Sustainable Scientific Software Division (S3D) developed the NAIRR pilot portal using the Hubzero^® framework. Congratulations to all who've worked to bring this pilot to launch! Read the full story here.

Quarterly Meeting Set for Feb. 27 – 28 in Chicago

The ACO has been coordinating the logistics and agenda for the last in-person meeting of ACCESS Plan, Year 2. If you'd like to attend the meeting, you can book your hotel here. Contact Lavanya Podila to get the group discount code. You can also join the meeting via Zoom – watch your inbox for a link as we get closer to the event.

Order ACCESS Plan Year 1 Highlights Book 

If you don't have a print copy of our booklet recapping the first year of the ACCESS program, please fill out this Google form with all appropriate information. If you don't need a physical copy, feel free to download the PDFs of current ACCESS materials on our website.

Allocations Updates

Allocations Website Redesign Completed

If you haven't already, check out the new Allocations website. Feedback has been incredible – people love it! 



The redesign is a product of more than a year’s hard work that the entire team contributed to. After hearing from researchers that exchanging credits was slightly confusing, we hosted a series of website redesign focus groups with Resource Providers, researchers and ACCESS staff. Based on what we learned, we formulated four website use cases:

• Offering a first glimpse of ACCESS Allocations for first-time visitors to the site
• Guiding a new user to their first allocation request
• Managing an allocation for a relatively new user
• Managing an allocation for a user who has a history with ACCESS/XSEDE

The team created a new schema to navigate content, rewrote all documentation and created new XRAS functionality to improve how researchers exchange credits and navigate the process. Allocations team members sought feedback at SC23, held several demos and even made a content video. 

The documentation originates in the ACCESS Confluence site, so users can search within ACCESS Support. Those pages are connected via API to the Allocations pages, so a single source of information updates multiple locations.

In the coming months the site will include more new pages designed to:



• Highlight more detailed resource activity
• Publicize available Science Gateways
• Display a publications list

Enjoy the site, and if you see an ACCESS Allocations developer, please thank them for their hard work! If you have any feedback on the new site or the allocations process, please utilize our feedback form. 

Operations Updates

Science Gateway Integration Roadmap Now Available

The ACCESS program is delighted to announce documentation and consultant support for integrating ACCESS allocated Science Gateways into the ACCESS cyberinfrastructure environment. The Science Gateway Integration Roadmap documentation is available through the Operations portal.

This comprehensive documentation provides detailed instructions on how to integrate and operate Science Gateways in ACCESS. It covers a range of tasks, including describing the Science Gateway to enable researcher discovery, requesting ACCESS allocations and community accounts, creating an affinity group where gateway users can interact and reporting which gateway users consumed allocated resources. A Science Gateways integration concierge/consultant is available to assist with the integration process and the integration roadmap documentation.

Anyone with questions or requiring assistance should contact us via the ticketing system.

New ACCESS Resource Provider Software Discovery Interface

The ACCESS program and integrated Resource Providers have introduced the ability to discover software available across the ACCESS environment. With this new capability, new and existing allocated researchers can more easily discover which resources offer the software they need. For allocated researchers, this capability means they can discover all available versions of software they use. They are also provided with instructions on how to access each version of the software from the command line. The new software discovery interface is available here.

For software developers, ACCESS provides two ways to implement software discovery in portals and using other software tools:

• By accessing software information through RESTful APIs (see ACCESS Operations API)
• By embedding our software discovery web app into their portals and websites

To request that a resource provider publish their software, or that they install new software, open a researcher support ticket. To request assistance with the Operations API, the web app or with RP software publishing, open an operations support ticket.

STEP Applications Now Being Accepted

Applications for the 2024 Student Training and Engagement Program (STEP) cohort are being accepted through March 1. Please help us spread the word! Students can visit our website to learn more or apply.

Support Updates

Support Team Announces Refreshed CCEP

ACCESS Support is pleased to present the newly refreshed Community Engagement Program (CCEP). This travel grant program has been revamped based on community input and now offers a single reward tier with a higher compensation of $3,000 per submission. Learn more here.

Join the CSSN For the Latest Information

The Computational Science Support Network (CSSN) is an inclusive community of practice (e.g., anyone can join) to advance campus research computing by sharing knowledge and building relationships. If you want to stay up to date on the latest training, support activities and VIP CCEP travel reward opportunities, visit our website and join us today!

Announcing ACCESS Pegasus office hours

ACCESS Pegasus offers a centralized hosted environment, enabling users to submit individual tasks or complex workflows to various ACCESS resources through a single access point. It features a user-friendly web interface integrated with Jupyter Notebooks, allowing for the creation and execution of workflows. At present, ACCESS Pegasus supports selected resources, including PSC Bridges2, Purdue Anvil, Indiana Jetstream2 and SDSC Expanse. Please see ACCESS Support for additional details and a set of sample workflows.

Starting this month, you can join the ACCESS Pegasus team every Friday for virtual office hours beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. Pacific Time. These sessions give new and existing users the opportunity to learn and engage. During office hours, you can expect:

• In-depth overviews of ACCESS Pegasus and the capabilities it offers
• Discussions on how to port your applications into an HTC workflow using Pegasus
• Insights into Pegasus concepts and methodologies
• A guided walkthrough of our comprehensive online training materials

Find out how to join these informative sessions and participate in the ACCESS Pegasus community here .