Campus Bridging: What is it and why is it important?

Barbara Hallock – Senior Systems Analyst, Campus Bridging and Research Infrastructure

Campus Bridging: basic definitions

• “Bridging” the gap between local researcher cyberinfrastructure, campus CI, and national CI resources– Hardware– Software– Support– Outreach

Commercial cloud (Iaas and Paas)

Volunteer computing

Workstations at Carnegie research universities

Campus HPC/ Tier 3 systems

Track 2 and other major facilities

NSF Track 1

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000

Some CI resources available to science and engineering researchers in US

(March 2011)

TFLOPS

Based on: Welch, V.; Sheppard, R.; Lingwall, M.J.; Stewart, C. A. 2011. Current structure and past history of US cyberinfrastructure (data set and figures). hdl.handle.net/2022/13136

Adequacy of research CI

Never (10.6%)Some of the time (20.2%)Most of the time (40.2%)All of the time (29%)

Stewart, C.A., D.S. Katz, D.L. Hart, D. Lantrip, D.S. McCaulay and R.L. Moore. Technical Report: Survey of cyberinfrastructure needs and interests of NSF-funded principal investigators. 2011. hdl.handle.net/2022/9917

Responses to asking if researchers had sufficient access to cyberinfrastructure resources – survey sent to 5,000 researchers selected randomly from 34,623 researchers funded by NSF as Principal Investigators 2005-2009; results based on 1,028 responses

More on Campus Bridging• The goal of campus bridging is virtual proximity …

• The biggest problems:

– Not enough CI resources available to most researchers

– When you go from your campus to the national cyberinfrastructure it can feel like you are falling off a cliff! That’s why you need bridging….

• IU is collaborating with institutions around the country, including the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), and others in the eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE)

• Campus bridging is a major priority within XSEDE

XSEDE – Part 1

• XSEDE is a project, an institution, and a set of services.– As a project, XSEDE is a five-year, $121 million grant award

made by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois and its partners via program solicitation NSF 08-571.

– XSEDE is a successor to the NSF-funded TeraGrid project– As an institution, XSEDE is a collaboration led by NCSA and 18

partner organizations to deliver a series of instantiations of services, each instantiation being developed through a formal systems engineering process.

– As a set of services, XSEDE integrates supercomputers, visualization and data analysis resources, data collections, and software into a single virtual system for enhancing the productivity of scientists, engineers, social scientists, and humanities experts.

XSEDE part 2

• Under TeraGrid, it was never possible to buy “TeraGrid-like” cycles, and many people viewed the allocation process as very slow

• XSEDE is speeding up the allocation process considerably• IU is working with Penguin Computing to install the basic

open source XSEDE software environment on the Rockhopper cluster

• It is for the first time ever possible to buy “XSEDE-like” cycles in a matter of minutes using a credit card

• In some circumstances this will be a much better way to meet peak needs, or use startup funds, than buying and installing “clusters in a closet.”

XSEDE Part 3

• IU is leading, with University of Virginia, a beta test for the GenesisII software, which will allow users to interact with XSEDE resources using an interface which will be consistent with the resources they will be able to access locally at their campuses

• Will allow execution of jobs across multiple resources, managed from a single, consistent interface

• Two components– Execution Management Services (EMS)

• Standardizes job submission via JSDL– Global Federated File System (GFFS)

• Standardizes user interface across CI resources

NCGAS • The National Center for Genome Analysis Support• A Cyberinfrastructure Service Center affiliated with the Indiana

University Pervasive Technology Institute (pti.iu.edu) • Dedicated to supporting life science researchers who need

computational support for genomics analysis• Initially funded by the National Science Foundation Advances in

Biological Informatics (ABI) program, grant # 1062432• Provides access to genomics analysis software on supercomputers

customized for genomics studies including POD IU• Particularly focused on supporting genome assembly codes such

as:– de Bruijn graph methods: SOAPdeNovo, Velvet, ABySS,– Consensus methods: Celera, Newbler, Arachne 2

• For more information, see ncgas.org

Summary• Campus bridging aims to create virtual proximity between

researchers and resources• Streamlining and easing the analysis part of research via

– Hardware – Software– Support– Outreach

• Examples– GenesisII– National Center for Genome Analysis Support– XSEDE collaboration

For more information…

• podiu.penguincomputing.com• pti.iu.edu/ci/systems/rockhopper

License terms

• Please cite this presentation as: B. Hallock. Campus bridging: What is it and why is it important? 2013. Presentation. http://hdl.handle.net/2022/15431

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Thanks

• Penguin Computing, Inc. for their willingness to forge new paths with IU• Staff of the Research Technologies division of University Information Technology

Services, affiliated with the Pervasive Technology Institute, who were involved in the implementation of Rockhopper: George Turner, Robert Henschel, David Y. Hancock, Matthew R. Link, Richard Knepper

• Those involved in campus bridging activities: Guy Almes, Von Welch, Patrick Dreher, Jim Pepin, Dave Jent, Stan Ahalt, Bill Barnett, Therese Miller, Malinda Husk, Maria Morris, Gabrielle Allen, Jennifer Schopf, Ed Seidel

• All of the IU Research Technologies and Pervasive Technology Institute staff who have contributed to the development of IU’s advanced cyberinfrastructure and its support

• NSF for funding support (Awards 040777, 1059812, 0948142, 1002526, 0829462, 1062432, OCI-1053575 – which supports the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment)

• Lilly Endowment, Inc. and the Indiana University Pervasive Technology Institute• Any opinions presented here are those of the presenter and do not necessarily

represent the opinions of the National Science Foundation or any other funding agencies