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2018 Fall RCCI AC Working Group Schedule

October 18, 2018 by Jim Leous

The RCCI Working Group meetings have been set for the fall 2018 semester. They are as follows:

 

Group Day/Time Location
High Performance Computing Mondays – 10/15, 11/19, 12/17 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am W306B MSC
Communications & Onboarding Wednesdays – 10/24, 11/28, 12/12 @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm W306B MSC
Research Project Life Cycle Tuesdays – 10/16, 11/13, 12/11  @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm W306B MSC
Cognitive and Immersive Technologies Mondays – 10/22, 11/26, 12/17 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm W306B MSC
Advanced Research Computing Support Wednesdays – 10/17, 11/21, 12/10 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm W306 MSC

 

A reminder that all Working Group meetings are open to all interested Penn State parties.

Filed Under: 2018/2019, Advisory Council, RCCI, Working Groups

2018 Spring RCCI Working Group Schedule

January 12, 2018 by Jim Leous

The RCCI Working Group meetings have been set for spring 2018. They are as follows:

 

Group Day/Time Location
Data Centers Mondays – 1/8, 2/12, 3/12, 4/9, 5/14, 6/11 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am W306A MSC
High Performance Computing Mondays – 1/15, 2/19, 3/19, 4/16, 5/21, 6/18 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am W306A MSC
Communications & Onboarding Fridays – 1/19, 2/16, 3/16, 4/27, 5/18, 6/15 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am 401 HHD
Research Networking Fridays – 1/12, 2/9, 3/9, 4/13, 5/11, 6/8 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm W306A MSC
Research Data Life Cycle Tuesdays – 1/9, 2/13, 3/13, 4/10, 5/8, 6/12  @ 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm W306A MSC
Software & Services Mondays – 1/15, 2/19, 3/19, 4/16, 5/21, 6/18 @ 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm W306A MSC
Advanced Research Computing Support Wednesdays – 1/10, 2/14, 3/14, 4/11, 5/16, 6/13 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm W306A MSC

 

A reminder that all Working Group meetings are open to all interested Penn State parties.

Filed Under: 2017/2018, Advisory Council, RCCI, Working Groups

Fall 2017 RCCI Working Groups Schedule

October 9, 2017 by Jim Leous

The RCCI Working Group meetings have been set for fall 2017. They are as follows:

 

Group Day/Time Location
Data Centers Monday – 10/9, 11/6, 12/4 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am W306A MSC
High Performance Computing Monday – 10/16, 11/20, 12/18 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am W306A MSC
Communications & Onboarding Friday – 10/13, 11/17, 12/8 @ 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm 401 HHD
Research Networking Friday – 10/13, 11/10, 12/8 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm W306A MSC
Research Data Life Cycle Tuesday – 10/17, 11/21, 12/19 @ 3:00 pm -4:30 pm W306A MSC
Software & Services Monday – 10/23, 11/20, 12/18 @ 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm W306A MSC
Advanced Research Computing Support Wednesday – 10/11, 11/8, 12/6 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm W306 MSC

 

A reminder that all Working Group meetings are open to all interested Penn State parties.

Filed Under: 2017/2018, Working Groups

IT/HR Working Group Progress Report for 2015/16

August 1, 2016 by Kaylie Maines

(David Gindhart and Rob Hume, co-chairs)

Statement:

During Fall 2015/Spring 2016, the RCCI IT Career Track Working Group focused on how Penn State could better attract and retain the very best IT colleagues.  We want to create a vision of a career track for IT folks that will make Penn State more attractive to potential hires—and will make them feel they do not have to move elsewhere to advance their careers.

Accomplishments for Fall 2015/Spring 2016:

  • The IT Career Track WG met with key parties to identify the big picture challenges facing IT and to provide a set of recommendations for short-term actions that could contribute towards the above goals.
  • In response to an invitation from Nick Jones and David Gray, we provided a set of suggestions after consultation with the RCCI EC. These are summarized below.

Big Picture IT Career Tracks Challenges:

  1. Overall Human Capital Management (HCM) Strategy for IT Staff
    Until recently, Penn State has entirely lacked an overall strategy for managing our human capital that would help to build a highly effective, performance-based IT organization through recruiting, acquiring, motivating, and rewarding a high-performing, top quality workforce.
  2. Job Definitions and Classifications
    We believe that we need to carry out a complete rethinking on job definitions and classifications as part of an overall HCM strategy, but this seems best attempted after projected reorganization of IT operations throughout the university.
  3. Salary Levels and Equity
    Similarly major issues concerning salary levels and salary equity are hard to address sensibly or efficiently until job definitions and classifications are sorted out.
  4. “Shadow IT.” A lot of research IT functions are currently carried out by “research scientists,” “research associates,” and graduate students, rather than by “IT staff.”  They tend to be supported on grants (which is hard or impossible to do for “IT services people”), which leaves them vulnerable to “soft money” problems.  Should Penn State be doing more to clarify and regularize “staff scientist” and “research associate” positions?  Some relevant questions in this regard are as follows:
    • Might we, for example, house a group of such people in ICS with the understanding that they could be deployed wherever needed as different units came up with funds?
    • Should colleges and institutes be encouraged to establish domain-specific upper-end research computing help?
    • Can we, for example, pay such upper-end tech folks higher than usual salaries largely dependent on soft money—but guaranteeing that we would carry them for (say) up to one year if the grants do not come through? Purdue is paying such people considerably higher salaries to offset insecurity, but it is also offering relatively short-term backup funds from the university (one year, if we understood correctly).

Short-term Actions Recommended:

Skill building is critical to a successful IT workforce.  How can we best encourage and support people who want to extend and improve their skills and credentials?

We hope that the university will enunciate as a general principle its desire to retain the services of employees who grow, educate themselves, gain new skills, and who will be enthusiastically encouraged to seek higher-level jobs within Penn State.  We believe that investment in training is a strategic investment that greatly benefits the university. We need a “professional development strategy.”

In discussions with Susan Basso she raised concerns about the practicability of some of the proposals we are listing here.  However, she offered to work with us to explore ways to achieve some of the same outcomes.  Here are our suggestions:

  • We want to mount an IT Career Track Website listing both local and non-local training possibilities—online, summer institutes, training sessions elsewhere. We see this as a joint enterprise to be carried out in partnership with HR. We point out that where multiple people want training in a particular subject or program bringing an instructor to University Park for three days or a week can be cheaper than sending a flock of people elsewhere.  This has been done in the past.  Susan Basso has offered to partner with us and explore use of the Learning Resource Network (LRN) as a possible vehicle for this information.
  • We would like to establish a fund to pay for, or at least help pay for, such training when fees must be paid. Our current model de-incentivizes training. Why should your boss pay for training not needed for the job you already occupy?  If you get the training, you will very likely leave your job (and possibly leave Penn State).  But to attract and retain good people we need to offer them paths to betterment.  Annual budgets for professional development vary widely from a few thousand dollars per person to zero.  Many units have no funds for training that goes beyond their own immediate needs. They cannot realistically be expended to pay for training that will benefit the employee but probably not the unit.  We propose a central pool of funds for individuals who support research but are not receiving sufficient funding for needed professional development.  RCCI would be glad to set up a process and a committee to accept and vet the applications. As a secondary benefit, this process would help us understand the size and scope of the “shadow IT” problem noted in I.4 above.  We suggest that people who are given training should be expected to “review” the training for the benefit of others who might be interested.
  • We suggest that ICS should offer some non-credit instruction for IT colleagues, faculty, and graduate students. We suggest also that more internships should be funded there and elsewhere in IT units.  This gives students valuable job experience and  can get a lot of routine work done relatively cheaply.  In comparison with peer institutions we use far fewer students in IT roles.
  • We recommend encouraging colleges and institutes to hire tech folks for an “extra” 8 hours per week for a 20% salary supplement to vary their work and extend their domain expertise. We believe this is currently permitted only outside one’s own unit—i.e., Huck cannot hire someone from the Materials Research Institute.  Could we institute an exceptions process? We suggest that such opportunities should be posted on the Career Track Website so that interested parties could apply to whatever unit wants extra help, whether for short or longer duration. We point out that ICS pays Chuck Pavloski in EMS a supplement and that they believe he is saving them a lot of time and money by dealing locally in EMS with questions they would otherwise have to field from numerous PIs—and Chuck possesses domain expertise that no one in ICS has.
  • We propose promulgating a policy by which people could be “seconded” to work on a full- or part-time basis on a particular project. “Mini-sabbaticals” greatly attract some IT people: we would like to let them spend three months or six months working as part of a research team that needs their skills. This would be internal—an “intra-university” program.  We would like also to explore the possibilities of “inter-university” exchange programs with peer institutions.  Rich Rauscher (Hershey) has twice left Penn State.  He says, “Frankly, if I had been in a position that would allow inter-university exchange, I would have felt much less interest in leaving.  I have learned a great deal from changing employers.”  People with children in school or spousal job complications would probably not want to do this unless they could do it mostly on a telecommuting basis.  We want to explore these possibilities and try some as experiments. HR has expressed willingness to experiment with a “job exchange” program that would let current employees experiment with temporary or part-time employment elsewhere in the university.
  • We believe that people who want to work on an advanced degree (MA, MS, or Ph.D., and arguably MBA) should be encouraged to do so. HR 37 says that full-time employees are entitled to a 75% discount on both resident instruction and World Campus (specifically excluding College of Medicine, Smeal Executive MBA, and both law schools).  Obviously the employee would have to be accepted by a graduate program.  We suggest a larger discount for graduate degrees. We have also heard the suggestion that for some people “time” is more valuable than “money.”  EMS has reportedly permitted employees pursuing advanced degrees to devote as much as 25% of their “working hours” to thesis work.  We endorse this idea. We have heard the argument that (as with faculty sabbaticals) we should require a specified term of service after receipt of degree or repayment of the subsidy.  We believe that this would be hard to enforce and psychologically counterproductive.  The degrees would not be quickly earned, and we would have the benefit of the employee’s service for those years.  And with luck and good management, many of them would transition into other jobs at Penn State.
  • We believe that IT unit Directors should be encouraged to permit their people to request that they be allowed to devote up to 10% or even 20% of their working time to “self-development” (however pursued) with the understanding that they would then present what they have learned to their colleagues. (We understand that Hershey has been doing this in recent years.)  Good people do not like to vegetate.
  • We recommend that research computing try some pilot experiments in telecommuting. Some jobs seem to lend themselves to this solution; others do not. Domain-expert code optimization, for example, seems highly plausible.
  • We point out that the people who operate advanced instrumentation in labs (e.g., the Materials Characterization Lab in the Materials Research Institute) have very similar career track issues and would benefit from improved career track possibilities. What we are proposing here should translate into that realm, and perhaps into others.

A questionnaire based on these proposals was sent to the ECOS techies, thirteen of whom responded.  Reactions were almost unanimously gung-ho. Twenty responses from CLA techies were more varied, but overall enthusiastic.

Planned Work for Fall 2016/Spring 2017:

We do not believe that the above suggestions would be enormously expensive, but they would make a very large difference to the working environment that Penn State provides for our IT employees. Instituting these changes will help us hire and retain better IT colleagues.  We cannot be certain how well any one of these initiatives will work.  We urge that they be tried on an essentially experimental basis with seed money.  What seems valuable can be continued or built upon.  We look forward to additional discussion regarding the next steps in implementing the above recommendations.

Filed Under: 2015/2016, ITHR, RCCI, Report, Working Groups

Data Governance Working Group Progress Report for 2015/16

July 29, 2016 by Kaylie Maines

(Joseph Broniszewski and Stephanie Lanza, co-chairs)

Statement:

Because our Working Group is so large and our area of focus so broad, our top priority in the fall was to hold a series of small-group informational meetings with a number of individuals from within the group. Research Computing “Guru”, Greg Madden, was able to attend all of these meetings, which has been really helpful. These meetings have provided insight into the capabilities and missions of various groups across campus offering or needing data-related services, and important gaps, overlap of services, and issues.  At the full WG meeting in January, we distributed the summary of this information.

Accomplishments for Fall 2015/Spring 2016:

  • We started to utilize the knowledge from our small-group meetings to create a document that maps current PSU services onto the data life cycle for various types/categories of data. We have also received information about non-PSU related services that could be alternative to Penn State services. In meetings, we covered a variety of emerging topics and concluded with the formation of three subgroups to move forward on focused tasks: (1) Data preservation/data life cycle, (2) Research data categorization, and (3) Onboarding materials for new researchers at Penn State.
  • This coincides with other considerations that we believe could be related to ways that PSU could provide data governance-related support to researchers. This support likely would need to encompass better onboarding and continuing education for researchers, a centralized website summarizing the various resources at the University and how they relate to different types of research data, and a team of individuals who can be contacted with questions related to research data governance.
  • Our WG continues to grow in order to better assure representation from important units from across the university. Most notably, we have augmented our team by reaching out to several key administrative units, including Candace Yekel in the Office of Research Protections, Karen Estlund in the Libraries, Angie Morrison in Office of Sponsored Programs, Mark Henderson in the OVPR, and Matthew Decker and Jim Leous in Information Technology Services. We are in the process of refining our list of formal WG associates to include these individuals.
  • In a full WG meeting on 3/29/16 led by Maurie Kelly and Karen Estlund, we focused on data preservation and the data lifecycle, the topic of one of the three primary task force groups we established. Finalizing the membership in the smaller subgroups will be a goal for the spring/summer; key individuals have agreed to lead the three task forces, as follows:
    • 1) Data preservation/data life cycle: Maurie Kelly, Karen Estlund
    • 2) Research data categorization: John Hanold, Candice Yekel (with Joe Broniszewski)
    • 3) Onboarding materials for new researchers at Penn State: Jim Leous, Bethany Bray (with Stephanie Lanza)
    • In addition, it came to our attention that a large data use agreement working group has been in place for some time. In consultation with the other RCCI-AC co-chairs, it was decided that we would invite all members of that group to join the Data Governance WG as associates. We are in the process of identifying the chair(s) of that group and onboarding all of those individuals, and look forward to meeting them. So, our fourth task force will be: 4) Data Use Agreements.

Planned Work for Fall 2016/Spring 2017:

  • We plan to conduct concrete activities within each task force, including a kickoff meeting of each group during April/May to set goals on deliverables. Our WG has studied the current data categorization scheme at Penn State and will be proposing a revised categorization specific to research data. Jim Leous has begun work on onboarding materials separately from our group, and Greg Madden connected him with our group. We plan to convene a meeting to begin to combine information on onboarding. We plan to compile information over the summer and make a recommendation as to where we feel the materials belong on the Penn State website (likely the OVPR site). The data preservation group has been actively meeting, combining forces across the Data Commons and Library. Pending deliverables from that group are to be determined.

Filed Under: 2015/2016, Data Governance, RCCI, Report, Working Groups

Software Working Group Progress Report for 2015/16

July 26, 2016 by Kaylie Maines

(Rich Carlson and Erin Murtha, co-chairs)

Accomplishments for Fall 2015/Spring 2016:

Software Asset Management (SAM) Service Launches

  • The RCCI Software Working Group helped identify functionalities that will be incorporated into the SAM service and the supporting online software portal.
  • The SAM service has been well received by the early adopters and will be offered to the entire Penn State community in April 2016.  More information can be found at http://sam.psu.edu/.
  • As this tool becomes widely used, it will be important to understand structures and procedures that hinder or facilitate cost-sharing and access to software across units.  As a result of this working group, a team has been assembled representing numerous university offices (Software Licensing, Risk Management, Procurement, Corporate Controller, Security, Privacy, Export Control, Office of Research Protections, Office of Sponsored Programs, and General Counsel) to document the current process for vetting new software and technology contracts.  The deliverables will include a single workflow illustrating the current state, a single workflow illustrating an ideal state (accompanied by policy recommendations and resource requests), and a log of efficiencies gained by this group collaborating.  This team will provide an important point of contact for recommendations concerning faculty researcher concerns and needs regarding software vetting.

Exploring Best Practices to Balance Security and Research Needs

  • There is great disparity of unit policies concerning administrative rights for faculty and staff.  This is a frustration for faculty concerned with productivity, especially in time-crunch situations. We have charged our working group members to explore and share their units’ best practices, and have shared these documents within our team. In addition, Greg Madden will have discussions with peer institutions to learn more about their challenges and successes.
  • We gathered examples of unit policies from members of the working group, and the Survey Research Center is compiling information on these and other security policies from all units in the university.  As of 3/31/2016, this effort is approximately 70% complete.

Planned Work for Fall 2016/Spring 2017:

Software Asset Management Service 

  • By the Fall of 2016, the SAM service will have several months of service.  The RCCI will collaborate with the Service Manager to review challenges and opportunities, and to continue discussions on marketing and promoting the service to researchers at Penn State.
  • It is likely that the Contracts Vetting team will continue to work together to streamline processes.

Exploring Best Practices to Balance Security and Research Needs

  • We learned through our discussions that at least some units are working, apparently in isolation from one another, to implement solutions such as Beyond Trust Power Broker to provide alternatives to full administrator rights, allowing a more flexible balance between researcher and security needs.  We will explore the progress and effectiveness of these efforts, working toward best-practice recommendations and possible central solutions for these efforts. One focus of this discussion will be best practices concerning custom software developed by researchers and often freely shared across labs and institutions.

 

Filed Under: 2015/2016, RCCI, Report, Software, Working Groups

Data Centers Working Group Progress Report for 2015/16

July 20, 2016 by Kaylie Maines

(Doug Dodson and Eric Ford, co-chairs)

Data Centers Working Group Accomplishments for Fall 2015:

  • Educated the working group members on the status and features of the UP and Hershey Data Centers. The working group completed a tour of the University Park Data Center on Dec. 11.
  • Representatives from the working group attended all four sessions of the “Data Centers Networking Community of Practice” group.  We focused on ensuring that the interests of Research Computing (as opposed to enterprise systems) were well represented.  As a result of our participation, several concerns about research computing were noted and discussed in the final meetings of this group.
  • Developed a survey that was sent out to units involved in research at the University.  The survey was designed to ascertain what issues would be of concern for researchers and IT groups if Penn State were to strongly encourage them to relocate equipment to one of a few large Data Centers.  We found that the survey was also helpful in improving communications between to the Penn State Data Centers group and the faculty and IT groups they serve.  For example, initial survey responses indicated many people were reluctant to relocate their equipment, often citing a lack of information and/or concerns about physical access.
  • Brought in several researchers with specialized needs (e.g., cybersecurity research) who described their work and participated in discussions focused on how they could potentially interact with Penn State Data Centers in the near term and in the future.
  • Began development of a workbook to help with future transition planning recommendations.
  • Began discussions on assisting the Data Centers Management team with the creation of an SLA that will accommodate a broad spectrum of University customers – including Research.

Data Centers Working Group Accomplishments for Spring 2016:

  • Data Centers Governance: We have been working primarily with Mark Saussure (Director, Penn State Data Centers and working group member) to identify critical processes and policies that require inputs from research:
  • Submitted two infographics: one for potential use in communications concerning customer migrations and one for potential use in communications concerning the functions and offerings of the Penn State Data Centers.
  • Submitted a detailed mind map contrasting the currently posted Penn State Data Centers migration information with that of a suggested migration process based upon what was implemented by the State of Washington.  This highlighted many aspects of the migration that could benefit from more detailed planning.
  • Met with Matt Decker (interim Vice Provost for IT) in early March to discuss the state of the overall Data Centers Project and to make sure he was aware of concerns from faculty and IT staff.
  • Received a draft Data Centers Project Strategy document from Matt Decker and provided significant suggestions for improvements based upon input from Data Centers working group and EC members.
  • Submitted initial feedback to the “Policy Implementation and Procedures Manual” posted to the http://dc.psu.edu web site.  Based upon follow-up discussions, the group has agreed to work on a more heavily revised version of this document to submit as formal recommendations for policies and guidelines to be used by the Data Centers management team.
  • Institute for CyberScience (ICS) – Advanced CyberInfrastructure (ACI)
  • Worked with ICS-ACI IT professionals to ensure Data Centers group was aware of needs of research computing, particularly those of ICS-ACI.
  • Provided suggestions for how to make the ICS Coordinating committee more effective, in conjunction with the HPC working group.  Many of these suggestions have been adopted by the new interim ICS Director, Prof. Jenni Evans.
  • Facilitated communications between data centers staff and the NNCISE group of faculty preparing to purchase their own cluster outside of ICS-ACI, so as to help them choose the best location for their cluster.

Data Centers Working Group Planned Work for Fall 2016/Spring 2017:

  • Governance: The University Park Data Center should be fully ready for occupancy by the fall of 2016 and the Hershey Technology Center will have been in operation for almost six months.  We anticipate continuing to make significant contributions to policies and processes, as well facilitating deployments and migrations for research-related groups.  We hope to have established communications channels with critical staff involved in the Hershey Technology Center operations so that we can use their “lessons learned” in our continued efforts.
  • Planning Data Center Buildout: We plan to evaluate current and projected power and cooling needs for ICS-ACI and research computing in general relative to the capacity of current data centers.  We anticipate making a recommendation for when Penn State must begin the next phase of Data Center buildout to ensure Penn State will have adequate space, power and cooling to service the needs of research computing.
  • Computer Room Consolidations: Once the new University Park Data Center is accepting migrations and we are confident that the Data Center has sufficient capacity for research groups beyond ICS-ACI, the Data Centers working group hopes to assist with planning to realize anticipated efficiencies of scale by decommissioning inefficient data centers and computer rooms across the University Park campus, while minimizing the disruption to research and additional burden on IT staff.
  • Communications: The current state of CI/IT communications across research is an issue that has been raised repeatedly in both the Data Centers Working Group meetings and AC co-chairs meetings.  Lack of communications about the Penn State Data Centers project was frequently mentioned in the feedback we received from the late 2015 DC WG survey.  This working group will look for ways that it can contribute to both a discussion on this topic and the implementation of practical solutions.  We suggest the RCCI AC and EC consider this to be one part of a broader challenge of improving research CI/IT communications.

 


 

Filed Under: 2015/2016, Data Center, RCCI, Report, Working Groups

High-Performance Computing Working Group Progress Report for 2015/16

July 18, 2016 by Kaylie Maines

(Chris Forest and Adri Van Duin, co-chairs)

Accomplishments for Fall 2015/Spring 2016:

  • Discussed a request from a faculty group for University support of a faculty-owned computer cluster. This resulted in a formal document with recommendations that was passed on through the RCCI Executive Committee to the VPR recommending either a reduction of the ICS-ACI pricing or, if not feasible, VPR support for faculty owned computer clusters. We are optimistic that the recommendations of the HPC WG and EC on this matter will directly lead to a substantial improvement in ICS-ACI pricing for the upcoming academic year.
  • Invited ICS-ACI to provide a post-mortem on the LionX outage around Thanksgiving 2015. This resulted in an overview that was presented in the HPG WG and sent to the LionX user base. The HPC WG commended the devotion and technical expertise of ICS staff in the ICS handling of this outage.  The HPC WG also offered recommendations for improving communications for any future outages.
  • Inventoried HPC strategies in other universities and compared their situation with Penn State.
  • Discussed the need for multiple hardware/cost/service models within ICS.  We understand that ICS-ACI is now working to increase the number of service models available to researchers, incorporating inputs from the HPC WG.
  • Assisted in the formulation of an HPC survey that will provide data critical to defining what hardware should be purchased as part of the upcoming the ICS-ACI Phase 3 computing environment. This survey was sent to faculty and researchers in April 2016 and received over 300 responses.
  • Discussed the fate of decommissioned LionX-machines. This is more complicated that one would think and is an ongoing discussion.
  • Formulated guidelines to ICS for the future decommissioning of the remaining LionX-machines and eventually ICS-procured hardware. Recommended operating machines after warranties expire with a reduced level of support (e.g., not replacing defective nodes) and providing users a minimum 6-month warning to the user-based of the to-be-decommissioned machine.
  • Discussed Amazon AWS services and relevance for different types of academic research computing.
  • Discussed NIST requirements for data handling – ongoing discussion.
  • Discussed new Tower Road Data Center and its implications for HPC.
  • Discussed connection between the HPC WG and ICS organizational structures.

Planned Work for Fall 2016/Spring 2017:

  • Assist in interpreting the computing survey and formulating the plans for ICS-ACI Phase III procurement.
  • Provide recommendations for current and future service options offered by ICS-ACI, e.g., What should be part of new service level agreements (SLAs)?
  • Participate in communications between HPC WG and Data Center WG to project future power needs for research computing needs and thus timing of future phases of Data Center buildout.
  • Discuss shutdown schedule of Lion-X and ACI clusters and develop communication plan for users
  • Develop relations between our HPC working group and the ICS working groups.

Filed Under: 2015/2016, HPC, RCCI, Report, Working Groups

RCCI Committees and Working Groups with Scope of Engagement

July 18, 2016 by Kaylie Maines

RCCI Committees and Working Groups with Scope of Engagement

Filed Under: 2015/2016, Advisory Council, Data Center, Data Governance, High Performance Computing, HPC, ITHR, Membership, RCCI, Research Network, Software, Working Groups

Research Network & Data Classification Policies Working Group Progress Report for 2015/16

July 5, 2016 by Kaylie Maines

(Guido Cervone and John Domico, co-chairs)

Statement:

During Fall 2015/Spring 2016, the Research Network & Data Classification Policies Working Group (RN&DC WG) focused on making the new Penn State Research Network a long-term success that will improve research productivity of Penn State researchers.

Accomplishments for Fall 2015/Spring 2016

The RN&DC WG met with key parties to prepare a progress report on the state of the Penn State Research Network and to develop a set of recommendations for the Penn State Research Network.  In particular, the RN&DC working group recommends the following:

  • The OVPR commits sustained funding for the research network’s core capital equipment and operating budget on a five-to-eight year lifecycle.
  • The OVPR commits to adopting the connection costs for researchers, institutes, colleges, and departments, as proposed in the “Proposed Levels of Service” section of this report.
  • Four levels of edge connectivity service be supported as described in the “Proposed Levels of Service” section.  The differing service levels offer flexibility with respect to user throughput, compliance, financial, and location requirements.
  • Formal stakeholder governance be instituted for the research network.  We recommend that the RCCI RN&DC working group serve in this capacity.

Further details can be found in the report below.  We anticipate that this report and its recommendations will be considered by the RCCI Executive Committee soon.

Proposed Work for Fall 2016/Spring 2017

  • Governance: The Research Network was initially funded through grants. However, continued operation of the Research Network will require additional investment.  We will need to determine who will make those investments, how the investments will be identified, and how access needs will be prioritized given limited resources.  We plan to make a recommendation regarding the composition of a governance body to steward this work.
  • Sustainability Model/Life Cycle Plan: The Research Network has been developed with funding acquired through an NSF CC-NIE grant.  The award was received in 2012, and funds have been successfully invested in building the core of the Research Network.  However, the research network is evolving into a 100Gbps Science DMZ that lacks a viable financial plan.  Because the seed funding has been exhausted, continued operations will require institutional commitment to a sustainable funding plan for research network equipment and operations. This is doubly important since the research network is ACI’s sole source of connectivity.  The RN&DC working group intends to propose a sustainable operating plan that assumes a five-to-eight year equipment life cycle.

Emerging Opportunities: 

  • A CICI proposal has been submitted for a NSF grant solicitation for Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) program.  The proposal discusses the scalability of the Research Network based on a Science DMZ design model to any research location university wide.  Also addressed are data security standards currently being proposed by many agencies, and the compliance measures necessary to meet these regulations.  Some of the models discussed in the proposal are already being investigated. The proposal is a collaborative effort between the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL), ITS Telecommunications and Networking Services (TNS), ITS Services and Solutions (SAS), the Institute for CyberScience (ICS), the Office of Information Security (OIS), and the Office of the Vice-President of Research (VPR).
  • Virtual data enclaves – In conjunction with ACI storage services, the proposed connectivity options would allow for private virtual connections from most campus locations back to a specialized area within ACI.  As the Research Network is transport for data to and from ACI, these abstracted network connections could be customized for specific research data compliance needs.

Filed Under: 2015/2016, RCCI, Report, Research Network, Working Groups

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