ECSS Management Meeting XSEDE Quarterly March 11 Phil

ECSS Management Meeting XSEDE Quarterly March 11 Phil Blood and Bob Sinkovits ECSS L 2 Directors Blood@psc. edu and Sinkovit@sdsc. edu

Topics • Feedback/comments on ECSS PY 10 planning • Benchmarking and scaling training • ECSS Symposium speakers needed • March and April covered, May onward wide open • Campus Champion Fellows – recruitment starting soon • Responses to ECSS staff training survey • COVID-response • ECSS may be asked to contribute 2

PY 10 planning slides (for easy reference) 3

ECSS PY 10 Project and L 2 KPIs Metric Level Metric Name Goal Subgoal L 3 Owner PY 9 Target PY 10 Target Percentage of new allocation users from Project non-traditional disciplines of XSEDE resources and services Deepen and Extend Use (new communities) NIP 35%/yr Percentage of sustained allocation users Project from non-traditional disciplines of XSEDE resources and services Deepen and Extend Use Deepen Use (existing communities) NIP 22%/yr L 2 KPI Aggregate mean rating of ECSS impact by PIs Deepen and Extend Use Deepen Use (existing communities) ECSS 4 of 5/yr L 2 KPI Aggregate mean rating of PI satisfaction with ECSS support Deepen and Extend Use Deepen Use (existing communities) ECSS 4. 5 of 5/yr Number of completed ECSS projects Deepen and Extend Use Deepen Use (existing communities) ECSS 45/yr L 2 KPI 4

PY 10 Priorities 5 • • Prepare for XSEDE transition (see last slide) • Continue engagement with strategically-aligned organizations • Continue work with Ca. RCC, Xpert Network, and Campus Champions • New: Explore connections with additional organizations e. g. Sci. Net, PRACE, RIKEN, DOE Incite Continue focus on professional development for ECSS staff • Keep the project targets at the current levels so staff have time for learning • Continue to encourage staff to leverage any leftover XSEDE funds for training • Open training survey: 14/23 respondents so far took some form of training in PY 8 and PY 9 • New: If possible, make PIF training funds available so all staff can leverage specific training opportunities e. g Coursera for credit, conference attendance, development of new training materials

PY 10 Priorities • Further lower barriers to using XSEDE and ECSS – Continue NIP lightweight consulting – New: Work on additional models for lightweight consulting with ECSS experts • Reviewers of Startup allocation requests recommend lightweight consulting • Hold ECSS office hours • “Ask an XSEDE Expert” widget on XSEDE portal and website • Continue proactive ECSS project development – New: Identify strategic codes or projects and invite them to work with Extended Support for Community Codes (ESCC) – New: XCI-ECSS collaboration to expand XSEDE software capabilities 6

What’s New or Changing in PY 10 ● XSEDE transition planning ● Support new systems: Bridges-2, Expanse, Ookami ○ Help onboard and transition users from retiring systems to new systems 7

PY 10 ± 5% Exercise 5% Increase impacts (about 1 FTE): • Add additional ECSS consultant with expertise in high-demand areas such as deep learning, data analytics, cloud, and gateways • Fund staff training and development initiative to enable staff to stay at the cutting edge of research computing 5% Decrease impacts: • Remove equivalent of 1 FTE of staff effort, resulting in decreasing the target number of projects by slightly more than 5%. This accounts for the fact that ECSS is engaged in additional high-value, non-scalable activities such as mentoring the Campus Champion Fellows and reviewing educational allocation requests. • Reduce the number of XSEDE-led training events in which ECSS staff participate 8

PY 10 Publications Being Considered • XSEDE Extended Collaborative Support Service (ECSS): Impact and Lessons Learned, Sinkovits et al. Submitted to PEARC 20 • Best Practices in Project Management in a Large, Distributed Organization: Lessons Learned from XSEDE. Submitted to PEARC 20 • Engage staff in XSEDE publication initiative – Create ORCID and add to XSEDE User Portal (XUP) profile; Upload publications to portal • Domain specific journals – Often done in collaboration with ECSS project PIs • PEARC conferences – ECSS staff often publish at PEARC • XSEDE technical report series – Opportunity for staff to go deeper into technical details • Performance tuning, optimization, parallelization, workflows, gateways, best practices – Encourage ECSS staff to turn final reports into XSEDE tech reports 9

Recommendations Being Addressed in PY 10 • REC-296 [XAB]: More careful consideration of how ECSS activities would be curtailed by a 5% budget reduction • REC-292 [XAB]: Gender diversity in ECSS leadership • REC-259 [NSF]: Make technical documents public to support transition • REC-258 [NSF]: Peer-reviewed publications by ECSS staff • REC-256 [NSF]: Examine the intentions and desired outcomes for reducing ECSS projects to accommodate training 10

Recommendations Being Addressed in PY 10 • REC-235 [XAB]: Take credit for ECSS-enabled knowledge transfer • REC-187 [NSF]: Lowering barriers for researchers • REC-109 [SPF]: Identifying projects that could benefit from ECSS support • REC-81: [NSF]: ECSS collaboration with other organizations • REC-77: [SPF]: Allocation of funds for training of ECSS staff • Climate survey: improve project communication 11

PY 10 Transition Planning Efforts • Identify documents to be made public when the XSEDE project ends (many of these identified in draft transition plan) • Plan and document transition of ECSS projects, information, and effort to a new award to ensure projects continue with minimal interruption. • Close out as many projects as possible, prior to transition 12