Update - 22 June 2007

 

 

Welcome to the SURAgrid Update, the monthly newsletter for the SURAgrid community. This is our first issue and we’d like your feedback on what information that you’d find useful. Please submit comments and contributions for inclusion to Linda Akli at akli@sura.org.

   

NEWS

- - SURAgrid Governance Committee Elected - -

SURAgrid is growing and as part of the maturation process, the development of our governance structure is underway. A SURAgrid Project Planning Working Group was convened, and they successfully set the process in motion. As a first step, all SURAgrid participants were asked to identify their official voting representative. The second step was the election of a SURAgrid Governance Committee, whose mission is to help create a representative structure and set policies to facilitate the continued growth and development of SURAgrid.

 

Congratulations to the following people elected to the SURAgrid Governance Committee:

-        John Connolly, University of Kentucky

-        Steve Johnson, Texas A&M University

-        Dan Katz, Louisiana State University

-        John-Paul Robinson, University of Alabama at Birmingham

-        Mike Sachon, Old Dominion University

-        Phil Smith, Texas Tech University

-        Art Vandenberg, Georgia State University

-        Victor Wong, University of Michigan

 

The SURA representative to the Governance Committee is Gary Crane, SURA Director of IT Initiatives.

 

 

- - IBM Partnership Expansion - -

On May 25, SURA and IBM formally announced an expanded partnership focused on updating the set of discounted IBM HPC systems available to the SURAgrid community. The expanded set of IBM systems available through this partnership now includes 3TF and 6TF Intel quad core Linux clusters based on the IBM 1350 blade center. For more information, contact Gary Crane at gcrane@sura.org or visit the new SURA-IBM portal at http://www-1.ibm.com/gold/portal/servlet/gold/download/en_US20/686390/sura.html.

 

 

- - SURAgrid Accounting Working Group - -

A SURAgrid Accounting Working Group was formed at the SURAgrid Spring07 meeting. The SAWG identified the following goals:

  • To develop and implement the capability to analyze SURAgrid usage in support of setting implementation priorities, planning, and input to proposals.
  • To monitor allocations, however these are prescribed by the resource owner at this time.

 

As a starting point, the group has agreed to base SURAgrid data collection on the job Usage Record standard currently progressing through the OSF User Record Working Group (http://forge.ggf.org/sf/projects/ur-wg). A key milestone of the working group is to host an Accounting Fest at the September 2007 SURAgrid All-Hands meeting to help promote understanding and adoption of accounting across SURAgrid resource providers.

 

 

- - SURAgrid “One Button” Stack Install - -

SURA has defined a common set of software that should be available on all SURA server systems. Work is in progress on providing a convenient way to install this software. We are collaborating in the use and development of this stack with Texas Tech University, who is contributing this install package to SURAgrid. It is based on similar work within the TIGRE project. To view the draft documentation visit the SURAgrid Stack WIKI hosted by TIGRE at http://omnius.hpcc.ttu.edu/SURAgrid_wiki/ServerStack. Test results will be incorporated into SURAgrid user documentation in the coming weeks. For additional information on how to participate in this effort contact Mary Fran Yafchak at maryfran@sura.org or Jerry Perez at Jerry.Perez@TTU.EDU.

 

 

FUNDING Opportunities

Looking for collaborators or ideas on how you can leverage your SURAgrid participation for upcoming proposals? Contact Gary Crane at gcrane@sura.org.

 

The primary purpose of the Strategic Technologies for Cyberinfrastructure Program (STCI) is to support work leading to the development and/or demonstration of innovative cyberinfrastructure services for science and engineering research and education that fill gaps left by more targeted funding opportunities. Proposals are due August 9, 2007 and SURA is developing additional ideas for overall SURAgrid support. For more information, go to   http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=500066&org=NSF&sel_org=NSF&from=fund.

 

A solicitation for a third round of funding for the NSF Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement, and Mentoring (CI-TEAM) Program was issued with proposals due August 27, 2007. SURA encourages you to think creatively about ways to leverage SURAgrid in CI-TEAM proposals, particularly for outreach & training, or as a testbed for extending CI capabilities to new communities. Contact Gary Crane with your ideas for collaboration at gcrane@sura.org. For more information about CI-TEAM, see http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf07564/nsf07564.htm.

 

 

UPCOMING Events

Submissions for poster session and demonstrations for GRID2007 are due June 29. The conference will be held September 19 - 22 in Austin, TX. See http://www.grid2007.org for more information.

 

Mark your calendar for the upcoming SURAgrid Fall meeting to be held Sep 26 – 28 at SURA Headquarters in Washington, DC. Please provide agenda suggestions to Mary Fran Yafchak at maryfran@sura.org. 

 

Brag a bit and let us know where you’re exhibiting, presenting talks or workshops. This way we can leverage our collective SURAgrid resources, facilitate face-to-face meeting opportunities, and support each other’s presentations/workshops at these events. Send your upcoming events to Linda Akli at akli@sura.org for inclusion in the newsletter and posting on the SURA and SURAgrid websites.

 

 

 

All issues of SURGrid update can be found at http://sura.org/programs/sura_grid_communications.html. Please submit comments and contributions for inclusion to Linda Akli at akli@sura.org.