Community Grids for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) SC06 Grid Interoperability Workshop November 12 2006 Geoffrey

1. Community Grids for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI)SC06 Grid Interoperability Workshop November 12 2006Geoffrey Foxhttp://www.educationgrid.org Supporting the Demographic Revolution Providing a scalable equitable mechanism for developing a CI-enabled science and engineering workforce

2. Our Goal “Support the development of computing professionals, interdisciplinary teams, and new organizational structures, such as virtual communities, needed to achieve the scientific breakthroughs made possible by advanced CI, paying particular attention to the opportunities to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups.” Atkins CI report

3. Some Key Organizations • MSI CI2 Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) Cyberinfrastructure Institute led by the • Alliance for Equity in Higher Education. Working with the Alliance will have systemic impact on at least 335 Minority Serving Institutions covered by the • AIHEC American Indian Higher Education Consortium) • HACU Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities • NAFEO National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education • MSI-CIEC Minority-Serving Institution Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Empowerment Coalition led by • UHD University of Houston Downtown as a major Hispanic Serving Institution • Indiana University is not a very key organization here!

4. Some Key Participants • Al Kuslikis: Director of STEM project development at the American Indian Higher Education Consortium AIHEC • Alex Ramírez: Director of information technology initiatives at the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities HACU • Selena Singleton (Millie Freeman): Chief of programs at the National Association for Equity in Higher Education NAFEO • Karl Barnes also helps a lot with NAFEO • Richard Aló: Director of the Center for Computational Science (CCSDS) at UHD University of Houston Downtown; PI MSI-CIEC Proposal • Diane Baxter: Director of outreach and education at the San Diego Supercomputing Center SDSC • Geoffrey Fox: Director of the Community Grids Lab at Indiana University, Visiting Scholar for CI Development at the Alliance for Equity In Higher Education, and Senior Research Associate at CCSDS UHD. PI MSI-CI2 • Others such as Scott Lathrop from TeraGrid and Jill Arnold from Internet2 have been essential!

5. Basic Ideas • Cyberinfrastructure is critical to all involved in Research and Education • Cyberinfrastructure is intrinsically democratic supporting broad participation • MSI’s should lead MSI integration with Cyberinfrastructure • One should guide the projects with experts • One should aim at scalable (systemic) approaches • Goal is peer collaborations involving all institutions of higher education

6. Sources of Lessons and Backdrop • Evaluation of major meetingsperformed by Julie Foertsch • Interaction with communityduring operation of MSI-CI2 • Note MSI-CI2is one year proposal with one year No Cost extension; PI Fox as visitor to Alliance • MSI-CI2 succeeded by two year MSI-CIEC (Cyberinfrastructure Empowerment Coalition) project with PI Richard Alo UHD University of Houston Downtown and co-PI’s Ramirez, Fox et al.

7. Advisory Team • Malcolm Atkinson, NESC (UK National e-Science Center), ICEAGE (EU Grid Education) • Fran Berman, SDSC • Jay Boisseau, TACC • Charles Catlett, TeraGrid • Kelvin Droegemeier, Oklahoma, LEAD • Tom Dunning, NCSA • Mark Ellisman, SDSC, BIRN • Ian Foster, Chicago, Open Science Grid Globus etc • Juan Meza, LBL • Dan Reed, UNC, Renaissance Computing • Richard Tapia, Rice • Larry Smarr, UCSD, Cal(IT)2

8. Proje\ct Venues Major MSI CI2 Project Activities Planning and Education (train the trainer) meetings at SC05 and Global Grid Forum (these not very successful) and • January 30-31 Planning Meeting SDSC • General Summer School (June 26-30) SDSC • Supporting your own CI workshops (April and August) NCSA • All Access Grid enabled • Lots of planning and discussion leading to MSI-CIEC

9. MSI-CI2 Lessons (fed into MSI-CIEC) I • There are many wonderful broad-based CI activities that can be leveraged by MSI’s • TeraGrid, NSF/State centers, OSG, GGF, SCxx, International projects (Pragma, ICEAGE) • So move from providing fully customized activities to modifying/using existing networks, computers (as in TeraGrid), workshops, Summer Schools – this can SCALE!! • Work with outreach activities like EPIC, Global CyberBridges (FIU) and SACNAS • Need to involve all parts of a MSI including administration, faculty and students • Borrow campus visits from successful AN-MSI project (networks)

10. MSI-CI2 Lessons II • Can support application-specific projects such as “CI for ice-sheet remote sensing” (CReSIS) where MSI Elizabeth City State University ECSU near Virginia-NC border leads CI-enablement • PI Linda Hayden with co-PI’s including Fox • This is part of CReSIS a Science and Technology Center led by Kansas University • Interesting that MSI leading traditional university powerhouses into “next” generation (Cyberinfrastructure) • Note ECSU a dominantly undergraduate university; Kansas group has graduate students but domain experts and not Grid experts • Leverage and encourage REU and related research experience activities • Encourage internship and mentoring opportunities • Can extend to Community Colleges and K-12 (pipeline) • Collaboration, coordination, and trust-building across institutional, cultural, and geographical barriers

11. Example: Setting up a Polar CI/Grid • NSF CI-Team project with HBCU ECSU in North Carolina and Kansas University will design and set up a Polar Grid • CI Enable MSIs (ECSU Haskell) and a community (Polar Science) • The North and South poles are melting with potential huge environmental impact • We have changed the 100,000 year Glacier cycle into a ~50 year cycle; the field has increased dramatically in importance and interest • Polar Grid is a network of computers, sensors (on robots and satellites), data and people aimed at understanding science of ice-sheets and impact of global warming • We are planning Polar Grid relevant CI Education Infrastructure and initial projects with Undergraduate students (ECSU) and Graduate students (Kansas) • Polar weather stations as Grid resources • Use distance education to cover all CReSIS sites

13. CReSIS PolarGrid • Important CReSIS-specific Cyberinfrastructure components include • Managed data from sensors and satellites • Data analysis such as SAR processing – possibly with parallel algorithms • Electromagnetic simulations (currently commercial codes) to design instrument antennas • 3D simulations of ice-sheets (glaciers) with non-uniform meshes • GIS Geographical Information Systems • Also need capabilities present in many Grids • Portal i.e. Science Gateway • Submitting multiple sequential or parallel jobs

14. Some Communities for Grids • Minority Serving Institutions: MSIs including the Alliance for Equity in Higher Education and its constituent organizations AIHEC, HACU and NAFEO. • One can expect this and other communities to organize itself as in ANMSI, MSICII and MSI-CIEC. • EPSCoR (NSF, DoE …) and IDeA (Institutional Development Award from NIH) Institutions – “historically underfunded” areas spread over 26 States and Puerto Rico http://www.epscorfoundation.org • Specific science and engineering and humanities application domains • K-12 Education

15. National Cyberinfrastructure • We need to work with all the National Cyberinfrastructure and not just parts • Open Science Grid and TeraGrid in NSF • Internet2, National LambdaRail • InCommon (cross organization trust federation), EDUCAUSE, WCET (Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications) • NASA DoE NIH as well as NSF activities • Industry such as Amazon S3 and ElasticComputing Cloud • Government and academic facilities • International activities from the major grids to communities like Open Grid Forum and WINHEC (World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium) • Community empowerment should focus on this broad National Cyberinfrastructure • Broad coverage of Support (National Cyberinfrastructure Operations Center), Training, Brokering and Access

16. Community Requirements for National Cyberinfrastructure • All MSI’s need National Cyberinfrastructure access but its not clear what this requires • Local Infrastructure for local research and education • Note ECSU had all local hardware removed from CI-Team proposal and asked to build a Science Gateway to TeraGrid • Portals/Science Gateways “just” need a Web browser? • There are several MSI’s that can become National Cyberinfrastructure providers • Need home institution support • Need a “simpler” “more robust” CI-lite software stack? • Need a CI Operations Center to help production use of CI • Need a plan to provide SYSTEMIC education and training at faculty, graduate and undergraduate level • Integrate CI into institution curriculum • Need “Centers of Excellence” to help CI-enable MSIs/Communities

17. Implementing National CI for MSIs I • Fund local infrastructure and local infrastructure support • Establish Tiger teams to visit MSIs and establish plans for institution CI-Enablement • Identify a “simple” and “robust” CI-lite software stack (could be an existing stack) • Security issues for MSIs • Role of Portals/Science Gateways versus “power user” access • Define, Implement and Support an education and training model including “distance learning” (including “Access Grid” infrastructure) and institution curriculum integration • Fund internships and other research opportunities (e.g. REU) for MSI faculty/students

18. Implementing National CI for MSIs II • Provide (remote) MSI/Community CI Operations Center to provide support to MSI users of CI • Empower (=fund) Centers of Excellence to provide institutional support • Research use of VM technology and shared desktops to allow remote hardware and remote support • Involve “all organizations” including Internet2 to support network access and community organizations to support scalability • Establish Partnerships between MSI’s and experienced National CI institutions for smooth CI-Enablement (Internet2 Strategy) • All aspects should be Systemic (scale to all 335 MSIs) and aim at peer collaborations and not elite to non-elite relationships