Systems-Facing Track

The Systems-Facing track of the People Network will focus on aspects relevant to the execution of research computing and data systems.

Topics include:

• Architecture (hardware solutions, cloud integration, VMs, container integration, …)
• Storage systems (file systems, SAN, NAS, NVMe, Burstbuffer, …)
• Networking (data transfer solutions, Infiniband, campus-wide, …)
• Cluster management and configuration (scheduling, accounting and reporting, …)
• Accelerators (GPU, FPGA, …)
• Security (auditing, compliance, policies, procedures, …)
• User environment (Modules, CUDA, …)

We connect via monthly calls, on slack and an email list.

Join Us!

Join Us! Fill out our membership form to let us know who you are and what you’re interested in. We’ll add you to the email list. Visit the People Network page to join other tracks.

Monthly Calls

Monthly calls are on the third Thursday of the month, 1pm ET.  Connection information and links to any materials are distributed via email.

Upcoming Calls

Topic: Towards a Data Commons​ at Harvard (Joint call with Data-Facing Track)

February 16th, 2023, 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT (*50 minute call length)

Previous Call Topics

• January 2023 –Deploying web-based software to enable self-service HPC for researchers on the commercial cloud
• October 2022 – Identifying “core/common skills” that a Novice RCD Systems Focused IT professional should prioritize developing as they start their career. – Part 2
• September 2022 – Open XDMoD/ColdFront/Open OnDemand HPC Toolset Overview
• August 2022 – Identifying Requirements for Early Career PT/FT RCD Systems Focused IT – Part 1
• July 2022 – No S-F Call, instead we will focus on PEARC22
• June 2022 – JupyterHub @ NCAR: A Case for a Notebook-Centric Analysis Platform Around the Jupyter Ecosystem
• May 2022 – Operating a research computing environment for a large university
• April 2022 – Cloud SolutionsPanel Discussion
• March 2022 – Integrating Cloud Storage into Research Workflows
• February 2022 – Post CentOS 8 Era: Community Discussion
• January 2022 – Real-world RoCE: Architecture, Implementation and
• October 2021 – Network Troubleshooting: Techniques and Approaches
• September 2021 – Managing an NVIDIA DGX SuperPod at UF
• August 2021 – PEARC21 recap and community discussion
• July 2021- No S-F Call, instead we will focus on PEARC21
• June 2021 – Two unique approaches to developing CUI Compliant Systems
• May 2021 – Clusters in the Sky: How Canada is Building Beyond IaaS Cloud with Magic Castle
• April 2021 – Experiences and advice for large and small data centers – cooling
• March 2021 – Enabling Science Collaborations with Secure and Flexible Service Deployment
• February 2021 – Geddes Composable Platform – Purdue’s Kubernetes-based private cloud solution
• January 2021 – HPC Cluster Operating Systems Options
• October 2020 – Basic Cloud Bursting with Azure & VMWare
• September 2020 – Overview of HPC File Systems and One Site’s Experience
• August 2020 –  Multi-Track Call: Service Models for Researcher-Purchased Computing and Data
• July 2020 – OURRstore: Big Data on a Small Budget, discussion facilitated by Henry Neeman, Patrick Calhoun
• June 2020 – An intro to metrics collection with Prometheus and visualization with Grafana at the Colorado School of Mines
• May 2020 – Multi-Track: Student Workers
• April 2020 – Direct to the chip warm water cooling HPC system at OSC
• March 2020 – Visualize And Analyze Your Network Activities Using OSU INAM
• February 2020 – UC San Diego Health’s approach to meeting HIPAA compliance in AWS
• January 2020 – HIPAA-aligned data and Public Cloud Platforms
• December 2019 – Cornell’s Data Finder Tool
• October 2019 – HTCondor’s Philosophy of High-Throughput Computing
• September 2019 – Providing a Unified Software Environment for Canada’s National Advanced Computing Centers
• August 2019 – Storage and Data Management for a Mid-Scale Research Data Set
• July 2019 – Racktables for graphical HPC cluster management
• June 2019 – Open Discussion
• May, 2019 – Globus Installation and Configuration
• April, 2019 – Charliecloud  Unprivileged Containers for User-Defined Software Stacks
• March, 2019 – Ceph as a campus storage solution (block and objects)

CaRCC Systems-Facing YouTube playlist of past calls

Google Drive folder (includes a sub folder for each month’s call with call doc with notes and Q&A as well as the zoom recording files)

Track Coordinators

Systems-Facing Coordinators email contact link

Brian Haymore, Sr IT Architect – HPC, Center for High Performance Computing, University of Utah

Betsy Hillery, Director, Research Computing, Purdue University

Steering Committee

• Sai Pinnepalli, Chief Technologist, Center for Computation and Technology, Louisiana State University
• Jim Leous, Office of the Associate CIO for Research, Penn State
• John Blaas, HPC Systems Engineer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and active member in the ACM SIGHPC Syspros community
• Jason Wells, Founder, Builder, Admin, Facilitator of Research Computing at Bentley University
• Matthew Smith, Manager – Research Systems, Advanced Research Computing, University of British Columbia

Hall of Fame – (Former Track Leadership)

• Former Track Co-Coordinators:
  • Alan Silver, IT Professional, UW-Madison
  • Troy Baer, Senior HPC Systems Engineer, Ohio Supercomputer Center

• Former Track Steering Committee Members: