Campus Bridging

The XSEDE Campus Bridging team aims to make it easier to connect researchers analyses to the national cyberinfrastructure, and promote best practices in the use of XSEDE resources among campus IT staff.

Campus Bridging reduce barriers to the use of XSEDE resources by:

  • Disseminating software packages for use by campuses
  • Making the movement of data and jobs between campuses and XSEDE easier
  • Supporting the implementation of InCommon for authentication

Accessibility of Resources

Campus Bridging endeavors to make the large-scale resources of XSEDE feel close-at-hand to users and allow for easy access after allocations and accounts have been established. This is done through a combination of education and training, data management and execution management services that allow for users to access resources as easily as if they were in the same room.

The Campus Bridging team also focuses on advocating a common means of access to national resources (InCommon authentication), software packages for campus system administrators, gathering requirements from campus and local users on software packages to be implemented by XSEDE, and providing opportunities to interact with new software for use in XSEDE.

XSEDE Compatible Basic Cluster (XCBC)– Create an XSEDE-like cluster with Open Source Software

Campus Bridging works with XSEDE Operations and Software Development & Integration teams to create software packages for use by campuses.

Rocks Rolls

Rocks Rolls make cluster installation easier. If a resource such as an HPC cluster at a campus conforms sufficiently to XSEDE standards, the system administrator can simply install packages that provide XSEDE software on the local machine. And should local system administrators require additional guidance on configuration of a resource, the Campus Bridging team provides Rocks Rolls and Puppet/Cobbler scripts that will allow the configuration of the local resource to conform to XSEDE standards and subsequent installation of XSEDE software.

The software packages and layouts provided by Campus Bridging create environments similar to the most commonly used resources in XSEDE, so that transition of researcher analyses between local resources and XSEDE resources is simple if a larger number of jobs or larger storage is required.

For more information about these software packages, visit the Rocks Rolls page.

Yum Repo

If you don't want to install a new XSEDE-like cluster, you can include the software from the Rocks Rolls in your cluster by adding the XSEDE software repositories. The Yum Repo provides XSEDE software packages. To access Campus Bridging software, visit to the Yum Repo.

Site Visits for XCBC installation

The XSEDE Campus Bridging team is happy to visit your site to help implement XCBC on campuses. After an initial consulting meeting over the phone, we can work with you to make sure that XCBC is implemented at your site and make sure that you have the knowledge that you need to maintain it. For more information on site visits, email help@xsede.org.

You can also read more about XCBC in Jeremy Fischer's XSEDE 14 paper "Methods for Creating XSEDE Compatible Clusters".

Data and Job Management Technologies

Genesis II

Genesis II is an open source, standards based grid platform designed to support both high-throughput computing and secure data sharing. The features of the Genesis II platform are designed with two communities in mind: the User Community and Research Community.

Genesis II software is made up of two components: a Global Federated File System component called GFFS and a UNICORE component called EMS. GFFS allows user applications running on campus and research group machines to directly access files and other resources at NSF-funded service provider sites and collaborator sites as if they were in their local OS file system, and vise versa. EMS allow jobs to be submitted, executed, managed and shared across resources and for analyses that span XSEDE resources.

For more information on Genesis II and its component, visit the Genesis II, GFFS and UNICORE pages. Also, tutorials for using Genesis II on XSEDE are available here.

Globus

Globus is a fast and reliable high-performance service for secure data movement. Designed specifically for researchers, Globus provides easy, fire-and forget features and simplified automated data transfers between any two resources—whether between two XSEDE resources or to/from XSEDE and another machine, such as another supercomputing facility, cloud resource, campus cluster, lab server, desktop, or laptop.

XSEDE recommends that campuses and researchers use the Globus Connect software to allow data transfers between their campus and personal systems and XSEDE systems. XSEDE has tested this software and ensured that Globus Connect--both Server and Personal versions--work well with XSEDE's Globus data movement services. XSEDE's technical support team is equipped to help campus administrators and XSEDE users with any issues they encounter using Globus
Connect software on their systems.

For more information about using Globus to move data to and from XSEDE resources, visit the Globus pages.

Training and Documentation Materials

The Campus Bridging team, together with Cornell University, is producing virtual workshops about using XSEDE Campus Bridging technologies such as the XSEDE Rocks Rolls, yum repo, Globus Online, and more.

The team also produces videos describing Campus Bridging tools and initiatives throughout the project to inform and reach out to members of the community interested in learning more about Campus Bridging.

See below for access to videos and XSEDE Knowledge Base articles.

Videos

XSEDE Knowledge Base Articles

For More on Campus Bridging

To better understand the beginnings of Campus Bridging as a concept, users may find it helpful to view a recent presentation titled "What is Campus Bridging and What Can It Do for Me?" by XSEDE's Campus Bridging and Research Infrastructure Lead, Rich Knepper of Indiana University. You can access that presentation here. For more reading on XSEDE Campus Bridging you can read "Cyberinfrastructure, Science Gateways, Campus Bridging, and Cloud Computing" by Craig Stewart, Richard Knepper, Matt Link, Marlon Pierce, Eric Wernert, and Nancy Wilkins-Diehr.

To get help with Campus Bridging tools:

Campus Bridging Appearances

2014

  • Advance Research Computing on Campus
  • XSEDE Outreach - Rice University
  • Internet2 Global Summit
  • Open Science Grid All Hands
  • GlobusWorld
  • XSEDE Outreach - University of Minnesota
  • XSEDE14
  • Oklahoma Supercomputing Symosium
  • XSEDE Outreach - John Hopkins

2013

  • TN State University CI-Day
  • Educause Regional Spring
  • GlobusWorld
  • XSEDE13
  • XSEDE Outreach - Arlington, VA
  • XSEDE Outreach - GWU
  • Condo of Condos
  • Cluster13
  • CASC
  • Educause Fall
  • SC13
  • XSEDE Outreach - University of Puerto Rico

2012

  • CASC
  • Internet2
  • XSEDE12
  • SC12

2011

  • TeraGrid '11
  • Internet2
  • SC11