Cyberinfrastructure Integration

The mission of the XSEDE Cyberinfrastructure Integration (XCI) team is to integrate, adapt, and disseminate software tools and related services across the national CI community, building on and improving upon the efforts of XSEDE to enable the creation of an integrated national cyberinfrastructure. It is through the activities of XCI that XSEDE integrates Service Providers that have a formal relationship with XSEDE and distributes software that creates and maintains a US national cyberinfrastructure that is interoperable and as easy as possible to use from the standpoint of the practicing scientist.

 
 
There are three types of services provided by XCI:
  1. Integrating important and useful software tools into the XSEDE ecosystem. These tools may be useful to infrastructure operators (Service Providers), software/service developers, or end users of XSEDE integrated cyberinfrastructure resources. This work is done primarily by the Requirements Analysis and Capability Delivery unit and includes working with all relevant stakeholders to: document software related requirements and use cases, identify capability gaps and priorities, coordinate software integration work, adapt software to interoperate with other CI, instrument software for usage tracking and ROI analysis, conduct software design/security reviews, conduct quality assurance testing, and to enable and support sharing and collaboration amongst all software providers and consumers.
  2. Support for XSEDE Service Providers.  XCI also provides tools specifically to support for XSEDE service providers at all three levels. 
  3. Support and consulting for campus CI resource operators.  The main focus of this component of XCI activities is to make life easier for local CI system administrators and support people while in the process creating an interoperable national cyberinfrastructure that allows ease of movement between campus and XSEDE resources. This work is done by the XSEDE Cyberinfrastructure Resource Integration group which will visit your campus and work with you to implement XCI tools on your local cyberinfrastructure resources (even if you think they are not terrifically large).
XCI delivers these services by first carefully analysing and documenting service provider, developer, and end user expressed needs (Use Cases); then by evaluating capability gaps, preparing Capability Delivery Plans (CDPs),  and determining gap priorities using advisory groups; and finally by partnering with all available capability providers to prepare and integrate capabilities that address priority gaps as quickly as possible.
 
Like all areas of XSEDE, XCI operates on the basis of tracking metrics most particularly our Key Performance Indicators. A list of our KPIs, and progress against them, is available at https://confluence.xsede.org/display/XT/WBS+2.3.x+XCI+Metrics
 
To get help with integration of your campus, statewide, or regional cyberinfrastructure facilities
e-mail: help@xsede.org or call the XSEDE help line: 1-866-907-2383