XSEDE Value Added and Financial Economies NSF Review September 17, 2014

Question Is the organization of XSEDE effective and financially beneficial as a way to deliver cyberinfrastructure services to the US (open) research community? ? Center 2 Center 1 Center 3 Center 4 Center 2 Center 1 Center 3 Center 4 X S E D vs.

The purpose of this presentation is to support this assertion As compared to a system in which multiple centers deliver cyberinfrastructure services to the national research community, XSEDE, as a single, cooperative national service: adds value that would not otherwise occur; achieves financial economies in delivering service to the nation The purpose of this presentation is to support this assertion

Scope Topic Scope Value Added Includes benefits of: User productivity (Single sign-on , allocation processes) Advanced support – disciplinary breadth and depth National leadership function Training, Education, Outreach – national scope Financial economies Considers costs of: User support Essential operations: security, disaster resilience Core service infrastructure 7 x 24 operations, basic infrastructure Documentation

Two main categories of value added: XSEDE Value Added Benefits that accrue from having one coordinated and consolidated organization that would not happen in a scenario of multiple organizations. Two main categories of value added: value that results from there being a single entity serving the national research community and providing leadership with which other projects can align value that results from the scale of XSEDE

Discussed by Ralph Roskies in a different context Benefits of a Single Coordinating Organization – Uniformity of Computing Environment Improves User Productivity Discussed by Ralph Roskies in a different context Single web interface overall Single allocation process Coordinated help desk support Same look and feel of documentation at all sites Unified authentication mechanism Unified set of tools for data management Expert help in selecting the right resource from the entire array of nationally-available resources of XD program

Benefits of a Single Coordinating Organization – Security Effectiveness One unified security team has proved highly effective in responding to security incidents. Under XSEDE there have been no incidents that propagated from one center to another within XSEDE. Under TeraGrid there were two security incidents that propagated to multiple centers.

Benefits of a Single Coordinating Organization – Disaster Resilience Critical core services are offered by XSEDE in a way that provides resilience even in the face of a regional disaster. Key core services such as authentication and ticket system are operated in one geographic region of the US and have backup in a different region. Failover to secondary services exercised regularly, has been used in practice.

Quality Software Infrastructure for overall service Benefits of a Single Coordinating Organization – Software Optimization and Support Quality Software Infrastructure for overall service XSEDE engineering process hardens & vets software Optimization Of Widely Used Community Codes prioritizing and coordinating effort often optimized for multiple architectures continuity of domain support as architectures change, enabled by application experts who know codes and participate as staff in XSEDE for periods improving code substantially is as better than buying more hardware

Benefits of a Single Coordinating Organization & Scale – One Resource With Which the Nation Can Align Several science projects use XSEDE as a resource more than 40 Letters of Support written, LIGO, National Center for Genome Analysis Support Science Gateways – one national cyberinfrastructure environment to serve as a back end for gateways Campus Bridging aligns national CI – single entity to bridge to enables the national research community to better leverage non-federal investments in campus CI extends the value of software created by community through XCBC XSEDE becomes a coordinating point for national and international entities who want to engage the NSF HPC programs.

Benefits From Scale – Scale of Staff Overall Discussed by Ralph Roskies in a different context Disciplinary Breadth of Expertise, allows coverage of domains composed of diverse sub-domains that 2 or 4 centers could not cover Novel and Innovative Projects support of emerging & innovative research breadth of disciplines & approaches leveraged one team vs. multiple competing teams there is some cost to coordination within XSEDE as compared to a single center in one location.

Benefits From Scale – TEOS National impact Training & Education programs, Underrepresented Community Engagement of national scope Student programs serve a more diverse group of students due to national scope Better ability to cover the entire nation in outreach: XSEDE Conference Users in all 50 states, D.C., and US territories Campus Champions - 49 States XSEDE staff physically located in 18 states + DC One consistent message and set of technical information makes it easier for technology adoption to spread organically Broader Participation among institutions ~15% of XSEDE’s budget goes to the 14 institutions other than the 5 institutions represented by PI & Co-PIs

Measuring Financial Benefits of XSEDE As One Organization Committed fixed costs* are the essential costs of operating an enterprise Cost avoidance* is the difference in cost between doing something one way as opposed to some other, hypothetical way We calculated cost avoidance of one national integrating function as compared to hypothetical scenarios of 2 or 4 by comparing XSEDE actual costs for core functions vs. the committed fixed cost minimum for a 2-center and 4-center model *Definitions from Kinney & Raiborn. 2011. Cost accounting. South-Western. 832 pp.

Committed Fixed Costs Per National Center Activity Fewest FTEs Needed /Center Per Center Non personnel Cost Per Center Personnel Cost Allocations 1.25 $100,000 $250,000 A & AM Authentication Services 1.50 $300,000 24 x 7 Operations 5.00 $1,000,000 Ticket Support   User Survey 0.50 Leadership 3.00 $600,000 Project Managers & Finance 1.00 $15,000 $200,000 User Information Services $20,000 Training 2.00 $400,000 Education Outreach Network Central Services (web portal, etc.) Systems Engineering & Deployment 4.00 $800,000 Subtotals 34 $405,000 $6,800,000 Advanced computing support [Scales with nation – 24 total needed to cover national community] 24 $4,800,000 MINIMUM FIXED COST 58 $12,005,000

XSEDE Committed Fixed Costs (Actual Costs for Essential Core Functions) Activity XSEDE FTEs Non- personnel Costs XSEDE personnel costs Allocations 2.25 $100,000 $450,000 A & AM 2.50 $500,000 Authentication Services 4.30 $860,000 24 x 7 Operations 5.00 $1,000,000 Ticket Support 2.00 $400,000 User Survey 1.25 $250,000 Project Management   Leadership and Project Management 3.50 $700,000 Project Managers & Finance $30,000 User Information Services 6.00 $20,000 $1,200,000 Training 7.50 $1,500,000 Education Outreach Network Central Services (web portal, etc.) Systems Engineering & Deployment 7.00 $1,400,000 Advanced Computing Support 24.00 $4,800,000 Subtotals $420,000 $17,460,000 XSEDE ANNUAL COST 87.3 $17,880,000

Cost Avoidance Analysis Results Cost Avoidance as compared to 2-center Model $1,330,000 in cost avoidance (financial economies) per year Calculated in a very conservative way because significant funding goes to provide high quality rather than minimal services Cost Avoidance as compared to 4-center Model $15,740,000 in cost avoidance (financial economies) per year

Sanity Test Activity Annual Budget for Operations XSEDE committed fixed costs $17,880,000 XSEDE total budget $24,200,000 XD Program Track II Operations as of FY2015 (calculated at 20% of acquisition cost per year) $14,860,000 Total XSEDE committed fixed costs + Track II O&M $32,740,000 Total XSEDE total budget + Track II O&M $39,060,000 Blue Waters $30,000,000

Concluding Remarks There is significant added value to having one organization cooperating to operate a national interface for NSF-funded CI some of these added value benefits come from the simple fact that one national organizing function some of the added value comes from the scale of XSEDE XSEDE achieves significant cost avoidance that is, XSEDE saves the federal government money on critical core functions as compared to alternate models for serving the national open research community The analysis has changed considerably since the version included in the review materials. A new written version of the analysis incorporating any responses to your suggestions will be provided to you tomorrow. We are planning to submit this analysis as a paper to the American Society for Quality technical conference or similar venue. Do you have any suggestions about the analysis (or alternate suggestions on a venue)?