© University of Reading IT Services ITS Support for e Research Stephen Gough Assistant Director of IT Services 18 June 2008
Review of computer services (a) the University work towards minimising the range of equipment supported on central funds, subject to functional requirements being met led to support being predominantly for MS Windows lots of Unix expertise in ITS though – many Unix servers 2
e-Science Development Officer David Spence appointed Jan 2008 half-time – other half working for Oxford e-Research Centre (OeRC) working on: – mapping – interviews – some documentation 3
Providing better resources, software and support to allow researchers in Reading to make use of eResearch technology in their research To encourage inter-disciplinary collaborations to be formed inside and outside of the University around e Research To develop an eResearch agenda for the University 4
e-Science advice and networking e-Research and the Grid what resources will best suit your research contacts for collaboration national e-Research resources e-Science list – 5
Campus Computation Grid free, automatic access to about 500 lab/library PCs – while not in use by students ideal for research that involves running a program many times – where each run takes about an hour or less Grid nodes run Linux Grid is connected to National Grid Service need an e-Science certificate apply to ITS Help for an account help provided on getting started 6
Certification processes access to many Grid resources requires the use of a digital certificate issued by UK e-Science Certification Authority apply for certificate at: link to this from e-Research page IT Services approves your request on presentation of photographic identification 7
Globus Gateway Globus – widely used set of tools that are used in e-Research Globus Gateway – single point of reference for external (Globus) services wishing to access Globus resources in Reading and vice versa – a way for users in Reading to access external resources which are accessed with Globus, without needing to install these tools themselves need to register with IT Services – contact David Spence, or – ticket to ITS Help 8
Future plans coming out of e-Research mapping exercise need to prioritise follow up survey is important – paper forms available 9
Advice & support support for Linux and MacOS advice on Linux distributions how to configure for Reading network basic Unix/Linux/Mac use 10
Resources available information and advice on how to use them Campus Grid ACETs Bladecenter National Grid service resources at Oxford 11
Campus Grid developments checkpointing server - by end of July submission/compilation server - by end of July additional RAM and local disk space for Grid nodes – updated during summer 2008 R & Matlab runtime simplifying access – Nimrod, Swift, GRex etc – which? add existing departmental/school clusters managing resulting data from computation done on Grid Wake on LAN for Condor 12
Virtual research environments and collaborative tools Access Grid – one at ESSC – Personal Interface to Access Grid info on e-Research page JANETTalk – trial coming soon Blackboard wikis SVN 13
Collaboration networks directory of expertise? making best use of existing expertise list wiki contacts within Reading and with Oxford / Southampton – others? – KCL 14
Hosting facilities hosting facility for school owned clusters and servers – forms/requestlylespace.asp 15
Data data stewardship – best practices – QAR issues – hosting centrally vs backup service – continued research use of data – support for web server based databases and tools – advice about databases/web servers common tools – file handling/archiving microscopy system developed in Oxford CfAM, fMRI, CAF etc 16
Training Grid use Unix/Linux programming – advice on porting data stewardship 17
Providing suitable software environment Matlab compiler licences – ordered – document use Matlab site licence? – Matlab TAH ATLAS.ti – qualitative analysis – available on Terminal Server UCINET – analysis of social network data – available on Terminal Server others? 18
Seminars already good programmes from ACET & PEDAL – details posted to specialist Arts & Humanities seminars? 19