1 Policy Recommendations for TeraGrid Resource Allocation Process Richard Moore TeraGrid’08 - June 2008 These are draft recommendations. We want your feedback!

2 Goals Reduce the real and perceived barriers to entry for the allocations process Resolve and clarify various policies related to the integration and presentation of TeraGrid resources Improve communications about resources and allocations

3 Lowering Barriers to Entry: New Award Types & Review Schedule There will be three types of awards: Startup, Education & Research –Formerly, DAC, MRAC and LRAC awards which reflected size of award Startup & Education Awards may be submitted at any time –Streamline directions and submittal for these “entry point” requests –TeraGrid team members review and act on these requests as quickly as possible. –Single TG team reviewer can approve; initial rejection invokes a second review. –Provide much larger Startup awards for larger systems (default 200K rather than 30K SU’s) Startup size can be limited by the Resource Providers for smaller systems All Research requests may be submitted to any quarterly review meeting –No longer a distinction between “Medium” & “Large” requests –“Large” requests used to be considered only semi-annually Change name to TeraGrid Resource Allocation Committee (TRAC) TeraGrid will take steps to ensure that larger requests do not preclude the ability of more modestly sized requests to accomplish their research objectives, e.g. –If resources are over-subscribed, reviewers re-assess large allocations first –Group the requests into comparable classes during review process

4 Lowering Barriers to Entry: Getting in the door Improve communication about resources and process to new users/communities Provide proposal training: TeraGrid advertise and host a 1-2 hour teleconference training & Q&A session for all prospective proposers early in each proposal cycle. –Provide information about resources available, proposal requirements, tips for writing good proposals, info about start-up accounts for scaling studies in support of proposals. Provide an opportunity for new users with significant requirements (>Startup) to request “Pre-Award Allocation” prior to beginning of next quarterly cycle –Only applies to resources with current availability – pre-awards can not crowd out previously allocated users. –A new PI can submit a proposal to request a pre-award allocation equal to the size of the request multiplied by the fraction of the year until the start of the next allocation period. –If resources are available, Allocations Coordinator and RP’s can grant award or choose to ask TRAC members to review the proposal. PIs with current allocations are not eligible for Pre-Award allocations, but can request Supplements or Advances. –Increase limit on Advances from 10% to 25%, subject to resource availability and RP approval.

5 Broaden TRAC membership selection process and clarify term limits Solicit nominations for TRAC reviewers in the required domain areas from: –NSF OCI program officers –Program officers in NSF domain directorates or other agencies (via OCI) –TeraGrid Science Advisory Board –Departing TRAC members –TeraGrid Forum (TG RP’s and GIG) Consider breadth of geographical/institutional participation, as well as diversity Candidates need not be TRAC awardees, or even eligible for a TRAC award (e.g. non-NSF FFRDC staff) Nominees must be approved by the TeraGrid Forum Term limit is 3 years, but reviewers can agree to serve for only 2 years –In exceptional circumstances, Allocations Coordinator can request a 6 month extension –Previous members can rejoin after a minimum 2-year hiatus TRAC chair is a committee member who participated in at least the 2 prior meetings; will be nominated/elected by the committee at conclusion of previous meeting. The Chair has no special decision-making privileges.

6 Strengthen Perception of Fairness Adopt formal conflict of interest (COI) policy, provided to all prospective candidate reviewers, and explained to TRAC participants at each meeting –Reviewer affiliations with a requestor’s institution; personal, academic and/or financial interest in the request and/or proposal; other potential COI relationships PI can name individuals who they request not review their proposals (comparable to NSF policy). The allocations coordinator will consider such requests. If TRAC reviewers have significantly different opinions on a proposal, they should be openly discussed in full TRAC meeting. There will be no informal discussion among reviewers of any proposal for which the PI or co-PI is a TRAC panel member and is present at the meeting. That PI or co-PI must, of course, leave the room during discussion of his/her proposal. TG Forum will develop charter for the TRAC and is responsible for management the allocations process

7 Oversubscription of Resources (1 of 2) If resources are oversubscribed at the conclusion of the initial TRAC recommendations, the attending RP and GIG allocation officers will formally convene to assess whether alternate resources are available to satisfy total allocations. If so, the TRAC committee adjourns and the RP allocations officers will make re-allocations based on, in priority order: – Re-assigning allocations to alternate resources specified by user in their proposal, – Re-assigning allocations to alternate resources with similar system architectures, – Retaining current users rather than assigning new users to oversubscribed resources, & – Allocating to sites where the user has the most previous experience.

8 Oversubscription of Resources (2 of 2) If alternate resources can not satisfy total allocations, further cuts must be made. In that case, the TRAC will reconvene after the TG allocations officers make a best initial pass at re-allocations. The TRAC will be asked to identify the least meritorious proposals overall whose awards received a disproportionate level of SUs, with a charge of reducing such allocations until the total recommended awards can be satisfied by available resources. Users assigned to resources they did not request will be informed that this was done because resource was oversubscribed All changes from initial to final allocations will be documented and made available to the RP’s & GIG.

9 Roaming Allocations TeraGrid Roaming allocations should be limited to the following three situations: –Startup and Education allocations, in which the user does not know where best to run and may need to evaluate several architectures –TRAC recommendations and awards made to encourage users to migrate to new or alternate platforms, especially in the case of overallocated resources –Research allocation requests in which the proposal describes how the project will use roaming to conduct multi-site runs using unique grid capabilities and/or to minimize job waits (e.g. identifying least- busy resource). Failing this, the allocation should be made to the most appropriate resource(s), based on TRAC recommendations.

10 Improving documentation and communications Policies for proposal sections, length and content will be clarified, published and enforced. Proposals violating these guidelines will be immediately returned to proposers for revision and re-submission. Requirements for Startup proposals will be prominent in TeraGrid documentation, easily found by prospective first-time users. Requirements and evaluation criteria for novel resource classes (e.g. storage, advanced support) will be clarified, reviewed, and published for both requesters and reviewers. After every meeting, we will communicate via TG User News a summary of awards, and identify resources available for supplementary requests. Where resources are substantially underallocated, RP Directors will be empowered to make discretionary allocations until next quarterly cycle. –Substantial under-allocation is <80% of available resources –In the % range, let allocated users get benefit of shorter queue waits

We want your feedback! General comments on the proposal/allocations process as well as responses to these draft recommendations Your comments today will be noted by TG team Please respond to an allocations survey by 6/22 – available in hardcopy today or electronically at (electronic preferred) These PowerPoint charts are available at (url will download/open PPT file) We plan to roll out final recommendations this year! –September meeting will remain MRAC/LRAC, but some recommendations will be implemented by then –December 2008 meeting should be merged TRAC 11