1. Setting Up a Low Cost Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Henry Neeman, Director
OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research
University of Oklahoma
Friday May

2. What is Cyberinfrastructure?
Supercomputing/High Performance Computing/ High End Computing
High Throughput Computing
High Performance Networking
Computational Science & Engineering
Grid Computing
Scientific Visualization
Shared Sensor Networks
Shared Instruments
Shared Data Collections
Distressingly, NSF’s definition of CI can be even broader than this.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

3. NSF EPSCoR RII
The National Science Foundation’s EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement provides EPSCoR jurisdictions (including all of GPN except MO) up to $3M per year for up to 5 years.
The most recent solicitation required a Cyberinfrastructure plan (mentioned 18 times in the program solicitation).
But, there’s no set-aside funding for CI – it’s an unfunded mandate.
Expect this to continue indefinitely.
So, what kind of Cyberinfrastructure can a state provide?
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

4. OK Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Oklahoma’s plan – the Oklahoma Cyberinfrastructure Initiative (OCII, pronounced “Okie”) – involves cooperation between the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University:
All centrally-owned CI is available to everyone at OU and OSU, so that everyone at OSU can use OU resources and vice versa, via high speed statewide OneNet.
All academic institutions in the state are eligible to sign up for (some) free use of OU’s and OSU’s centrally-owned CI resources.
Other kinds of institutions (government, NGO, commercial) are also eligible to use, though not necessarily for free.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

5. OK Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Oklahoma’s plan – the Oklahoma Cyberinfrastructure Initiative (OCII, pronounced “Okie”) – involves cooperation between the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University:
With OU’s help, OSU is setting up a Condor pool to flock with OU’s.
OU’s Education, Outreach & Training effort is now available statewide (mostly through OU’s NSF CI-TEAM grant).
OU’s “rounds” program (one-on-one CI help) is now available statewide
Discussions are underway with the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST) to alert Oklahoma companies to OCII resources.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

6. What Does OCII Cost? NOTHING! Okay, maybe a little. But not much.
You can make your CI available to everyone in the state, but most of them won’t use it, and the rest won’t use it that much.
Regardless, the funding agencies love it when you do this.
You get to meet fun people from all over your state.
And, they love you because you give them free stuff – even if you don’t end up giving them very much, by their choice.
It does take a labor investment to go out and market your CI initiative – cold calling, ing, visiting other institutions around the state. But that’s fun too.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

7. Free Hardware! How can you get FREE HARDWARE?
NSF has a program called Major Research Instrumentation (MRI).
This program will give your institution up to $4M for hardware, and they fund several clusters every year (but ask for less than $1M, to raise your chance of success).
Each institution only gets 2 MRI acquisition proposal slots per year, so you have to convince your institution that you should get one.
If you line up a couple dozen participants, you’ve got a very compelling argument why you should get one of the slots.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

8. Free Hardware! (with Hard Work)
Budget
Ask for a little under $1M: at $1M and above, there’s an extra round of reviews that’s much harder to survive.
Spend your NSF budget on hardware, not on space, power, cooling or labor.
Your institution needs to provide 30% cost share, but the cost share has to be spent on things that are allowed to be funded under the NSF budget, which excludes space, power and cooling – but labor is allowed, so spend your cost share on labor.
Describe how your hardware will be administered. (And DON’T say that your sysadmin will be a grad student.)
Include a letter of commitment listing everything that will be provided by your institution.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

9. Free Hardware! (with Hard Work)
Your Hardware
Justify your particular hardware decision, especially if it’s more expensive than a vanilla x86-64 cluster.
Avoid listing multiple different resources – that’ll look like a shopping list. Make it look like one big, coherent thing with multiple pieces working together.
Don’t include components that very few users will want to use – they should pay for those components on their own project budgets.
Include one or more vendor quotes for your hardware in the Supplementary Documents.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

10. Free Hardware! (with Hard Work)
Projects That Will Use the Hardware
Describe several projects, including well-funded “hero” projects, each in about a page of detail, to showcase your top users.
Also list several other projects in less detail, to show that the hardware will be busy all the time.
You don’t need a unifying science or engineering theme: computational science and engineering is fine.
List the number of faculty, staff and students who will use the hardware, for each of the projects and in total.
If a project involves multiple institutions, specify which parts will be done by your institution.
List all the relevant current and pending funding, for each project and in total, in the project description.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

11. Free Hardware! (with Hard Work)
How Will the Hardware Help Beyond Your Institution?
Mention that you’re in an EPSCoR state. Several times. They want to give EPSCoR states more money!
It’s great if you promise to provide the hardware to (or if you’re at) non-PhD granting and/or minority serving institutions, and have letters of support showing that they’re on board.
Have letters of commitment from relevant people saying that they’ll give you the stuff that you say they’ll give you, so it doesn’t look like you’re making it up.
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

12. Okla. Supercomputing Symposium
Tue Oct 7 OU
Over 235 registrations already!
Over 150 in the first day, over 200 in the first week, over 225 in the first month.
2003 Keynote:
Peter Freeman
NSF
Computer &
Information
Science &
Engineering
Assistant Director
2004 Keynote:
Sangtae Kim
NSF Shared
Cyberinfrastructure
Division Director
2005 Keynote:
Walt Brooks
NASA Advanced
Supercomputing
Division Director
2006 Keynote:
Dan Atkins
Head of NSF’s
Office of
Cyber-
infrastructure
2007 Keynote:
Jay Boisseau
Director
Texas Advanced
Computing Center
U. Texas Austin
2008 Keynote: José Munoz Deputy Office Director/ Senior Scientific Advisor Office of Cyber- infrastructure National Science Foundation
FREE! Parallel Computing Workshop Mon Oct OU
FREE! Symposium Tue Oct OU
Statewide Cyberinfrastructure Initiative
Great Plains Network Annual Meeting, Friday May

13. Thanks for your attention! Questions?