The talk gives an overview on current trends for developing science gateways also called virtual labs or virtual research environments. It presents the services of the US Science Gateways Community Institute and international collaborations in the context of science gateways.

1. Award Number
ACI-1547611
Science Gateways:
An Overview
Sandra Gesing
sandra.gesing@nd.edu
16 October 2017
IWSG-A, Brisbane, Australia

2. 2
Data- and compute-
intensive problems
Research Infrastructures
NO geographical
boundaries
Geographical
boundaries

3. Importance of Scientific Software
In 2009 a survey was published with answers from 2000
researchers.
• 91% answered that using scientific software is
important for their own research
• 84% answered that developing scientific software is
important for their own research
• 53.5% answered that they spend more time developing
scientific software than they did 10 years ago
• 38% spend at least one fifth of their time developing
software
J.E. Hannay et al., "How Do Scientists Develop and Use Scientific Software?", Proc. ICSE
Workshop Software Eng. for Computational Science and Eng., pp. 1-8, 2009.

4. State of the Art
4
Increased
complexity of
• research
questions
• hardware
• software
• instruments
• data volume
• data formats
The need for end-
to-end solutions for
accessing data,
software,
computing
services, and
equipment specific
to the needs of a
science or
engineering
discipline

5. Science Gateways
5
Increased
complexity of
• research
questions
• hardware
• software
• instruments
• data volume
• data formats
The need for end-
to-end solutions for
accessing data,
software,
computing
services, and
equipment specific
to the needs of a
science or
engineering
disciplineScience Gateways!

6. 6

7. 7
It’s a
Science
Gateway
It’s a
Research
Portal
It’s a
Collaboratory
It’s a
Cyber-
infrastructure
It’s
a Virtual
Research
Environment
It’s a
Virtual
Lab

8. Technologies
• Widely used complete frameworks (Galaxy, HUBzero, Open Science
Framework, Globus etc.)
• RESTful APIs and support of multiple programming languages in widely
used frameworks (Apache Airavata, the Agave platform, etc.)
• Reused interface implementations such as the one of CIPRES with its
RESTful API (CIPRES has served more than 20,000 users to date)
• Science gateways as a service with provision of hardware in the
background such as SciGap (Science Gateway Platform as a Service)
Lessons learned: approaches should be technology agnostic, using
APIs and standard web technologies OR deliver a complete solution
Community Engagement is key
HUBzero users world wide

9. Technologies User Interface
Layer
HPC Facili4es
Services Layer
Workflow
management
Data
management
Storage
Grid and
Cloud
services
Metadata
services
Applica4on
Layer

10. Large Infrastructure Projects
• MARVL
• HuNI
• CVL
• ENDOVL
• ASVO
• Industrial Ecology (IE) VL
• Alveo
• VGL
• BCCVL
• VHIRL
• GVL

11. Large Infrastructure Projects

12. Large Infrastructure Projects
12
• 2004 TeraGrid project director Rick Stevens recognized
growth in scientific portal development and proposed the
Science Gateway Program
• Followed up by XSEDE’s Science Gateway Program
All users
Gateways
Login
Gateway
users are
77% of
active
XSEDE
users in
Q4 2016

13. Many Successful Groups/Centers at
Universities
Benefits
• Great visibility for the institution’s
research activities
• Synergy between projects
• Shared resources, costs and expertise
across departments
• Lower learning curves
• Expertise that is otherwise difficult for
individual projects to obtain
• Ability to retain top-quality research
computing support by providing
interesting projects
Examples for success stories:
• Center for Research
Computing at the
University of Notre Dame
• HUBzero Team at the
Purdue University
• Science Gateways
Research Center at the
Indiana University
• Science Gateway Group at
TACC (University of Texas,
Austin)

14. Funding Bodies
Funding bodies such as NSF and NIH mention science
gateways direct in solicitations and roadmaps!
https://dibbs17.org/
report/Presentations/
KeynoteQualters.pdf

15. Science Gateways Community Institute -
Conceptualization
What services
would be helpful?
2014 - Science Gateway Survey
• sent out to 29,000 persons
• 4,957 responses from
across domains
• 52% from life, physical or mathematical
sciences
• 32% from computer and information
sciences or
engineering
• 45% develop data collections
• 44% develop data analysis
tools
• 88% felt Web-based applications
were important to their work

16. Science Gateways Community Institute
• Funded from 1 Aug 2016 –
31 Jul 2021 by NSF
• Diverse expertise on demand
• Longer term support
engagements
• Software and visibility for
gateways
• Information exchange in a
community environment
• Student opportunities and
more stable career paths
help@sciencegateways.org
http://sciencegateways.org/

17. Science Gateways Community Institute
• International
Collaborations
help@sciencegateways.org
http://sciencegateways.org/

18. Incubator Service
18
Technology
Planning
• Choosing technologies
• Cybersecurity
• Software engineering
• Interfaces to compute and
data
• Business model development
• Financial planning
• Project management
• Software licensing
• Staff and sustainability
planning
Business Planning
Specialized Expertise
Security
• Center for Trustworthy Scientific
Cyberinfrastructure
Sustainability
• Nancy Maron, creator of the ITHAKA
S+R course on Sustaining Digital
Resources
Evaluation & Impact Measurement
• Ann Zimmerman Consulting
Campus Resource Development
Client Interaction
Planning
• Usability studies
• Web/visual/graphic design
• Impact measurement
• Community engagement
• Support for education
Common Experiences
• Training sessions
• Group interactions
Continuing Engagement
• Customized structure, content, goals
• Mentoring
• Pay It Forward
A Framework for Decision Making
Network / Cohort Formation
An Ongoing
Dispassionate Ear

19. Bootcamp at a
Glance
19
• 5 full days
• Knowledge
dissemination
• Interactivity
• Community
formation
• Putting away the
normal daily
routine
• Homework

20. Scientific Software Collaborative
20
End-to-End
Solutions
• Serve a diverse set of scientific
domains
• Out-of-the-box gateway solution that
can be customized
• Based on Docker – executable
images that are the skeleton for a
secure and functioning gateway
• Portable and reproducible
• Community-contributed • API integration
• Variety of services
• Information
• Security
• Execution
• Data
• Event
• Accounting
• Hosting opportunity
“Use-what-you-
need”
Gateway Discovery
• Open registry
• Promotes use of existing science
gateways
• Community-contributed
• Admin approval
• Automated cleanup
Software Integration &
Community Contribution
• Docking mechanisms for community-
contributed software, including NSF
SI2
• Incorporate community standards
Engage Other Areas of
Institute
• Support projects leverage
Collaborative components
• Framework evolves as a result of
gateway engagements
• Community outreach
Software
Marketplace
for Science
Gateways

21. Scientific Software Collaborative
21

22. Gateway Catalog
22

23. Gateway Catalog
23

24. Community Engagement and Exchange
24
Website Activities
• Discussion forums
• Gateway showcase with case
studies
• Monthly webinar series
• Newsletters with1,300
subscribers
• News: media coverage,
related happenings, academic
publications, job openings,
events calendar
• Curated blog with guest
authors
• Professional development:
synchronous and
asynchronous training
• Capture client/user feedback
on web and through other
areas
• Tutorials and workshops
• Paper presentations
• Invited keynotes and panels
• Interactive elements: Open
Space, poster session
• Travel support for students and
campus IT staff
Builds on 10 years of
experience
with GCE and IWSG series
Annual Conference
Campus Gateway
Groups
• Task force builds campus-based
expertise
• Channel for scaling institute services
Outreach to Complementary
NSF Initiatives
• NSF SI2 projects
• Large NSF projects
• Science and Technology Centers
• Engineering Research Centers
• MolSSI software institute collaboration

25. Science Gateways Events
• 2006: GCE (Gateway Computing Environment) workshop series started –
successful 10th anniversary in 2015
• since 2013: Partnering with European IWSG (International Workshop on
Science Gateways) on yearly special issue
10th IWSG will take place 13-15 June 2018 in Edinburgh, UK
• since 2015: Partnering with Australian IWSG-A (International Workshop on
Science Gateways – Australia) on yearly special issue
HERE and NOW!
• 2016: GCE extended to Gateways conference with 120 participants at the
first event
Gateways 2017 will take place 23–25 October 2017 in Ann Arbor,
Michigan,USA

26. International Coalition on
Science Gateways
Partners:
Science Gateways Community Institute
(USA)
NeCTAR (Australia)
NESI (New Zealand)
Sci-GaIA (Africa)
Academia Sinica Grid Computing
Center (Taiwan)
Software Sustainability Institute (UK)
VRE4E1C (Europe)
IWSG (Europe)
CANARIE (Canada)
Research Data Canada (Canada)
IEEE Technical Area on Science
Gateways (International)
RDA VRE-IG (International)
The International Coalition on
Science Gateways aims to
provide an international forum for
the science gateways community
to:
• Provide leadership on future directions
for science gateways
• Facilitate awareness and international,
regional and national developments in
science gateways
• Identify and share best practice in the
field
http://www.icsciencegateways.org/

27. International Collaboration
• Improving national competitiveness
• Supporting less developed countries by developing science,
technology and innovation capabilities
• Tackling global challenges such as climate change, health
issues and sustainable energy resources
• Creating good and stable diplomatic relationships (and
indirectly ensuring international security)
• Globalization is not new but more and more evident in
industrial research and the worldwide mobility of researchers
• Smaller countries tend to collaborate internationally more
often than bigger ones
• Publications with international partners are more cited than
publications with one author or a group of authors from one
country. http://www.eurosfaire.prd.fr/7pc/doc/
1266832886_drivers_of_international_cooperation_in_research.pdf

28. Next Steps
• Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration…
• IWSG-A/PRAGMA 33 Meeting is a great example!
• Working groups
• Integration of instruments with research infrastructures
• Sustainable science gateways
• Openly sharing of software and data - repositories
• Advancing searchability of software and data
• Reproducibility
• Processing of data
• Reports/recommendations to RIs and funding bodies on policies

29. • Science Gateways Community Ins4tute
h?p://sciencegateways.org
• IWSG (Interna4onal Workshop on Science Gateways)
h?p://iwsg.info/
• Gateways Conference
h?p://sciencegateways.org/gateways2017/
• XSEDE Science Gateways
h?ps://www.xsede.org/gateways-overview
• CRC Science Gateways
h?ps://crc.nd.edu/index.php/research/gateways
Thanks for your a?en4on!