Physics-Departmental-Computing

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physics-departmental-computing@imperial.ac.uk

July 2020

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2 discussions

ICT Restructuring
by Bantges, Richard J 21 Jul '20

21 Jul '20

Dear All, I hope this email finds everyone doing ok and your family and friends are all safe and well. It is my understanding that the revised ICT White Paper is now available (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/ict/about-ict/future/white-paper-…) To quote an anonymous senior member of ICT: "Basically, there's no change to his plans except for minor tinkering. No attention has been paid to any of the academic department feedback and it's all very frustrating" and "..it really saddens me to be leaving when everything is such a mess" and "I know that some of those who've been guaranteed jobs are already looking to get out as soon as they can." I really do not believe the comments above are a case of sour grapes, as I've known the employee well for at least 15 years and respect his judgement. This leaves me feeling extremely concerned for the future, yet I feel totally powerless to do anything about it. Best wishes, Rich ------------------------------------------- Dr Richard Bantges Scientific Project Manager Space & Atmospheric Physics Imperial College London LONDON SW7 2AZ Tel. +44 207 594 7664 Fax. +44 207 594 7772 -------------------------------------------

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Fwd: Re: Teams meeting to discuss research computing and ICT restructure
by David Colling 02 Jul '20

02 Jul '20

Dear All, Below is an email from me to the Computing reps from the other departments in the faculty and below that an email from Paul French describing the situation. I would be really grateful if you could survey your groups to try to provide answers to some of the questions and points that I make. Thanks you. best, david -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: Teams meeting to discuss research computing and ICT restructure Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2020 21:25:37 +0100 From: David Colling <d.colling(a)imperial.ac.uk> To: French, Paul (PHOT) M W <paul.french(a)imperial.ac.uk>, Staffell, Iain L <i.staffell(a)imperial.ac.uk>, Armstrong-Brown, Sophie <s.armstrong-brown(a)imperial.ac.uk>, Sternberg, Michael J E <m.sternberg(a)imperial.ac.uk>, Keaveny, Eric E <e.keaveny(a)imperial.ac.uk>, Bresme, Fernando <f.bresme(a)imperial.ac.uk> Dear Paul, Thanks for this it is very timely indeed. The first meeting of the group is on Thursday afternoon this week and I would really like some information from each of you and the roles that Research Computing Services plays in your department. I had a chat with Richard Craster this morning and we agreed that we shouldn't just this exercise in stopping things from falling apart but also (and hopefully mainly) as a way of influencing things so that we get a research computing service that delivers what our research needs. Some of the areas that we thought might be important are: - Obviously the HPC service. - flexibility to work with a group and have the expertise to recommend what would best solve their problem (HPC, GPU, Cloud services ...). This could also mean RSE effort (is the RSE service appropriately costed ?) - The ability to support legacy system. Just because the OS that controls a world class instrument goes out of warrantee the instrument may not stop being world class. - Knowledge of secure systems where groups have sensitive (sometimes patient) data. - Do they play any role in grant applications? - What is important to you and what would you like to be provided? - Anything else that you can think of... So I would be grateful if you could make the most appropriate survey of your department to see what is good (and not so good) about the current service and what would make it the service we really want. In organisational terms is it simply a service or should we change the name to reflect how it works with research groups? Anyway, all thought and input are welcome. best, david On 29/06/2020 18:12, French, Paul (PHOT) M W wrote: > Dear Colleagues, > > I am writing because you are the nominated Research Computing > representatives for your Department. > > As you may know, David Colling represents FoNS on the group advising on > research computing for the ICT restructuring and Richard has suggested > that we meet for the first time and hear from David on progress. > > Please complete this Doodle Poll to identify a suitable time: > https://doodle.com/poll/5gykt6ns6cznwunw > > Of course this will be a Teams meeting > > Best wishes, > > Paul >

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