Some specifics examples from SPAT where ICT have performed critical roles, and still are: (not a comprehensive sweep by any means, but certainly shows that ICT is NOT failing in all aspects): Rich ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Here is an example of how the RSE team helped solve a unique problem for the Physics Department's Cassini team - ensuring the continuity of provision of unique data to the community. The text below was submitted to the "Presidents Award for Research Support" (I don't know the outcome). Statement of support Please include a statement of support from an individual not involved in the nominee's direct line of management Dr Richard Bantges, Department of Physics: The scientific elements of the MAGDA data preservation project precluded employing a contract web development team but the expertise of the Research Computing Service was a perfect fit. The RSE team quickly understood the complexities of the problem at hand, rapidly prototyping web pages and visualisations for us to review. Without the help of Chris Cave-Ayland and Mark Woodbridge in particular, we would have struggled to meet our commitment to maintain a web-based quick-look visualisation tool for accessing and distributing Cassini mission data for the benefit of the global research community. Further to our expectations the team showed an attention to detail and a pro-active approach that was not only effective but very reassuring. They provide an invaluable and unique service to the research community at Imperial. [Richard is the Scientific Project Manager for MAGDA, a separate project to which the RSE team have recently contributed. This work was commissioned by the Head of the Department of Physics and sponsored by the Vice-Provost for Research and Enterprise via the College's Strategic Development Fund] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2] Another example, of how ICT has been successful was the support from ICT for the Cassini end of mission phase (Apr-Sep 2017). This required: 1. Set up of a dedicated Cassini Virtual Team - consisting of support members from the OS Team, Networks and Data Centre 2. Provision by the OS Team of a series of customised virtual machines to act as backup systems for Windows Server 2000 systems that could not be upgraded 3. Specialist UNIX support to help support SOLARIS 10 (SPARC) systems 4. Advanced network support to ensure seamless dedicated VPN links between Imperial College London and NASA's JPL 5. Liaisons between the College's Estates division and Networks to provide multiple electrical power sources for computing and network infrastructure resilience Certain aspects of the above were called upon in the final stages of the mission, and ICT helped ensure that the Imperial College Cassini team were able to monitor data from its magnetometer onboard the Cassini spacecraft (built in the Magnetometer lab in Huxley 6M) thus ensuring the highest quality science data were obtained at end of mission. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3] Currently the space mission, Solar Orbiter, with another of SPAT's magnetometers on board, is relying on RCS hosted VMs to provide near realtime data analysis and monitoring. This solution was chosen for resilience and the level of service offered by the RCS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----Original Message----- From: physics-departmental-computing-bounces@imperial.ac.uk [mailto:physics-departmental-computing-bounces@imperial.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Jarvist Moore Frost Sent: 08 June 2020 13:44 To: Colling, David J <d.colling@imperial.ac.uk> Cc: physics-departmental-computing <physics-departmental-computing@imperial.ac.uk> Subject: Re: [Physics-Departmental-Computing] ICT reorganisation Dear Physics Computing Committee, I think as physicists we have a lot of case studies where our unusual needs have been met by bespoke local ICT support. I think maybe providing a dossier of evidence of this might be a useful and concrete thing we can do. My comments from the EXSS perspective: * Research Computer Services disappear as a separate entity, and seemed to be lumped in without any management in the 'portfolio function'. The provision of high performance computing at Imperial has been a real success story over the last 15 years. We have an enormous number of people in EXSS doing computational materials research, even within groups that are mainly experimental, and which would not individually be able to support this work with either hardware or expertise. This has led to some extremely high quality science, and has only been possible due to the support for training by RCS / ICT. * The multiple negative references in the white paper to the cost of supporting obsolete hardware / software from 'shadow ICT'. A lot of the EXSS experimental rigs run custom hardware & drivers often associated with obsolete versions of Windows, so this may cause issues. We might find that suddenly no help is offered for any technical issues with these old machines, and are no longer allowed to connect them to the intranet. * Something similar might be the case for the CNC machines in the workshop. * Generally we have very varied and heterogenous requirements in EXSS, and have definitely benefited from bespoke solutions and local expertise. The CMTH/EXSS 'cluster' group operations manager (Carolyn Dale) is concerned that: I am in complete shock about this and at the start of the lockdown at our first admin teams meeting from home we were asked by Luke if we had to time to complete an ICT survey about the service we receive which after what they have done now seems pointless but from my own admin team view and I made them aware of the redundancies on Friday as I had spoken to Martin Morris we are very concerned about the level of service we would receive as we often have to ask for one to one help to assist new students/visitors and problems with our own computers and group laptops so that message comes from the 3 of use in the cluster office Prof Nelson added after I distributed the above to the EXSS PIs: * EXSS has a relatively large number of students and RAs dong computational research alongside experimental work. Since as an experimental group EXSS does not have and could not support its own computational support staff, the existence of the HPC and the RCS service have been absolutely critical in allowing us to work. * EXSS staff and students have developed software that they have published open source or otherwise want to make available for wider use. The services provided by ICT have been essential in allowing that to happen. At least one such piece of software is currently forming part of a physics department REF case study. * the old MRes in plastic electronics and the new MRes that we are opening this October have a significant computational teaching part where we use networked computers and software to teach concepts in the physics and chemistry of materials. We are stepping up the computational teaching part this year due to the pandemic. The support of ICT has been critical in allowing the computational teaching to be done (I can give specific examples of help given by CT staff at the last minute), since this was not a part of standard UG or PG teaching programmes. The computational teaching is considered a relatively innovative part of our MRes programme. * I have an ERC grant largely for computational work. The support of the HPC and RCS was essential to demonstrate that the work could be done within EXSS. Others (like you?) are likely to have similar examples On Sat, 6 Jun 2020 at 14:20, David Colling <d.colling@imperial.ac.uk> wrote:
Hi All,
I would encourage you to circulate this white paper to all the more computer dependent members of your group. Things that particularly worry me are the loss of the whole RSC team (including HPC and RSE teams), the reduced services to users (including AV services) and the constraints on what ICT will be able to support.
I would be very interested in the thoughts and opinions of other people.
Best, david
On 5 June 2020 20:07:52 BST, David Colling <d.colling@imperial.ac.uk> wrote:
Dear Members of the Physics Computing Committee,
You will all no doubt be aware of the reorganisation being planned in ICT. From correspondence with some of you today, it is clear that some of you have read the white paper and others have not. I am not sure how
secret this document is meant to be but I have been sent so many copies
that I view it as essentially being public and so I have attached it to
this email. I would urge you all to read it carefully and especially the staff planning at the end of the document.
best, david
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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