The vast majority of researchers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines continue to rely on departmental, campus, or regional/state research computing resources. Researchers use "local" computing resources (1) to fulfill their science and engineering computational requirements, and/or (2) to prepare their codes for eventual migration to national facilities, and/or (3) to educate critically needed students that are required by the knowledge economy. Some universities consider research computing a strategic investment and attempt to provide sustained support for significant research computing resources, including sizeable parallel clusters. These are typically housed in formally recognized centers. More commonly universities view research computing as a tactical need, and only provide intermittent funding for research computing. All of these research computing centers are challenged to understand how best to organize, manage, fund, and utilize their hardware and staff. The objective of this workshop is to provide a forum for an open discussion among center directors, campus Chief Information Officers and Research Officers on the topic of the sustainability of research computing centers. The discussion will yield a shared understanding of organizational models, funding models, management models and training models that result in sustainable research computing centers.
Intellectual Merit: Research computing centers play a critical role in educating the next generation of scientists and engineers ? the very cadre that will need to extensively utilize high performance research computing resources to be globally competitive intellectuals. This workshop will directly impact the intellectual capabilities of our higher education institutions by initiating a sustained dialog into the increasingly critical requirement for sustained investments and pervasive use of advanced research computing training.
Broader Impacts: This workshop will prepare higher education institutions located in economically disadvantaged areas of the country with models for successful research computing centers that, if created and sustained, can markedly impact local economies. Additionally, by developing and sharing institutionally-siloed knowledge across diverse centers, this workshop will facilitate the establishment and implementation of similar centers and will strengthen and enrich broader learning communities.
