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November 17, 2013 Tapia Conference: Fireside Chat Slides John Towns PI and Project Director, XSEDE Director, Collaborative Cyberinfrastructure Programs, NCSA [email protected]

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2013 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference Plenary Panel: “Microsoft-Sponsored Fireside Chat about Future Technologies” Moderator: Valerie Taylor, Texas A&M;

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November 17, 2013

Tapia Conference: Fireside Chat Slides

John Towns

PI and Project Director, XSEDE

Director, Collaborative Cyberinfrastructure Programs, NCSA

[email protected]

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XSEDE Mission The eXtreme Science and Engineering

Discovery Environment (XSEDE): enhances the productivity of scientists and

engineers by providing them with new and innovative capabilities

and thus facilitates scientific discovery while enabling

transformational science/engineering and innovative educational programs

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XSEDE’s Objectives

• Understand the cyberinfrastructure requirements of the science and engineering research and education community

• Create a cyberinfrastructure ecosystem to facilitate improved researcher productivity

• Provide a unique user friendly interface to the resources and services accessible via XSEDE

• Maximize researcher productivity

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Major Future Technologies – how will these be used (a distributed cyberinfrastructure context)

• New environments for science and engineering research and education – beyond Science Gateways/application portals/etc. – oriented toward end user – customized/configurable for specific use

• New interfaces for interaction with these environments

– driven by what is familiar to the current teenager • immediate access to information—anytime, anywhere • multiple interaction modes and devices

– cell phones, tablets, laptops – keyboards, swiping, voice recognition

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Creating the capability to very simply create personalized environments for conducting the end-to-end set of processes in accomplishing research and education goals.

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A Few Implications

• Back to the Future – everything is in the “cloud” – “cloud” will be redefined several times

• think client-server, VT100 terminals, thin clients and all the other names these fundamentally similar things have been called

– ..but will the pendulum swing again?

• Resurgence in comfort with all things being elsewhere (i.e. in the “cloud”) – expectations of availability of all things anywhere at anytime will be

very high! – …and this might again driving the pendulum!

• End user devices driven by the need to display and interact – we already see this emerging more and more extensively

• PCs are already seen as passing

• These abstractions make life easier for so many BUT, reduce dramatically those that know how the black boxes work – [John’s MatLab story…]

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Some Key Issues in Realizing Future

Technologies • “Old Guard” problem: pros and cons

– those that currently manage these environments • have a good handle on what works and what does not work • understand the current technology very well • know how to develop new capabilities that work

– BUT, they • don’t understand their kids and the mentality associated with how they interact with one

another and the digital world • struggle to effectively use these new interaction modalities; their kids consider them

second nature

• “IKEA syndrome” (at least one version)

– one inherently tends to see greater value in something in which they have invested themselves than others will

– THUS, those that have created the current environments perhaps see greater value in them that those that are trying to use them

• We are likely to lack those that can create anything not possible to assemble from the abstractions available – need people who know how the black boxes work and can modify them or

create new black boxes for others

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What Skills Will be Needed?

• Black Box Builders – those that can build the tools used by others to create their own

environments – we need developers: distributed systems, novel user interfaces, strong

software engineering

• Infrastructure Creators – those that can develop vision and execute it to create the

infrastructure to support these personalized environments – we need leaders: vision development, project leadership, influencing

the powers that be… – we need middle management: understanding of technology and how

to apply it, executing projects, managing humans – we need social engineers: understand the cultural contexts of the

diverse set of participants, develop processes cognizant of them, develop management structures and practices

• These are not mutually exclusive!!

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