Workshop: Facilitation strategies and experiences for research use of cloud computing

This is a call for participation for interested individuals who use, or support the use of, cloud computing in research environments, to submit papers for review and inclusion as presentations in an upcoming workshop at PEARC20 in Portland, Oregon on July 26–30, 2020. The call is targeted towards those who plan to attend PEARC20, or would do so if accepted from this call; no support in attending PEARC20 will be provided by the sponsors of this workshop/call. 

We recognize the possibility that PEARC20 will be converted to a virtual conference; we are fully prepared to hold this workshop virtually as part of PEARC20 and to hold it even in the highly unlikely event that PEARC20 is canceled. Papers accepted for the proceedings of this workshop will be published no matter what.

This second annual workshop explores the role of humans in making cloud computing useful in research settings. Cloud computing is clearly a type of cyberinfrastructure (CI), defined as comprising “computing systems, data storage systems, advanced instruments and data repositories, visualization environments, and people, all linked together by software and high performance networks to improve research productivity and enable breakthroughs not otherwise possible.”

This workshop will focus on the "and people" part of cyberinfrastructure, and in particular on the role of people in supporting the use of commercial cloud resources in research. The proceedings of the first Humans Advancing Research in the Cloud (HARC) workshop – held in 2019 at PEARC19 – are online and available from https://harc.iu.edu/workshops/pearc19-conference.html.

The workshop is a joint effort of the HARC program based in the Pervasive Technology Institutes at Indiana University and the Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability (STRIDES) initiative based in the National Institutes of Health.

The overall goal of this workshop is to share information about best practices, successes, and challenges in supporting research use of commercial clouds. To accomplish this, we will:

• Provide detailed, concrete examples of the effective use of cloud computing, comparing and contrasting use of cloud resources with traditional campus/premise-based and national infrastructure alternatives
• Provide a forum for a free exchange of ideas, challenges, and best practices in supporting the use of commercial cloud computing in advancing research across many disciplines
• Foster networking among attendees, broadening the impact of efforts to put greater emphasis on the human component of cyberinfrastructure, including Campus Champions, CaRCC (the Campus Research Computing Consortium), and a new effort led by IU called Humanware, which is working to build a larger and more effective community of experts

Workshop format

The format of presentations for the full day workshop will be as follows:

• Introductory talks by Brian D. Voss (HARC) and Nick Weber (STRIDES), co-sponsors of the workshop
• A mixture of talks by direct participants in the HARC and STRIDES initiatives
• A mixture of talks by community members selected as a result of this call for participation
• A final summary to include open discussion of lessons learned and sharing of information

NOTE: Due to concerns about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) at the time of this call for participation, workshop organizers make it known that regardless of whether PEARC20 is viable for attendance at the time it is scheduled, workshop organizers will plan to provide an alternative, online-based virtual forum version of the workshop, and papers will still be published as detailed below.

Submission guidelines

Papers are sought which cover all aspects of human involvement in cloud-based CI environments. Those submissions which discuss elements of support for commercial cloud resources used for research are particularly desirable. PEARC20 paper requirements will apply: paper manuscripts should be submitted using the ACM template (see https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template) with a page length of 4–8 pages.

Authors must submit papers via the EasyChair review site for this workshop at https://bit.ly/336668l (or https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=harcstrides20). Papers will be reviewed by a panel of experts in the CI area.

The deadline for paper submission via EasyChair is 11:59 pm in the author’s local time zone, on May 22, 2020. Papers not submitted by the deadline will not be included for review.

Please note that at least one author for accepted papers and posters must attend the workshop. The PEARC20 conference requires that any workshop attendee register for the full conference.

Important dates

• Deadline for submission of papers: May 22, 2020
• Notification of acceptance: no later than 30 days before workshop
• Date of workshop: Whole conference is July 26–30; exact date of the workshop is TBA
• Camera-ready deadline for papers to be included in proceedings: August 07, 2020

Proceedings

Proceedings of peer-reviewed papers will be published by the ACM and will be available online via the ACM Digital Library, as they were for a similar workshop at PEARC19 in Chicago in 2019.