Collaborative Research: Frameworks: Cybershuttle: An end-to-end Cyberinfrastructure Continuum to accelerate Discovery in Science and Engineering

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Science depends critically on accessing scientific and engineering software, data repositories, storage resources, analytical tools, and a wide range of advanced computing resources, all of which must be integrated into a cohesive scientific research environment. The Cybershuttle project is creating a seamless, secure, and highly usable scientific research environment that integrates all of a scientist’s research tools and data, which may be on the scientist’s laptop, a computing cloud, or a university supercomputer. These research environments can further support scientific research by enabling scientists to share their research with collaborators and the broader scientific community, supporting replicability and reuse. The Cybershuttle team integrates biophysicists, neuroscientists, engineers, and computer scientists into a single team pursuing the project goals with a grounding in cutting-edge research problems such as understanding how spike proteins in viruses work, how the brain functions during sleep, and how artificial intelligence techniques can be applied to modeling engineering materials. To meet its ambitious goals, the project is building on over a decade of experience in developing and operating the open-source Apache Airavata software framework for creating science-centric distributed systems. Cybershuttle is providing a system that can be used as a training ground to educate students in concepts of open-source software development and applied distributed systems, fostering a globally competitive workforce who can move easily between academic and non-academic careers. Cybershuttle is creating a new type of user-facing cyberinfrastructure that will enable seamless access to a continuum of CI resources usable for all researchers, increasing their productivity. The core of the Cybershuttle framework is a hybrid distributed system, based on open-source Apache Airavata software. This system integrates locally deployed agent programs with centrally hosted middleware to enable an end-to-end integration of computational science and engineering research on resources that span users’ local resources, centralized university computing and data resources, computational clouds, and NSF-funded, national-scale computing centers. Scientists and engineers access this system using scientific user environments designed from the beginning with the best user-centered design practices. Cybershuttle uses a spiral approach for developing, deploying, and increasing usage and usability, beginning with on-team scientists and expanding to larger scientific communities. The project engages the larger community of scientists, cyberinfrastructure experts, and other stakeholders in the creation and advancement of Cybershuttle through a stakeholder advisory board. Cybershuttle's team includes researchers from Indiana University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of California San Diego, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and the Allen Institute.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.