CIF21 DIBBs: EI: SLATE and the Mobility of Capability

今天的许多科学都是由多机构研究合作推动的，这些研究合作需要连接仪器、数据和计算资源的计算环境。这些资源分布在大学研究计算中心、国家级高性能计算设施和商业云服务提供商之间。数据的规模和科学的复杂性推动了这种多样性，以及将来自许多来源的资源聚合到可扩展计算系统中的需求。资源的异质性导致科学家在计算和数据管理的技术方面花费更多的时间，而不是在发现和知识创造上，而计算支持人员需要投入更多的努力来集成特定领域的软件堆栈，这些软件堆栈的适用性有限，超出了所服务的社区。边缘服务层(SLATE)提供了一种技术，可以简化大学和实验室数据中心能力与国家网络基础设施生态系统的连接，从而扩大特定领域的科学网关和多站点研究平台的覆盖范围。SLATE通过使用通用、可编程、安全和可信的底层平台来增强规范的Science DMZ模式，以代码的形式实施“网络基础设施”。该平台托管更高级别功能所需的以容器为中心的高级服务，如数据传输节点、软件和数据缓存、工作流服务以及科学网关组件。Sslate使用同类最佳的数据中心虚拟化组件，并在可用情况下使用软件定义的网络，以实现领域专家对部署和服务生命周期管理任务的分布式自动化。因此，它简化了可扩展平台的创建，这些平台连接研究团队、机构和资源，以加快科学研究，同时降低运营成本和开发周期。由于Slate的功能层只需要商用组件，因此可用于构建跨所有数据中心类型和规模的分布式系统，从而创建无处不在的、由科学驱动的网络基础设施。这项由高级网络基础设施办公室颁发的奖项由美国国家科学基金会数学和物理科学局内的计算物理学联合支持。

Much of science today is propelled by multi-institutional research collaborations that require computing environments that connect instrumentation, data, and computational resources.  These resources are distributed among university research computing centers, national-scale high performance computing facilities, and commercial cloud service providers. The scale of the data and complexity of the science drive this diversity, and the need to aggregate resources from many sources into scalable computing systems.  The heterogeneity of resources causes scientists to spend more time on the technical aspects of computation and data management than on discoveries and knowledge creation, while computing support staff are required to invest more effort integrating domain specific software stacks with limited applicability beyond the community served.  Services Layer At The Edge (SLATE) provides technology that simplifies connecting university and laboratory data center capabilities to the national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem and thus expands the reach of domain-specific science gateways and multi-site research platforms.SLATE implements 'cyberinfrastructure as code' by augmenting the canonical Science DMZ pattern with a generic, programmable, secure and trusted underlayment platform. This platform hosts advanced container-centric services needed for higher-level capabilities such as data transfer nodes, software and data caches, workflow services and science gateway components.  SLATE uses best-of-breed data center virtualization components, and where available, software defined networking, to enable distributed automation of deployment and service lifecycle management tasks by domain experts. As such it simplifies creation of scalable platforms that connect research teams, institutions and resources to accelerate science while reducing operational costs and development cycle times. Since SLATE needs only commodity components for its functional layers, it is used in building distributed systems across all data center types and scales thus enabling creation of ubiquitous, science-driven cyberinfrastructure. This award by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Computational Physics within the NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.