Abstract-We describe the use of the Jetstream research-cloud, a purpose-built system with the goal of supporting "long-tail" research by providing a flexible, on-demand research infrastructure, to provide scalable back-end resources for science gateways. In addition to providing cloud-like resources for on-demand science, Jetstream offers the capability to instantiate long-running clusters which support science gateways. Science gateways are web-based systems built on computational infrastructure which provide commonly-used tools to a community of users. We created a persistent cluster on the Jetstream system which is connected to the SEAGrid science gateway and provides additional compute resources for a variety of quantum chemistry calculations. We discuss the further application of toolkits provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) to build general-purpose clusters on the research cloud.

The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) has created a suite of software that is collectively known as the XSEDE-Compatible Basic Cluster (XCBC). It is designed to enable smaller, resource-constrained research groups or universities to quickly and easily implement a computing environment similar to XSEDE computing resources. The XCBC system consists of the Rocks Cluster Manager, developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center for use on Gordon and Comet, and an XSEDEspecific "Rocks Roll", containing a selection of libraries, compilers, and scientific software curated by the Campus Bridging (CB) group in the XSEDE project, kept current with those implemented on XSEDE resources. The Campus Bridging team has helped several universities implement the XCBC, and finds the design to be extremely useful for resourcelimited (in time, administrator knowledge, or funding) research groups or institutions. Here, we detail our recent experiences in implementing the XCBC design at university campuses across the country. These XCBC implementations were carried out with Campus Bridging staff traveling on-site to the partner institutions to directly assist with the cluster build. In implementing XCBC on campuses, we found that number of the needs described by campus communities as well as the broader cyberinfrastructure community are solved by technical means, although financial issues remain. The remaining issue to be addressed is technical interoperation between systems, and we describe efforts to improve here.

Cloud computing is growing area for educating students and performing meaningful scientific research. The challenge for many educators and researchers is knowing how to use some of the unique aspects of computing in the cloud. One key feature is true elastic computing -resources on demand. The elasticity and programmability of cloud resources make them an excellent tool for educators who require access to a wide range of computing environments. In the field of HPC education, such environments are an absolute necessity, and getting access to them can create a large burden on the educators above and beyond designing content.While cloud resources won't replace traditional HPC environments for large research projects, they are an excellent option for providing both user and administrator education on HPC environments. The highly configurable nature of cloud environments allows educators to tailor the educational resource to the needs of their attendees, and provide a wide range of hands-on experiences. In this demo, we'll show how the Jetstream cloud environment can be used to provide training for both new HPC administrators and users, by showing a ground-up build of a simple HPC system. While this approach uses the Jetstream cloud, it is generalizable across any cloud provider. We will show how this allows an educator to tackle everything from basic command-line concepts and scheduler use to advanced cluster-management concepts such as elasticity and management of scientific software.

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The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment has created a suite of software designed to facilitate the local management of computer clusters for scientific research and integration of such clusters with the US open research national cyberinfrastructure. This suite of software is distributed in two ways. One distribution is called the XSEDE-compatible basic cluster (XCBC), a Rocks Roll that does an "all at once, from scratch" installation of core components. The other distribution is called the XSEDE National Integration Toolkit (XNIT), so that specific tools can be downloaded and installed in portions as appropriate on existing clusters. In this paper, we describe the software included in XCBC and XNIT, and examine the use of XCBC installed on the LittleFe cluster design created by the Earlham College Cluster Computing Group as a teaching tool to show the deployment of XCBC from Rocks. In addition, the demonstration of the commercial Limulus HPC200 Deskside Cluster solution is shown as a viable, off-the-shelf cluster that can be adapted to become an XSEDE-like cluster through the use of the XNIT repository. We demonstrate that both approaches to cluster management -use of SCBC to build clusters from scratch and use of XNIT to expand capabilities of existing clusters -aid cluster administrators in administering clusters that are valuable locally and facilitate integration and interoperability of campus clusters with national cyberinfrastructure. We also demonstrate that very economical clusters can be useful tools in education and research.

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Researchers, scientists, engineers, granting agencies, and increasingly complex research problems have given rise to the scientific "collaboratory"-large organizations that span many institutions, with individual members working together to explore a particular phenomenon. These organizations require computational resources in order to support analyses and to provide platforms where the collaborators can interact. The XSEDE Community Infrastructure (XCI) group assists campuses in using their own resources and promotes the sharing of those resources in order to create collaboratories improving use of the nation's collective cyberinfrastructure. Currently XCI provides toolkits and training, and collaborates with organizations such as ACI-REF, XSEDE Campus Champions, and the Open Science Grid to identify tools and best practices that support the community. This paper discusses the progress in and barriers to developing a robust collaborative environment where computational resources can be shared.

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