NSF researchers gain easier access to national supercomputers

A $9 million NSF award will fund a three-year initiative led by UCLA to unify access to national research computing resources. The project will establish the Interactive Discovery Laboratory (iDLab), a browser-based interface designed to make using supercomputers as simple as browsing the web, a change from current command-line requirements.

Amit Chourasia, principal investigator of the iDLab project and chief research data architect at UCLA’s Office of Advanced Research Computing, said, “Ideas are formed and tested through rapid iteration on data.” iDLab will connect researchers to multiple NSF-supported high-performance computing centers and two cloud platforms through technologies like TACC’s Tapis and a new Trust Management System.

iDLab Platform Unifies National Computing and Data Resources

The University of California, Los Angeles is central to a new $9 million, three-year initiative designed to simplify access to the nation’s most powerful supercomputers and research data repositories. This project, funded by the National Science Foundation, establishes the Interactive Discovery Laboratory (iDLab), a platform intended to bridge the gap between researchers and complex high-performance computing resources. iDLab aims to move beyond traditional command-line interfaces, offering a browser-based experience comparable to navigating a standard webpage.

Designed to support interactive, iterative research at a national scale, iDLab will connect five university computing centers, including the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego, along with two yet-to-be-selected cloud providers. This unified environment will allow researchers, educators, and students to discover, access, and utilize advanced computing and data resources through a single portal.

Workflows are becoming more data-intensive and computationally demanding. The technical foundation of iDLab relies heavily on two key technologies: TACC’s Tapis platform and a newly developed Trust Management System. Tapis provides the workflow automation and orchestration necessary to distribute computational tasks across multiple facilities, while the Trust Management System ensures secure access and identity management across institutions.

Joe Stubbs, Co-Principal Investigator and Research Scientist, Advanced Computing Interfaces, TACC, explained, “With iDLab, we are building the software foundation that allows those resources to work together securely.” Previously operating in a single-site configuration at TACC, the Trust Management System is undergoing enhancements and deployment across partner sites with iDLab funding. Researchers increasingly face challenges combining data and computing resources spread across different institutions, a problem iDLab directly addresses.

Davida Johnson, executive director of OARC, emphasized the project’s focus on user experience. “Researchers should be able to focus on their science rather than on the complexity of the underlying technology,” she said.

“iDLab extends our mission to make advanced research computing more accessible by providing an intuitive environment that connects computing, data, and expertise across national computing centers.” According to PI Chourasia, the long-term vision is to create a fully integrated national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem. “By integrating computing, research data, and scientific applications, iDLab will enable researchers and educators to pursue discovery, collaborate more effectively, train the workforce, and adopt emerging technologies and infrastructure.”