Andrew Manning: Embracing the redecentralized web for sustainable research collaboration cyberinfra
Channel: Society of Research Software Engineering
Date: 23/02/2023

A talk from the Cloud parallel session at RSECon2022.

Full title: Embracing the redecentralized web for sustainable research collaboration cyberinfrastructure

Details: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/#/event/3101/submission/29

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Abstract: Academic research collaborations involving members from multiple independent, often international institutions are inherently decentralized, and they encounter the same general challenges in sharing data and collaborating online as does the internet at large when there are no viable or desirable centralized solutions. At NCSA we have developed a free and open source full-stack cyberinfrastructure (CI) for research collaborations based on OpenStack and Kubernetes that is reproducible, flexible, portable, and sustainable. We are embracing the lessons and technology of the (re)decentralized web to curate a suite of open source tools and web services that prioritize data ownership to give researchers as much control as possible over their data, communications, and access controls. I will present the architecture of our framework as well as example use cases from existing projects ranging from astronomy to nuclear physics, showcasing the flexible deployment system and some collaborative tools and services for identity and access management, messaging, data sharing, code development, documentation, high-performance computing and more. By the end of the talk I hope you will have some appreciation for the value decentralized tech brings to the research enterprise and the potential for innovation that lies in the creative integration of existing federated and peer-to-peer applications and protocols.

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0:00 Talk
21:10 Q&A