research computing survey fall 2013 summary of responses

January 27, 2014 of 17

Research Computing Survey Fall 2013

Summary of Responses

Purpose: The questionnaire was designed by the Research Computing Advisory Committee to take a

snapshot of the current research computing environment and usage as well as the future needs of the

research computing community across campus.

Principal Findings:

There is a low percentage (reported) of people that use the currently available services.

There is a high demand for better research computing support and services.

There is a need for increased awareness of available services.

There is a high demand for data storage and backup services.

There is a high demand for a DropBox type service.

There is a high demand for network services.

There is a high demand for data integrity and security.

There is a high demand for campus wide software licenses, but common use is limited.

There is a high demand for use of open source software amongst researchers.

There is a high demand for training related to software and systems administration.

There is a subset of researchers that require HPC.

Primary Recommendations: The following is a list of recommendations suggested by respondents to the survey. University Systems and RCAC will take these suggestions into account in planning the future development and enhancement of the research computing environment at Uvic.

Improve communication on what research support and services are available.

Provide and improve research support in a range of areas across the university.

Establish a research training and knowledge sharing program.

Identify and purchase common software licenses that can benefit from volume purchases.

Eliminate chargebacks for data centre services and desktop software bundle.

Improve the network speed, bandwidth, and associated services on campus.

Increase the amount of central storage and backup space available to researchers.

Improve the backup service to increase performance and reduce complexity.

Invest in compute infrastructure to: o address aging and end-of-life research infrastructure. o increase compute capacity.

Improve the research grant proposal process to reduce barriers and increase success.

Improve access to and use of WestGrid infrastructure.

Develop a secure Canadian based Cloud for: o Online collaboration and file storage. o desktop virtualization / hosted virtual desktop. o other services as identified.

Improve reliability and performance of department and research lab computing infrastructure.

Continue and facilitate more interdepartmental conversations.

*Full set of recommendations can be found in Appendix A.


Survey Response:

The survey was distributed broadly across campus. The distribution of response was as follows:

Response Chart Percentage Count Regular Faculty 41% 112

Adjunct Faculty 4% 11

Staff 12% 32

Graduate Student 35% 97

Undergraduate Student 1% 2

Post-Doctoral Fellow 4% 10

Other 4% 11

Total Responses 275

Response Chart Percentage Count Peter B. Gustavson School of Business 4% 10

Faculty of Education 9% 26

Faculty of Engineering 24% 67

Faculty of Fine Arts 2% 6

Faculty of Graduate Studies 3% 7

Faculty of Human and Social Developm 1% 2

Faculty of Humanities 11% 30

Faculty of Law 2% 6

Division of Medical Sciences 1% 4

Faculty of Science 21% 59

Faculty of Social Sciences 15% 41

Other 7% 18

Total Responses 276


Questions:

Numerical results and key observation from those results and the written comments are provided for each question. All written comments have been provided to the CIO to distribute / use as appropriate in addressing issues brought to light by the survey. 1. The research computing requirements vary widely across the university research community.

Please rate the importance of each of the following to your research.

VHigh High VH+H Service

146 73 219 Data Backup 117 84 201 Data Integrity & Security 91 76 167 Technical Advice & Assistance 87 75 162 Data Privacy 68 75 143 Hardware & Software for collaboration both on Campus and with

research’s at other institutions 24 47 71 Socialization of research computing across campus

Observations:

Diverse set of comments relating to people’s use of services.

Both positive and negative comments.

Backup is critical.

Technical assistance and support is valuable.


There is some displeasure with the email server, network problems, privacy office, backup service, and WIFI for which many have been resolved through upgrades and remainder can likely be resolved through education.

The issues of data integrity, security and privacy were seen as fundamental by some while

others stated they were stated they were unfamiliar with the terminology. Programming support was described as a benefit.

Concern was expressed regarding size limitations with respect to e-mail. Network problems affecting e-mail were also noted.

There seems to be some confusion from some respondents regarding data backup services

especially a misconception that it is a cost issue. It was noted that seamless, secure ‘drop box’ like service housing the data in Canada would be a

strong asset. It was noted that there should be more clarity on how research records including e-mail are

covered / handled with respect to freedom of information requests. There was an expression of a need for more support of collaboration off campus both national

and international.

2. Some researchers require specialized computing and networking infrastructure. Where

“specialized” means any computer (or computer cluster) and its associated equipment

purchased to support:

• large memory requirements (>20 GigaBytes), • large storage requirements (> 5 TeraBytes), • large computational requirements (> 10 cpus), OR • large networking requirements (> 1 Gigabps).

Please indicate your level of need for the requirements below. Please indicate the nature and size of

your special requirements in the comments field.


Very High

High Total Service

66 66 132 High Performance computing 50 59 109 Institutional level data storage and services 52 46 98 High bandwidth networking 48 48 96 High volume institutional level backup facilities

Observations

Institutional Data storage is rated the highest and was noted in the comments the most.

Network and memory were a close second in the comments.

Institutional Backup was mentioned, but was scored 4th in terms of importance and is not reflective of question 1. Is this due to the fact that people value backup, but institutional backup is secondary to local backups?

Data backup is seen as a major concern and it was noted that current services do not work for

users who deal with terabytes of information. But some expressed concern that using off campus facilities might lead to a loos of on-campus expertise.

There was interest in better support for collaboration and concern was expressed regarding

graduate student access to research computing services.

Addressing backup service that is easier to set up and that can handle large volumes by default

was suggested as a priority issue.

3. With regard to the definition in question 2, please describe in detail any specialized research

computing hardware held by yourself or within your research group, including its location. Do not

include any standard research-use desktop or laptop computer or computing resources provided via

Compute Canada or West Grid. Please also provide the total estimated power and cooling

requirements of the listed specialized equipment (if not known please state that this information is

not known).Provide a brief description of the nature of the research that this infrastructure

supports.

Observations

Many answers to this question with some details are provided below, but this is certainly not an extensive list of research computing equipment in use across campus.

o 50TB, 512GB + 256GB + 12GB Dell computers o Large cluster of blade CPU Servers in ECS o 12 dual Xeon computer cluster o Super Computer in Bob Wright building o A six node InstaGENI rack o Symmetry cluster in EDC2 o Rack-mounted 22-node, 170 core linux cluster in the air-conditioned server room of the

Wright Centre o Dell PowerEdge T610 server o Linux Cluster has 1 master node and 3 slave nodes, each has 16 core o 4 xserves, and three NAS (about 16 Tb each)


o RedHat servers in EDC1 and EDC2 o Elephant Cluster in EDC2 - 100 CPU cores and 60 TB of storage. o Cluster of 42 IBM blade machines plus four additional rack mount servers o Cell Blade cluster o 64 CPU System o Several multi-core (8-12) servers with large raid arrays (several dozen TB) and large

memory ~70GB o "retired" NEC SX-6 cluster

4. Please identify how frequently you or your research group use the following research computing related services provided through University Systems (http://www.uvic.ca/systems/services/researchcomputing/index.php)

Daily Use

Freq. Use

Total Service

47 37 84 Data storage for research 29 22 51 Data centre server hosting 27 24 51 High performance computing 20 27 47 Data security services 28 18 46 High performance research network

http://www.uvic.ca/systems/services/researchcomputing/index.php


Observations

Data storage is the highest use of research computing services from University Systems.

On average 72% of those surveyed never use University Systems services for any of the categories.

One respondent noted s/he uses her/his own hardware and storage; and for the things

needed online hires a hosting service. This is likely the case for many on campus.

A need was expressed for access to cloud infrastructure. One respondent noted s/he has used Compute Canada facilities to support simulation based

research but this has been constrained by compute Canada limited ability to support larger,

i.e., terabyte scale, simulation data sets.

It was suggested that development resources (licenses, developer account, developer

hardware) are needed for initial development of, and maintenance of software on mobile

devices.

5. Please describe any specialized research computing software used by you or your research group.

In addition, please specify if use of this software requires any special hardware or puts constraints

on the operating system(s) you use.

13 x MatLab 5 x NVivo 4 x SPSS 4 x R 4 x Mathematica 2 x SAS 2 x OpenStack 2 x OMnet 2 x Maple 2 x JAGS 2 x COSMOL 2 x ArcGIS 1 x Final Cut pro 1 x Winbugs 1 x Waveform Inversion 1 x Unreal 1 x TRAM 1 x TEcPlot 1 x STATA 1 x SPM 1 x Revolution 1 x Repython

1 x Radarsat Tool Box 1 x ProtoGENI 1 x POLSARPRO 1 x PgSQL 1 x PCO 1 x oXygen 1 x OpenFOAM 1 x OpenCV 1 x Nimbus 1 x netcdf 1 x NEST 1 x MySQL 1 x MOI Englight 1 x Microsoft Office 1 x MediaLab 1 x MaxQDA 1 x MASCOT 1 x MARK 1 x Magma 1 x LabView 1 x LabScribe2 1 x Inquisit

1 x Hive 1 x Hadoop 1 x Fortran 1 x EQS 1 x ENVI 1 x DISCO 1 x Direct RT, 1 x Condor 1 x BEAM 1 x Ansys Fluent 1 x Adobe Premiere 1 x Adobe Photoshop 1 x Adobe Illustrator 1 x Adobe After Effects


Observation

People are using a diverse sets of software to support their research for which a limited subset of products overlap.

6. Are you aware of the high performance computing facilities provided by:

If you have used Westgrid or Compute Canada facilities, please describe to what degree and for what purpose.

Observations

Of the 38 responses, only 18 people are using HPC extensively for compute.

Of those that are not using HPC, they either cannot, have not, or find limited use of it.

7. The University has site licenses for the software listed in the table below

(http://www.uvic.ca/systems/support/computerssoftware/softwaredistribution/index.php). Please

indicate which packages you and your group use:

http://www.uvic.ca/systems/support/computerssoftware/softwaredistribution/index.php)


Daily Use

Freq. Use

Total Software

116 41 157 Microsoft Software Licensing 35 22 57 Symantec Endpoint Protection 5 14 19 SAS 1 9 10 Maple

Observations

Microsoft Software has the highest reported usage.

Matlab use was rated highest in comments. SPSS is second highest in comments.

Some people are paying for Microsoft Software. Are they getting the at home license to reduce the cost?

Maximum number of users in your group for each of the above packages question does not reveal enough meaningful information. Usage number very and in cases unknown.

Typical number of simultaneous users in your group for each of the above packages question is similar to and in many cases identical to the max number of users question.

Suggested Software for site licensing or educational pricing to be considered noted by number of requests not users:

10 x NVIVO 8 x SPSS 8 x Mathematica 6 x Matlab 5 x Adobe Photoshop 4 x ArcGIS 2 x Stata 2 x SigmaPlot 2 x Oxygen 2 x MaxQDA 2 x Adobe Products 2 x Adobe Illustrator 2 x Adobe Creative Suite 1 x Systat 1 x Survey Software 1 x ShareLaTeX 1 x REDCap 1 x PG Fortran Compiler 1 x MKL 1 x Magma 1 x LAPACK

1 x iThenticate 1 x Inquisit 1 x IDL 1 x ENVI 1 x Endnote 1 x Dragon Naturally Speaking 1 x Corel Draw 2 x COMSOL 1 x ChemDraw 1 x BLAS 1 x Avizon, Tecploy 1 x Atlas 1 x Apple Developer License 1 x Alpha 1 x Adobe InDesign 1 x Adobe Acrobat Pro


NVivo, SPSS, Mathematica, Matlab and Photoshop were the top requested products.

Several recommending the use and move to open source software.

Most other software mentioned in comments can be considered specialty and is either represented by commercial or open source.

A challenge exists for how site licenses and software are purchased between University Systems and the bookstore.

One person requesting latest version of Microsoft Office, which is available with our EES license already.

One respondent requested a fix to the scheduler on the Euler Cluster

8. University systems provides a variety of research computing related services which are described in

the document available at

www.uvic.ca/systems/assets/docs/pdfs/researchcomputing/Information_Systems_Services_for_Research.pdf

Have you used any services and do you have any comments related to them?

39 x No use 10 x Eduroam 9 x Data Centre hosting 7 x Westgrid 7 x TSC 5 x Network 5 x Computer repair 5 x Computer Labs 4 x Web Hosting 3 x Web Publishing 3 x Backup Service 2 x Used many 2 x Moodle/CoureSpaces 2 x Compute Canada 2 x Collaborative Computing 1 x Software 1 x SharePoint 1 x OAC 1 x Little use 1 x LimeSurvey 1 x Help Desk 1 x DSS Support

Observations:

A large number of people that responded do not use the services provided.

The top mentioned services that are used are Eduroam, Data Centre Hosting, Westgrid and TSC

Inconsistent complaints about the excellent and poor service provided by University Systems and the TSC.

Some found Westgrid difficult to use.

Some note the cost of data storage is too high.

The document was described as useful.

It was noted the software libraries available on Westgrid and ComputeCanada machines are

http://www.uvic.ca/systems/assets/docs/pdfs/researchcomputing/Information_Systems_S


difficult to use and make se of the facilities difficult. It was suggested that effort be put into

making the libraries on these machines more broad and modern. Others noted the technical

support for WestGrid is very good.

There was a comment that showed there is a misunderstanding regarding charges for data

backup and that needs to be addressed.

EDUROAM was noted as a useful service.

9. Do you have any suggestions for additional research computing services to be provided at the

institutional level?

Observations:

There were a significant number of unique comments that have a specific context.

Many want better support and service.

Access to a GPU farm/cluster was requested.

One respondent commented it is very hard to do infrastructure level research at UVic. By that I

mean networking, cloud infrastructure etc. All computing services are setup for users of

systems, not builders of systems.

Maple, Matlab are funded by the departments who use them. It would be nice to have those

funded by the university. It was suggested the University considered open source solutions rather than proprietary

software,

Again there was a request for affordable data storage/back-up emphasizing the misunderstanding noted above.

There was a request for better LINUX desktop support.

One responded noted that institutional computing could be useful for us if it provided an

environment conducive to developing code.

It was noted that some ‘small’ research groups on campus would greatly benefit from

University Systems consulting on how best such a group can address its research computing

needs.

It was suggested there could be more clarity regarding roles and responsibilities of faculty-

level and university-level computing services.

It was suggested the University provide a Dropbox like service hosted by the university.

It was suggested that Uvic needs a large shared memory computer for people conducting

highly parallel computer simulations such as in climate modeling and maybe in

astrophysics. This comment shows a possible lack of knowledge of WestGrid and

Compute Canada facilities/

Concern was raised that the university provided backup system is not as efficient as it once was.

Better support for Linux was identified.

One respondent noted that current services at Uvic do not support research in cloud

computing. There was a request for support for online survey programs for data collection

Interest was expressed in increasing the number of software packages supported at the institutional level, i.e. site licenses.


A need was expressed for a place where scholars can go with an idea and be able to talk to trained

professionals (database services, backup, etc.) so that individual ideas can be tested.

One respondent expressed a need for higher speed networking..

10. The Research Computing Advisory Committee (RCAC) is considering whether the university should

consider creating an on-campus cloud computing environment. Do you have interests in using cloud

computing and do your current research funds permit purchasing on-campus cloud services as

opposed to off-campus services?

Observations:

47% said yes, 27% said no, 17% were uncertain, 8% did not understand the Q.

There are concerns with using commercial cloud carriers due to privacy and security

There are concerns with using UVic Cloud Services if they were available.

9% of responses noted they are actively using Dropbox.

The greatest noted use of cloud services was for data storage and backup.

A number of off-campus entities provide cloud computing capabilities. Have you used or are you considering using any such facilities?

Observations:

45% of respondents said they have used or are considering using off-campus cloud services

55% have not used or are not considering using off-campus cloud services

The split between people using and not using off-campus cloud is 45% / 55%.

External Cloud Provider Use Observations:

Of the 45% of respondents that have used or are considering using cloud services off-campus, Other services has the highest use, followed by Google and then Amazon.

Of the other services being used, the majority of use is DropBox.

Clear that data storage and back up in the cloud are desired services.

Typical number of users in your group as per above Cloud providers (A,B,C,D,E)

On average numbers from 1 to 6 with a high usage of 75 for dropbox.

Please describe how you are making use of the off-campus cloud facilities.

Most offsite use is used for collaboration, storage and backup.

There were several mentions of large scale computing.


The other responses identified a variety of drop box services – some are in Canada, most are not.

11. Do you have suggestions for research computing related training to be offered at the institutional level?

Observations:

Many of the requests for training are related to software training on specific products.

There were several requests for programming and systems administration training.

12. Are there any impediments to your use of computing in your research that you feel should be addressed at the institutional level?" Observations:

There were several mentions of large scale compute.

13. Further feedback on the existing research computing environment. Observations:

Help desk is great.

People in Computing Services have been great.

Generally it seems good to me.

Eager to try UVic Storage if the cost has been reduced.


Rollout IPV6 across campus

Reinstate DSS support for Humanities

Service is slow.

Support for Linus is missing

Hold sessions for Grad Students to support an open source strategy for sustainable research

Humanities Computing and Media Centre is excellent.

Research support has been excellent

HPC facilities are aging, investment (CFI) is required to create a sustainable future.

Keep interdepartmental dialog going.

Recent cutbacks have overloaded support staff.

14. Further suggestions on future research computing requirements:

Need for better Collaboration tools.

Lower cost for large research data backup/storage

Bandwidth, network speed, disk space

Structure HPC facility to support Data analysis in the form of big data and data analytics.

Access to a large memory machine

Humanities scholars need access to computing experts

This report is being made available to:

- The IT Governance and Priority Review Council, co-chaired by the VPAC and VPFO, to which

RCAC reports.

- Managers and staff in University Systems as required through the CIO,

- Directly to all respondents who provided an e-mail address when completing the survey.

- By an e-mail with a link to the report to all who were invited to complete the survey.

This is a public document and can be distributed freely.


Appendix A. Survey Recommendations

Communication & Collaboration Recommendations

Communicate what research support and services are available

University needs to partner with researches to further enable research

Connect researchers that use similar platforms and software to enable knowledge sharing and increase community engagement

Clarify the roles and responsibilities of faculty-level and university-level computing services

Communicate the current campus-wide software offerings (ex. Microsoft Office)

Provide EDC2 Data Centre tours to researchers and academic administration

Improve grant review process to improve submission timeline and outcome of submission

Identify and provide access to computing experts to improve research outcomes o Central location for research computing expertise o Experts to assist with discussing ideas and assisting researchers

Training Recommendations

Provide an orientation of services to faculty and graduate students

Provide a WestGrid training session for new faculty and graduate students

Provide research software training for common applications and platforms

Provide training in parallel and GPU programming

Provide practical computer programming and system administration

Provide Cloud Computing security and privacy training

Provide Social Media Security training

Provide general data privacy and security training Application Recommendations

Identify software licenses that can be funded centrally (department, institution)

Eliminate the cost for the Microsoft Agreement

Eliminate charges for hosting academic websites

Promote the use of open source software

Provide a desktop sharing and collaboration solution

Provide an secure online data capture and high speed scanning survey system

Provide high definition video equipment, storage, backup and streaming service

Provide an online document collaboration environment for multi-site research project

Provide central Print Services

Support Recommendations

Provide Linux Support for faculty and researchers o Includes basic support at help desk o Includes advanced support for HPC o Includes general systems administration

Provide Mac Support for faculty and researchers o Includes basic support at help desk

Provide support for programming languages

Provide support for databases and platforms

Provide website support

Provide improved support for survey software

Provide better multimedia support

Provide local administrative access to allow users to install software and updates


Improve support for Moodle

Improve efficiency and effectiveness of support o Restore Desktop Support Service in Humanities o Provide Desktop Support Services to ENVI o Continue to provide department support to Computer Science o Provide one-on-one in-office support for standard software packages

Improve TSC services for faculty and researchers o Provide advanced knowledge expertise and support o Improve efficiency in the purchasing process

Improve Computer Repair Services o Improve service by being more helpful o Improve service by providing multilingual support

Data Centre and Infrastructure Services Recommendations

Network Services o Improve network speed and bandwidth on campus o Improve network links between research servers o Inform campus on plans for IPV6 rollout o Improve WIFI coverage and stability o Improve and simplify VPN service

Data Storage o Increase storage available to researchers o Cost for storage is prohibitive, reduce or eliminate the cost

Data Backup o Improve performance and reduce backup times o Improve backup service for desktops by simplifying solution o Implement secure backup solution

Email Services o Improve spam filters o Improve email by modernizing platform

Server Infrastructure o Reduce or eliminate costs for virtual server infrastructure

Other Services o Improve processes for identifying service failures for EDC2 clients

Compute & Data Service Recommendations

Invest in an ever-greening plan for aging and end-of-life HPC and research infrastructure o Invest in refreshing campus HPC research infrastructure o Remove barriers to enable success of CFI proposals for refresh

Invest in additional inexpensive compute infrastructure

Invest in large shared memory compute infrastructure

Invest in a GPU farm/cluster

Invest in a big data and data analytics computing facility

Fix the scheduler on the Euler cluster to better utilize the system

Improve WestGrid by: o Improving access and usability of system o Improving queuing to ensure wait time is minimal and equitable o Improving mixture of unsynchronized and antiquated libraries o Improving network and paths to reduce latency in data transfer


Cloud Computing Recommendations

Develop a seamless and secure Canadian based online collaboration and file storage

Develop infrastructure that provides a platform for infrastructure level research

Identify other cloud services that should be available Faculty and Departmental Specific Recommendations

Continue and facilitate more interdepartmental conversations

Ensure adequate technical staff are available for supporting research o Avoid further elimination of technical staff supporting research o Consider a broader campus approach to research computing support

Provide faculty with a desktop computer as standard office equipment

Improve reliability and performance of department and research lab computing infrastructure

o Consider leveraging existing campus computing infrastructure o Consider pooling resources to acquire share computing infrastructure

Analyze faculty and/or department software acquisitions to pool purchases and reduce costs Other Department Specific Recommendations

Facilitates: o Improve notification timelines of power outages to ensure long running jobs are

completed

Privacy Office: o Ensure good understanding on how freedom of information and privacy requests

work to those that are involved in such a process.

research computing survey fall 2013 summary of responses

Documents