What’s new with FABRIC?
An update from Ilya Baldin, FABRIC Principal Investigator
A lot is happening in FABRIC. In addition to the three already operational development sites (RENCI, UKY and LBNL), we expect the first batch of production sites (Univ. of Maryland/MAX, UMass/MGHPCC, Univ. of Utah, StarLight, NCSA, TACC and Univ. of Michigan) to be online shortly. Additionally, we are working on deploying our first overseas site at CERN through our partner FAB (FABRIC Across Borders) project.
We have deployed the first production release of our software stack, which includes control and measurement frameworks, testbed portal, Jupyter Hub and associated back-end services. We are working with the first group of brave experimenters to get their experiments started on FABRIC. To be considered a FABRIC beta tester, please fill out the form.
FABRIC In The News
Trusted CI Concludes Engagement with FABRIC
The five-month engagement between FABRIC Testbed and Trusted CI began in February and completed in June. In that time the teams worked together to review FABRIC’s project documentation, which included a deep analysis of the security architecture. The teams then moved on to completing an asset inventory and risk assessment, covering over 70 project assets, identifying attack surfaces and potential threats, and documenting current and planned security controls. Lastly, the teams documented engagement findings in an internal report shared with FABRIC project leadership.
Additionally, FABRIC assisted with the Trusted CI 2021 Annual Challenge (Software Assurance) by participating in an interview with members of the software assurance team, which will be published in its guide on software assurance for NSF projects.
Read the full blog online.
Beta Tester Application
Want to help us test and validate the FABRIC Testbed platform?
Since FABRIC is under construction until October 2023, we can only support limited early users for test and validation purposes. The FABRIC team is looking to create partnerships with beta esters to thoroughly test and validate the platform. Selected beta testers may be invited to showcase their experiments at one of the FABRIC workshops.
The following are the selection criteria for early experimenters:
- Clarity of needs for unique FABRIC feature(s)
- Ability to provide insightful feedback of said FABRIC feature(s)
- Willingness to provide feedback on user experience & report bugs to the FABRIC team
- Understanding of system glitches and outages at any time due to development updates
- To be considered a FABRIC beta tester, please fill out the following form.
If you are selected as a beta tester, you will be contacted as we add capacity.
If you are selected as a beta tester, you will be contacted as soon as FABRIC early deployment completes, which for now is estimated to be some time in late July 2021.
Even if you are not selected as a beta tester in the first round, your request will be retained and be considered as a beta tester in future rounds as FABRIC deployment expands. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and beta tester applicants will be contacted on a quarterly basis.
To be considered a FABRIC beta tester, please fill out the form.
Defining FABRIC
A glossary for common terms used by our researchers
An Aggregate is a provider of resources under a single administrative control.
An Aggregate Manager (AM) is a CF agent responsible for managing aggregate resources, which is under the control of the owner of the aggregate and provides promises of resources to brokers and orchestrators.
An Aggregate Manager Administrator (AM Admin) is he party responsible for managing and operating an AM, including making decisions/policies regarding who gets to use AM resources. The AM Admin will typically be the owner of the AM.
An Aggregate Owner is the entity (usually an institution) that purchased, and has ultimate authority and control over, an AM. The owner is responsible for appointing an AM Administrator for each AM they own.
See the full glossary on our website.
Open Solicitations
Funding opportunities that encourage the use of FABRIC
Resilient & Intelligent NextG Systems (RINGS): The RINGS program seeks to accelerate research in areas that will potentially have significant impact on emerging Next Generation (NextG) wireless and mobile communication, networking, sensing, and computing systems, along with global-scale services, with a focus on greatly improving the resiliency of such networked systems among other performance metrics. Full proposal due August 12.
Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII): The CISE CRII program seeks to award grants intended to support research independence among early-career academicians who specifically lack access to adequate organizational or other resources. Full proposal due September 20.
Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*): The Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) program invests in coordinated campus-level networking and cyberinfrastructure improvements, innovation, integration, and engineering for science applications and distributed research projects. Full proposal due October 11.
See a list of all solicitations mentioning FABRIC on our website.
Upcoming Events
Leadership team presence at industry or academic events
South Big Data Hub 2021 All-Hands Meeting: FABRIC leadership team members will host a booth about FABRIC and its next steps at the South Big Data Hub All-Hands Meeting, and will be available for conversation on July 30 at 1:30 PM EDT.
See a list of all upcoming events on our website.