What’s new with FABRIC?
An update from Paul Ruth, FABRIC Principal Investigator
We are happy to report that FABRIC has surpassed 1,450 user accounts and has supported over 20,000 user experiments since last summer. We continue to see increased numbers of educational and research usage. We’re eager to learn about the work our users are doing! Please take a moment to fill out the FABRIC Matrix and highlight your experiment.
As we continue the operational phase of FABRIC we are focusing on promoting your research and educational endeavors. Towards this goal, we are asking for your help maintaining your project description in the portal, including an abstract of the project, published papers, funding sources, and award numbers. This is essential to reporting our success to the NSF.
We have a lot of great information to share with you. Please checkout the exciting things below including information about KNIT 9, our new FABRIC webinar series, and publication opportunities.
Save The Date: KNIT 9
September 24-27, 2024 | Kansas City, MO
KNIT 9, the next FABRIC Community Workshop, will take place September 24-27, 2024 in Kansas City, MO, and will be co-located with the MERIF Workshop. The workshop will include small-group, hands-on FABRIC tutorial sessions and advanced training topics. During the event, experimenters across multiple science domains will highlight their use of FABRIC to push forward compelling experiments. The FABRIC team will set the stage for the future of FABRIC and solicit feedback from fellow participants during talks and open mic sessions.
Stay tuned for more information.
Mastering FABRIC: Tips and Tricks Webinar Series featuring Paul Ruth
June 17 at 3 PM ET | Introducing Tailscale
Join us for an exciting and informative session in the ‘Mastering FABRIC: Tips and Tricks’ webinar series, featuring Dr. Paul Ruth, FABRIC’s Principal Investigator. This webinar is designed for current FABRIC users who are actively engaged in projects and creating slices. To make the most of this session, we recommend having a basic understanding of FABRIC’s functionalities and a working knowledge of network connectivity.
Dr. Ruth will introduce and demonstrate the practical benefits of Tailscale, a program that can significantly enhance your FABRIC experience. Tailscale simplifies secure network connectivity, making it easier for you to access your experiments directly from your laptop, wherever you are. During the tutorial, Dr. Ruth will showcase practical examples and discuss how Tailscale can assist you with various experimental setups and configurations within FABRIC.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding how Tailscale integrates with FABRIC
- Step-by-step guidance on setting up and using Tailscale
- Real-world examples of experiments enhanced by Tailscale
- Practical tips for accessing and managing your experiments remotely
The session will conclude with an interactive Q&A segment, providing you with the unique opportunity to directly engage with Dr. Ruth, ask questions, and gain further insights.
Register on our website.
Call for Participation: INDIS 2024 Workshop + Network Research Exhibits (NRE)
Submit your FABRIC work for Supercomputing 2024
The 11th Annual International Workshop on Innovating the Network for Data-Intensive Science (INDIS 2024)
INDIS is inviting researchers and engineers to submit high-quality technical academic papers to the 11th Annual International Workshop on Innovating the Network for Data-Intensive Science (INDIS 2024). This workshop is a part of the SC24: IEEE/ACM International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (Supercomputing), which will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, from November 17-22, 2024.
INDIS is seeking papers that propose new and novel techniques to enhance the capacity and functionality of scientific computing and high-performance networks. This workshop is a unique opportunity to contribute to the field by addressing one or more of the following topics related to networking research challenges and essential developments in information systems infrastructure for scientific discovery.
The FABRIC team particularly encourages participants who have leveraged FABRIC infrastructure in their projects to submit papers. This is an exceptional opportunity to not only showcase what FABRIC has helped you achieve but also to demonstrate the profound impact of your innovative work on the broader community. Selected paper submissions will also be invited to give live demos at the conference using FABRIC, including a FABRIC rack deployed live at the conference site.
Learn more on the INDIS website.
Network Research Exhibits (NRE)
We also seek short papers presenting demos intended for SC24 using the connections available at the conference. These demos are an excellent way to showcase innovative work leveraging SCinet’s capabilities.
Learn more on the SC website.
Request for Users: Update Project Page
The FABRIC team wants you to share your user story
As the number of FABRIC users grows, we want to encourage users to share their work and project progress on the portal. Sharing your user story is crucial for the continued success of FABRIC.
Updating your page will increase opportunities for collaboration and cross-pollination with FABRIC users across the world, aid in the advancement of user-made tools and resources, and provide a home for citations and external links.
- Update Your Project Description: Provide a brief description of your project that can be shared with NSF program managers who support our funding.
- Share Your Publications: If you have published any papers using FABRIC, include them on your project page. Please cite FABRIC in your papers.
- Provide External Links: If your project has a website or other external sources of information, please include them on your project page.
- Update FABRIC Matrix: Create or update your FABRIC Matrix to reflect the current status of your project.
Please feel free to reach out with any questions. We are happy to support you in this endeavors and provide guidance.
Using FABRIC Tools
Announcing FABRIC’s Tools Page
Given the high increase in users we’ve seen over the last year, the FABRIC team wants to make sure that all users have access to resources that aid in automation, reduce overhead, and make experiments run more smoothly. Additionally, it’s important that users are able to tap into community experiences and implement approved routes to success, as opposed to replicating them on their own.
We’re excited to announce the Tools Page — a Knowledge Base section featuring articles on command-line tools for managing FABRIC experiments, federating with other testbeds and public clouds, supporting large-scale data movement and more.
Each article on our Tools page serves as a “user manual,” and includes an overview of the tool, instructions for installation and configuration, and practical examples.
Read more on our blog and explore the Tools Page.
FABRIC Ambassador Program
Share your expertise on FABRIC with the world
The FABRIC team is seeking ambassadors to join our team and spread the word about our platform. Ambassadors should have experience running experiments on FABRIC and guiding collaborators through the portal.
FABRIC ambassadors will help researchers learn more about FABRIC and its features through hosting annual local or virtual gatherings, presenting at KNIT workshops and community webinars, and identifying user success stories. Additionally, they will engage students in active learning on the FABRIC portal by leading tutorials and identifying opportunities for students to present their work. Program participants will get the first opportunity to test and approve new features on the FABRIC portal, receive discounts to in-person FABRIC events, and have their research promoted directly to our NSF program managers, as well as our community through social media and mailing channels.
Complete our interest form.
FABRIC Office Hours
Connect and troubleshoot with leadership and support
We have made a new office hours system available from the FABRIC portal that allows stakeholders to directly book time with the leadership team and technical team members to discuss anything from the feasibility of their experiments, to software questions, to experiment security, to connecting new facilities into FABRIC.
Book an appointment on our scheduling platform.
Defining FABRIC
A glossary for common terms used by our researchers
Stitching: Originally coined from the GENI testbed, stitching is a FABRIC service that allows users to create links between experiments and facilities.
See the full glossary on our website.
Open Solicitations
Funding opportunities that encourage the use of FABRIC
Community Infrastructure for Research in Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CIRC): The Community Research Infrastructure for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CIRC) program will specifically support diverse communities of Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) researchers pursuing focused research agendas in computer and information science and engineering. Full proposals are due September 13, 2024.
Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII): The NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) seeks to award grants intended to support research independence among early-career academicians who specifically lack access to adequate organizational or other resources, and to broaden the set of institutions capable of performing computing research. Full proposals are due September 18, 2024.
Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*): The Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) program invests in coordinated campus-level cyberinfrastructure improvements, innovation, integration, and engineering for science applications and distributed research projects. Full proposals are due October 15, 2024.
Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Expansion Program: With this solicitation, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is continuing its support of research expansion for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). The goal of the CISE MSI program is to broaden participation by increasing the number of CISE-funded research projects from MSIs and to develop research capacity toward successful submissions to core CISE programs. MSIs are central to inclusive excellence: they foster innovation, cultivate current and future undergraduate and graduate computer and information science and engineering talent, and bolster long-term U.S. competitiveness. Full proposals are due February 7, 2025.
Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC): The SaTC program welcomes proposals that address cybersecurity and privacy, drawing on expertise in one or more of these areas: computing, communication, and information sciences; engineering; education; mathematics; statistics; and social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Full proposals can be submitted at any time.
See a list of all solicitations mentioning FABRIC on our website.
Do you have a project idea that would benefit from using FABRIC? The FABRIC team welcomes requests for Letters of Collaboration. To expedite the process, please contact us by filling out the form.
Upcoming Events
Leadership team presence at industry or academic events
Tapia Conference 2024: The Tapia conference is the premier venue to acknowledge, promote and celebrate diversity in computing. FABRIC PI Paul Ruth will present during the workshop “Supercharge Your Studies with Public Research Testbeds” on September 19 at 11 AM PT. The event will take place in San Diego, CA from September 18 – 20.
Trusted CI Cybersecurity Summit: The Summit brings together leaders in NSF cyberinfrastructure and cybersecurity to build a trusting, collaborative community, to address that community’s core cybersecurity challenges. The Call for Proposals is open now! Submit a talk, tutorial or workshop. The event is being held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA from October 7-10.
See a list of all upcoming events on our website.