Preston Smith

Executive Director, Rosen Center for Advanced Computing at Purdue University

Pioneering Research Computing at Rosen Center for Advanced Computing (RCAC)

I lead the delivery of research computing services. Our center operates high-performance computing services for faculty across the university. We also have a visualization facility (Envision Center) that assists faculty in using AR, VR and scientific visualization to communicate their research and teach students. Additionally, our Center for Research Software Engineering collaborates with Purdue faculty to apply cyberinfrastructure and develop new solutions to their research problems.

Embracing the moniker: Chief Condor Evangelist

Reflecting on my journey in the research computing world, I’ve worn many hats. I started out as a UNIX administrator in our physics department in the early 2000s, shortly after the revolution of Beowulf clusters, supporting high energy physicists as “the grid” was popularized. I got to be involved in the formative years of OSG, and worked on Purdue’s systems on the TeraGrid. Over the years, I transitioned from a sysadmin role to leading our user support group, and then to the director of support and services. It was during my time as a sysadmin that I was tasked with making Purdue’s Condor resource the biggest in the world. 

We aggregated machines from all over Purdue’s campus and networked with partners across Indiana. It required bridging the gap between system-facing and user-facing roles, and was both challenging and rewarding. Probably not surprisingly, the most challenging aspect of such collaborative computing is the social dynamics – convincing people to share resources. You have to show them what value they would get from the initiative and once we did that, it became easier.

Empowering Researchers with Tools

One of our primary goals at RCAC is to put tools directly in the hands of our researchers. We initiated the community cluster program to address the challenges faculty faced when building small clusters in their labs. Through this program, we’ve given faculty control over their resources, allowing them to decide who gets access and how resources are allocated. One of our significant achievements was developing self-service tools that reduced our ticket requests by about 25%. This shift allowed our user-facing staff to spend their time on value-add tasks – improving workflows and solving performance problems, rather than just adding users to queues.

Quantifying HPC investment and returns

My academic work has significantly influenced my approach at the Rosen Center. It has equipped me to communicate the value of our HPC investments to the university’s leadership. I’ve created a model to describe the relationship between investment in HPC systems and the staff to operate them to outcomes like future grants, publications, etc. This model also found that enabling staff to pursue external funding opportunities can augment a center’s offerings and capabilities, and add more value to the institution.

We also relate our HPC investment to earned doctorates awarded so, for example, we saw last year that 25% of all the 800+ PhDs awarded at Purdue were people that used HPC at some point in their career, which I think is a pretty substantial portion. When you can make that case to the Provost by showing the importance of these facilities to students it helps make your ask for investment a little stronger. Can you imagine running a biology department without modern microscopes?

Mentoring the Next Generation

Purdue has always believed in using students to supplement our cyber infrastructure workforce. Over the years, we’ve employed students in various roles, from junior admins to software developers. The student cluster competition has been instrumental in introducing students to the world of research computing. Many of our students have gone on to work both in our own center, but also in the HPC industry, and we take pride in their achievements.