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# System prepended metadata

title: AaltoSciComp/AaltoRSE presentation to Data Agents

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# AaltoSciComp/AaltoRSE presentation to Data Agents

## Basics
- Science-IT: not SCI, not IT
- Who we are: 8 staff (2 RSEs, or "we are all RSEs")
    - Q: Aren't we 3 RSEs, or do you exclude yourself Richard?
      A: Yes, we are more than two.  But if you include me, then we have to include others, and in effect we all are.  Two specifically hired, full-time RSEs.


- History
  - 200x: M-grid (cluster for materials science)
  - ????-2021: Finnish Grid [and Cloud] Infrastructure: Academy infrastructure
  - 2021-????: Finnish Computing Competence Infrastructure: emphasize the usage and support.
- We are Aalto and national infrastructure

## What is our goal?

~~5 years ago: Provide computing infrastructure~~

or

Now: Support computational research




## Aalto SciComp

"Aalto Scentific Computing" (ASC), officially known as Science-IT, is the main team.

- Organizationally Technical Services in the School of Science.

- Where does the funding come from?
  - Hardware
    - Academy of Finland (periodic FIRI (Finnish research infrastructure) grants)
    - SCI
    - U-level
  - Staff
    - Member departments (mainly CS, PHYS, NBE) Who is related to PHYS? OK -> Plausible PHYS data agents(?)
    - SCI
    - RSE projects/funders

- From which Aalto departments the most customers currently come from?
  
  - Users:
    ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/rEhYcvpnLu_0wBQHCgshCzGznJg9luImPzw4XztNHc-iQYMzPFRAPpDJUxy4hkKIUQLS8iViKckTEZx0qbfBRkTzcsLIOg378_zydCnbTPkfnab3ssYzv-4SIY75JJi9jctTy__v86Y)
  - Types of users:
    ![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_1fqECvD8JAzSVxXq6yET1DkezmNBa7qSaRpbkcLfidPxuFUq8mx6k1yy68ATGogkUf2wwxy5EngXem-i59NU-kkwOaTUtKFjjAr5S0EXjw5R7iFUVIi3mAr3rSOILmL8JyO4gKzoPw)

- What are the most common customer scenarios or projects where the ASC is currently helping?
  - See below


  
## Aalto RSEs

A "Research software engineer" is a bridge between *Research* and *Technology* (not just software).

Engineering is about applying science to practical applications.  In particular, we focus on the *integreity* of the output: does it use best practices, and in the context of open science, is it FAIR ?


- Where does the funding come from?
  - 2020: We started with two initial RSEs as a seed:
    - SCI (50%)
    - CS, NBE, PHYS (50%)
  - 2021: ITS digi pilot grant
  - ongoing: Individual projects
  - We have advertised RSEs thourghout Aalto (e.g. BIZ) 
    - Q: is this ok, can e.g. BIZ researchers expect RSE services? 
      A: Yes, definitely OK!  Due to the ITS grant, but in general we try to help wherever possible. 
- How does project funding work
  - Within member units (SCI, whole Aalto with ITS grant):
    - 1 month free, then project should fund out of its grants
  - Other units:
    - ???, small service for free
  - Other universities
    - According to contract research policies (= €€€€€)
- What are the most common customer scenarios or projects where the RSEs is currently helping?
  - See below
- Could we have an example of a project done by RSEs for a customer?
  - See below
- From which Aalto departments the most customers currently come from?
  - CS probably dominates, then other SCI departments for most of the rest.  Some across Aalto (includes at least ELEC, ENG, BIZ, CHEM).
- What are the cool things you are currently working on?
  - See below
- What are the challenges?
  - Getting our message out to researchers(, while at the same time...)
  - ... Running out of time to do existing projects
  - Cross-university collaboration (organization silos of funding)


## Most important internal projects and services

This is a tour of our most important projects.

### Triton
- Computer cluster
- Each week, we spend about 100 years of CPU time.
- "Ship of Theseus": continually upgraded (unlike most clusters that are fully recycled periodically)

### Data storage
- On Triton: Lustre
  - 5 PB
  - Very fast for big data and computations
  - Not great for many small files
- Department Teamwork storage
  - Managed by department IT (but in essence by Science-IT team, too)
  - Smaller but backed up
- Data vision: data is the most important part and needs a vision of easy accessibility.

### scicomp-docs
- scicomp.aalto.fi
- FAIR: open-source, Github manageded, findable and reusable.  Often high in web search rankings.
- Lots of information on Triton and more.
- Some duplicated info compared to aalto.fi: how should they be compared?
- License: CC-BY 4.0 for text and CC0 for code snippets 

### Daily garage
- Zoom, everyday at 13:00
- Anyone may come and ask any question
- "Front desk" to many larger problems
- We direct other tricky issues here for discussion.
- Also internal networking/teaching/socialization time


### Accessible computing
- Working on one's own computer isn't enough (or FAIR enough)
- Clusters are traditionally hard to use
- We are trying hard to make computing *accessible*:
  - Rethink cluster usability as much as we can.  Design to be easy to use.
  - Interactive tools, such as Jupyter or Open OnDemand
  - Training and support where needed


### Teaching: Coderefinery, Kickstart, and other teaching
- These days, big gap between *complexity of tools* and *education*
  - Academic vs practical education
  - Cancelled "Computer as a tool" course
- Extensive course lineup for all levels of researchers and students
- Courses target to practical tools of researchers, not duplicating academic work.
- All course material is FAIR (Github, open source, collaborative)
- Teaching processes are also open: https://coderefinery.github.io/manuals (+ community teaching training)


## Other services
???



## Example RSE projects and ASC support

### ParallelFTDT
- Group had software tool, designer has left
- New researcher needed to use it but it wouldn't install
- We spent several days/weeks trying to get it installed
- Realize "hm, this is made internally.  The software is the problem"
- Create RSE project, fix software, it is still used.


### Polar actiwatch data collection
- Researcher wanted to do a major study using wrist-worn Polar smart watches
  - All data collected in one place
- RSEs write data collection platform
- And set up data pipeline to process and transfer to Triton in a usable form.


### Software instllation
- Most scientific software is written quite badly
- Common tools exist, but are often not used well by developers (or users don't know how to use them)


### Genomics data upload
- Researcher has issue with data upload to a repository
  - Requires special program ("Aspera") which doesn't work on Aalto networks
- ITS wasn't helpful in un-blocking firewalls because of specifics of this program
- Make work-around within CS department
- In 2022, finally get a permanent solution in Aalto firewall.


### KVKL data management
- ENG research group has some very confidential data that is manually preprocessed
- We help to automate this processing


### Custom courses: Julia
- MS department group requested a course on Julia
- RSEs found existing CSC course, requested it to be open-licensed, then presented the course internally.

### Code efficiency improvements
- getting an existing, working code to run more efficiently either by moving to cluster usage, or by improving the code


### Some patterns in RSE projects
- Few that are creating large softwares from scratch
- Many in using tools and best practices in existing projects
- Many about data collection
- Optimizing or improving existing code
- Releasing and reusability.


### Most common garage support cases
- Can't install software
- Can't transfer data
- Unix problems using our tools



## Relationships
  - ASC and RSEs?
    - RSEs are a subteam within ASC: for all practical purposes, the same team
  - ASC and ITS
    - ASC isn't U-level.  ITS provides many tools we use.  We repackage and support others using ITS tools.
  - ASC and RES/IES
    - We work closely (most is centralized to Data Agents and related work now)
  - ASC and other schools
    - Other schools don't support or staff, but sometimes do our hardware.  U-level funds us for all
  - ASC and department ITs
    - Overlap


## Open science in ASC
- Most tools developed open by default
- Always prefer to use open tools
- Cross-organization collaboration



## Challenges
- Increased complexity of computing makes a larger gap between best practices and what people do.
- Support of researchers and science outside of SCI
  - Even being able to reach them.  And should we reach them?
- Ensuring that researchers knows our place and value.



## Future

- Where do **you** think we should focus?
    - Reaching out to new departments and groups outside SCI, I believe you're helpful there
    - Stay flexible, stay available
    - 

- How can we (both Data Agents and RSE) manage to become the "go-to" point for any questions concerning our field? Essentially: How do we get more visibility for our services?
    - get local contact points, people in deparments and research groups that support their own groups and use you as the expert resource, transferring difficult issues to RSEs
    - It would be great fi essentially any new researcher gets a "If you have difficult questions with regard to this/that go there". 
