Speaker
Description
For over two decades, Canada has fostered and supported subatomic physics distributed computing. Many of the handful of dedicated professionals who have contributed to the establishment of these infrastructures have been involved since the early 2000s and form the heart and soul of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada's (DRAC) Subatomic Physics National Team.
The team has deployed and supported these platforms on a variety of systems. There are some unique challenges in the Canadian context as more and more consolidation on to ever larger national hosting sites has occurred where the requirements of distributed computing are not always well accommodated, especially in an era characterized by escalating apprehensions concerning research platform security.
Experience gained in these environments and tools and techniques developed in the context of supporting large and diverse research computing needs have informed the deployment of support and other infrastructures within the DRAC.
Some of this rich history, coupled with the hurdles encountered and wisdom acquired along the way, will be elaborated upon.
