Speaker
Description
We present the development and user experience of a hosted BinderHub service that delivers a scalable, uniform, and reproducible computing environment for training sessions and workshops. The IRIS-HEP Scalable Systems Laboratory operates an enhanced, Kubernetes-based BinderHub platform for HEP training and analysis, extending the upstream project with GPU support, guaranteed CPU and memory resources, image pre-pulling, multi-cluster federation, and Dask Gateway integration. By providing browser-based interactive environments, this implementation lowers the barrier to entry for workshop participants and requires no local software installation.
We present the system architecture, custom spawner implementation, CI/CD workflow, and operational experience used to support large events (25 to 100 participants), including HSF-India workshops, CODAS-HEP summer schools, and PyHEP workshops. These events necessitate expanding the resource pool to external infrastructures such as the National Research Platform. We analyze operational, workshop leader, and participant experiences, and describe improvements that enhance user experience and platform robustness. Our results indicate that a hosted BinderHub system is a robust and scalable training platform for the HEP community.