Renewals available now!

Hopefully you'll have already seen the announcement on one of our many communication channels such as our website, Facebook page or Twitter feed but if not then read on.

Many of you will remember the changes we brought in last year in April 2011.  Due to funding restrictions, we had to reduce the CPU allocation of all users to a maximum of 2000 free cpu hours in one year.  You can read the original announcement on our website.  As we are now a year on, all NGS users can apply for another free 2000 cpu hours.

If you are looking for some proof of concept computing, a "sand pit" area for your PhD students or to test concepts before purcahsing more hours etc then this is an ideal opportunity.

If you have any queries at all then don't hesitate to contact the NGS helpdesk.

How has it affected you?

As you are aware the NGS has gone under some changes since the beginning of the year. The most obvious to our users was the cap on cpu hours that was introduced on the 1st of April with every user being given 2000 free cpu hours per year. If a user requires more than 2000 cpu hours this can be arranged through the NGS on a "pay per use basis".

So 3 months in since the changes were introduced and we want to hear your views. We are asking all registered NGS users to complete a very short survey to feedback their views and experiences on using our services since the 1st of April. It doesn't matter if you haven't used the NGS since before the 1st of April you are still our target for this survey!

The survey will take a few minutes to compete if that and everyone who is a registered NGS user either past or present will be entered into a prize draw.

Looking for some reading material?

If you are looking for some reading material in the run up to Christmas then have a look at the latest edition of NGS News, the quarterly newsletter from the NGS.

This quarters edition contains features on -

• Using the NGS Cloud Protoype in teaching
• Running Taverna Workflows on the NGS
• Research Communities on the NGS Cloud Prototype
• Quantitative genetic analysis on the NGS
• ... and much more!

To download your copy of this quarters newsletter go to the dedicated NGS News webpage where you can download copies of all past NGS newsletters.

Win Amazon vouchers in the NGS user survey 2010

The annual NGS user survey is underway and, with all the changes that lie ahead, it has never been more important to gather your feedback.

During the next year there will be changes taking place at the NGS and it is important that our users are involved in these changes and are kept informed every step of the way. We have recently launched the annual NGS user survey and this year, perhaps more than any other, it is vital that we receive your input.

The user survey asks about several possible changes to the services that the NGS currently provides and the impact that changing these services would have for our users. For example the withdrawal of free compute and data resource. We would also like to know what services NGS users see as essential such as the helpdesk, grid certificate management and training. The results of the user survey will be fed directly into our funding bid for NGS 4 which will reflect the wishes and needs of our user community.

The user survey is open to all registered NGS users and all completed user surveys will be entered into a draw for one of 3 Amazon vouchers.

And breathe - it's over for another year

So the NGS Innovation Forum is over for another year and, although it seemed to consume most of my time over the last month, I’ll miss it!

This years event was well received by all those who attended according to the feedback I was given both at the event and afterwards by email. Always nice to know we’re doing the right thing!

The event kicked off on Tuesday with a day focused primarily on our users and I’m glad to say there were some present in the audience. Steven Young gave a brief summary of the Campus Champions who are our eyes and ears in institutions – ready to help users and to feedback comments and suggestions to us. We then moved onto a series of talks about user tools. The aim of this session was to talk through some of the tools that we offer in order that users could head home from the event and actually apply them in their research. The tools covered were –

• UI/WMS
• Application hosting environment (AHE)
• Databases
• Working with communities (in particular ccp4)
• NGS Cloud Prototype
• New Certificate Wizard

The day also featured three presentations from users who make a great deal of use of the NGS resources. We had presentations from a variety of research areas to demonstrate just how widely used our resource are. Luke Rendell from St. Andrews University talked about simulating learning strategies, Zhongwei Guan talked about modelling composite structures and Narcis Fernandes-Fuentes talked about using the NGS for early stage drug discovery. A bit of a range of uses!

Day 1 was really good with lots of questions and discussion which continued right the way from the last session through the drinks reception and poster viewing until the end of the event dinner!

Wednesday was aimed primarily at IT staff, sys admins etc so there were a few new faces on this day. In order to bring everyone up to speed, David Wallom re-capped the discussion from findings the day before. We then kicked off with a presentation from the University of Westminster who have been a NGS member for some time before moving onto a discussion session about how the NGS can help to facilitate collaboration between researchers and institutions.

Presentations on two NGS projects followed – accessing the NGS with Shibboleth and updates to the NGS accounting provision. The last session was dedicated to the EU with an update from the EGI Director, Steven Newhouse followed by presentations from two ESFRI projects – CLARIN and ELIXIR.

An exhausting couple of days but well worth it!

From an outreach point of view I’m now busy organising a couple of new roadshow events that people requested during the IF, I’m gathering the presentations from the event to go on the NGS website (watch this space!) and announcing the winner of the best poster at the event.

Congratulations to Jarmila Husby from the School of Pharmacy, University of London whose poster “Molecular Modelling Studies of the STAT3β homodimer:DNA complex” was voted the winner by the delegates. Jarmila won an Amazon voucher which is very handy with Christmas coming up! All the posters from the event will also be on the website soon.

If you missed the event there are a number of ways to catch up – the Twitter posts are available, a blog post from Catherine Gater of EGI, an article on Cloud computing from Simon Hettrick at SSI and photos from the event are available on the NGS Flickr account.

Thank you once again to all those who attended and hopefully we’ll see you all next year!

All the news on the forthcoming NGS IF'10

In an extraordinary show of organisation, I have just put up the agenda for this years NGS Innovation Forum even though it’s not until November – a whole 5 months away!

The reason for this organisation is mainly due to a wonderful programme committee for the event consisting of users, IT sys admins, Campus Champions and NGS staff members. We have put together what will hopefully be an interactive, engaging and thought provoking event where everyone will come away with some new found knowledge.

On the first day which is primarily aimed at users we will be showcasing some of the tools from the NGS such as the UI/WMS and Hermes. This will not be “death by PowerPoint” and instead NGS staff will demo the tools and walk you through using them from a users point of view. We will also be having a session where we can gather feedback from delegates about the NGS and respond to your comments.

If you’d like to come away from the event with more than new found knowledge be sure to submit a poster abstract for our poster session on the Tuesday evening. We are inviting all users to present a poster showcasing their research using the NGS and there will be prize for the best poster as voted for by the delegates.

The second day will be aimed more at IT staff, sys admins, research computing staff etc. There will be presentations from the “coal face” with a presentation from a NGS member site detailing their experience of working with us. We will also be focusing on the bigger picture by showing how the NGS can facilitate collaboration between research groups both nationally and internationally. This will be followed by presentations by large European multi-institution projects. We know that allowing external people to use your resources is a big responsibility so we have dedicated a session to “keeping track” which will also allow for discussion regarding accounting in institutions.

All in all we hope you will find the event both stimulating and informative. Keep an eye on here for registration opening and hopefully we’ll see you in November!

NGS Innovation Forum 2010 announced!

We have just announced the dates of this years NGS Innovation Forum which will be held at STFC RAL on the 23rd - 24th of November.

We have had two very successful events in Manchester and London so far with over 250 people attending. We hope to make the third event even better still with new opportunities for participants to be directly involved.

Again the event will be aimed at users, IT staff, researchers and others who are interested in the NGS and what it does. Participants have the option of attending for one or two days and accommodation is available on-site.

Watch this space for more details to be announced shortly regarding the programme but in the meantime make sure you put the date in your diary!

Let's get together

And so back from the OMII-UK collaborative workshop which took place in Edinburgh Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Like last years event, it was a really interesting and productive 2 days with many actions resulting from the in-depth discussion groups. The great thing about the workshop is that it's not death by PowerPoint. The sessions are discussions sessions where delegates chose from a range of topics, disappear off into groups in various parts of NeSC and then after an hour everyone reconvenes and reports back their findings. Importantly it's not just findings but short-term and long-term actions that are reported back!

Unsurprisingly as the NGS outreach person, I attended several sessions on collaboration and was the "report back" person for the session on "assistance with publicity, outreach and dissemination"which had a healthy audience (obviously a pertinent topic!).

There were many findings over the past two days and these can be found ordered by session on the event website. However the one that really stuck in my mind was something that was raised by several of the researchers who attended the meeting.

They have things they need done which they can't do themself eg code written, advice on optimising or tweaking existing software. They need computer scientists for this but they don't know how to "hook up" with them for want of a better description! The things they need done quite often aren't large projects and may only take a few weeks or less but they don't know where to go for help, who to approach and who is best suited for the job.

Several possible ways of tackling this problem were suggested at the event and if you are interested in the ideas that came up, the slides from this particular topic can be found on the website under - "Long-term researcher-driven collaborations" and "Collaboration 2". This was such a popular topic that we ended up with 2 discussion sessions.

So the question is for those research scientists out there who work with computer scientists - how did you hook up? How did you get together and form a collaboration?

Do you need a certificate?

The NGS will shortly be running another RA Operator training course at STFC RAL. Participation in the course will allow participants to be able to distribute and manage certificates at their institution so if you don't currently have someone at your institution who can fulfill this role, then this is the ideal opportunity to nominate a RA!

The training course is free to attend, lasts a few hours and we even give you lunch!

Full details about the course and how to register are available on the NGS website.

Make the most of the NGS

We are keen to make sure that everyone is aware of the new tool recently developed and released by the NGS.

The NGS UI/WMS service is now in full production allowing NGS users to exploit all sites on the NGS including the partner resources.

Since going into pre-production in October, the UI has been upgraded and extensive stress testing has been undertaken with 1000's of jobs run through the service. The UI now also checks your certificate proxy when logging in and corrects for many common proxy problems hopefully making your life easier!

The documentation has also been extensively updated on the new NGS web site and the NGS wiki. The majority of scientific application documentation pages now have examples of running the applications via the UI-WMS. Some of these are fleshed out in tutorials on the NGS wiki, linked from the main tutorials above), with more tutorials and examples in the pipeline.

If you have any questions or problems using the service, please mail the NGS helpdesk at support(at)grid-support.ac.uk.

Got an opinion - then share it!

If, by some amazing feat, you haven't seen the announcements for the NGS user survey that is out now then here is another one!

The NGS user survey targets all registered users of the NGS and queries how they use the NGS, which parts of the NGS they use, if you are aware of all the services and outreach methods from the NGS and also gives NGS users the opportunity to have their research publicised as use case examples of NGS research.

Oh and all completed surveys will be entered into a prize draw to win one of three Amazon vouchers. Perfect timing for the festive shopping and sale season!

If you'd like to feedback on your experience of using the NGS then please visit the 2009 user survey.

Everyone's calling

There seems to have been a rash of "Calls for Papers" recently - everyone planning for 2010 I guess! They are up on the new NGS website if you want more information but in short we have EGEE User forum in Uppsala, Sweden, OGF28 in Munich, Germany and ISGC in Taiwan.

The NGS is also beginning to plan for 2010 as we are already dealing with roadshow requests for next Easter and looking attending a range of events and conferences next year. If there is an event you know of either through attending or organising then please let us know about it!

We are also keen to hear from people who are presenting work that was done using NGS resources. The new website has a much better area for showcasing research performed on the NGS and I would like to make the most of this. If you have anything you'd like to tell us about or share with us then please contact me through the NGS helpdesk (support(@)grid-support.ac.uk).

New NGS website launched today!

After several months of hardwork by a large number of NGS staff, we are pleased to announce tha the new NGS website was launched today.

We hope that the new design and layout will make it easier for visitors to find the information they need quickly and easily. We also hope that it will enable you to find out more about the services that the NGS offers.

The home page is designed to be dynamic and will be regularly updated with news from the NGS as well as having feeds from this blog, the NGS-STATUS list and the most recent updates to the website.

Feedback on the new website is welcome through the NGS helpdesk.

Win Amazon vouchers courtesy of the NGS

Here at the NGS we have released our user survey for 2009. The annual survey aims to gather information on user habits, why people use the NGS, the resources they use and the output of NGS usage amongst others. Each completed survey will be placed into a draw at the end of the year to win one of 3 Amazon vouchers.

We really do want to hear from you and your opinions on the NGS - what you like, what you don't, what would make your life better or how wonderful we are! There are also opportunities in the survey to advertise yourself and your research. I am always looking for interesting research taking place on NGS resources to highlight in a range of publications and to make into our popular case studies.

The results of the survey won't just lie unloved on a shelf somewhere - we'll put together a report which will be available from our website and will contain actions on your recommendations and suggestions where appropriate.

If you would like to take part in the survey please visit the survey home page.

Roaming around the EBI

Earlier this week, I was down in Cambridge at the European Bioinformatics Institute for the NMR Software Workshop.

I was there to issue certificates to users as a "Roaming RA" operator. The NGS runs the UK e-Science Certificate Authority, which issues certificates not only to the people who want to make use of NGS services and resources, but for any UK academics involved in Grid computing. The certificates are accepted and recognised across the world and can be used to enable authentication of people across different Universities - even in different continents.

Usually, certificates are authorised for someone by an operator in their own institution but this is not always available.... which is where I come in. There are a number of Roaming RA operators with the ability to issue certificates at events where there is no local provision for issuing certificates. Quite often this will be at one of the many NGS roadshows or events we attend.

If you have an event where you think people would like a convenient opportunity to get a certificate for use on the NGS or elsewhere, get in touch with us at support@grid-support.ac.uk.

Pioneers required!

The NGS has recently announced a pre-production release of a WMS (Workload Management System) resource broker which will allow users to easily submit jobs to the NGS, without the need to specify where the job should run.

The WMS has quite a few advanced features for parameterised jobs and file staging that mean that it will be possible to launch 100’s of jobs easily to the NGS, and have the results returned to your home directory.

The WMS is easy to use through a UI (user interface) machine where users can specify their jobs and any files the job requires. You can also describe any additional requirements (hardware, software) and the WMS then automatically selects the best resources on the NGS to run the job.

It sounds pretty easy and you can try it for your self! Some simple examples are available at the UI/WMS tutorial(s). Please give it a go if you have a few minutes to spare, and let us know how you get on (support@grid-support.ac.uk).

The NGS Resource Broker and User Interface is based on the gLite 3.1 WMS-LB and UI nodes from the EGEE Project.

Almost there

Things have been rather busy here at the NGS lately as we prepare for the Innovation Forum which starts tomorrow.

NGS staff will be at the venue from early on and registration starts at 9am with plenty of tea and coffee available so come along and have a chat before the crowds appear! We're expecting 131 people over the 2 days with a good mix of users, IT support staff and other e-research organisations represented.

If you can't make the event then don't despair, blog posts live from the event will appear here and the slides will be available on our website.

Hopefully we'll see many of you tomorrow in The Magic Circle Headquarters!

Get in training

The NGS will be running another RA operators training event on the 11th of November. If you or someone at your institution needs to be able to distribute, authenticate, revoke UK e-science certificates etc then this is the course you have to do!

It's a short course starting at 11am at RAL down near Oxford and will finish by 2pm. Lunch is included as well and the event is free to attend.

Further information (inlcuding how to register for the event) is available on the RA training pages on the NGS website.

#egee - The NGS in the spotlight

Yesterday the NGS Technical Director, Dr David Wallom, gave a keynote address on the NGS to a pretty packed room here at the EGEE conference in Barcelona. David talked about the current state of the NGS and also where we were headed in the future given the move towards an EGI. He explained the resources that we offered our users and highlighted the large number of institutions who have signed up to become members of the NGS, realising the important of giving their researchers access to the most amount of resources. The range of research performed using NGS resources was also highlighted with David talking about many of our popular use case examples. There were lots of questions with many delegates taking the opportunity to quiz David as it is usually the other way round!

This was a great opportunity for the NGS to be showcased to a European (and further beyond) audience at an important event and we would like to thank the organisers for giving the NGS this opportunity.

If you would like to see the slides from Davids presentation they can be found here.

Are you involved in any of these areas?

For the first time the NGS Innovation Forum will feature break out sessions devoted to particular topics. These have proved to be very popular with those already registered so get in quick before your particular topic fills up!

We have everything from research community related sessions to more generic sessions on day to day research problems. ITS staff needn't feel left out as we also have topics for you! The full list is-

• Data handling and integration
• Site integration with the NGS
• Software licensing
• User support
• molecular modelling
• bioinformatics
• social sciences
• human biology

Further suggestions are welcome and they can be added to this list.

The Innovation Forum will be held in London on the 21st - 22nd of October and, although the event is free to attend, registration is required. You can register at this site - just make sure you do so before the deadline of the 14th of October!