PACI's new online system for proposal submission, review, and administration

by Katherine A. Blankenfeld

The PACI Online Proposal System (POPS) provides a new unified electronic interface for all proposals for time on high-performance computers within the NSF Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI).

On behalf of PACI, the NCSA Information Resources Group (IRG) developed a system to facilitate the submission, review, and archiving of proposals and all relevant proposal metadata in a relational database. The developers are also currently implementing hooks into NSF's Online Usage Database system to provide reviewers with access to past usage and award data. The system ensures that all necessary levels of privacy and security are maintained. POPS provides convenient user interfaces for principal investigators (PIs) to submit and edit proposals; for reviewers to view and download proposals and to enter and edit reviews; and for administrative staff to process and manage proposals and to produce required reports.

Initially NCSA was implementing an online proposal system for the Alliance Allocation Board (AAB) that could also be used for NCSA participation in the National Resource Allocation Committee (NRAC) meetings. Richard Hilderbrandt, NSF's PACI program director, heard about this work and asked if this project could be expanded to encompass all PACI resource allocation boards. IRG agreed to take on this task, and the POPS system was made available for this purpose for the September 2001 NRAC/AAB meetings. The Proposal Submission Interface was ready by July 2, when submissions began for the September meetings. The developers prepared part of the Administrative Interface for August 1. The Review Submission Interface became available on August 13. New administrative capabilities continue to be unveiled.

A previous version of an online database provided the basis for the project. The earlier database consisted of a number of flat text files. It was extremely difficult to maintain and was entirely controlled by a set of homegrown scripts that needed extensive modification any time new functionality was required. The flat file system could not be searched effectively, yet the ability to submit queries (queryability) was highly desirable. Queryability is one of the fundamental features of a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). The IRG developers implemented the POPS system in the Sybase RDBMS. Using the standard Entity/Relationship (E/R) Model, they created a logical data model that reflects the interrelations of the system data. Such a feat is extraordinarily difficult to achieve using flat files.

The use of an RDBMS is important not only for operating the POPS system and generating administrative reports but also for responding to any additional ad hoc queries requested for analysis or decision support. In the past, all ad hoc querying of the system had to be done by hand by writing Perl scripts to retrieve the necessary data. Now, the new interface offers the full power of Structured Query Language (SQL), which can be applied to the normalized relational database model of POPS. The new format makes it trivial for anyone familiar with SQL to make ad hoc queries and to add new reports. Also, new allocations boards, meetings, resources, and administrators can be added simply by making entries in tables. No modifications of code, interfaces, or table structures are required, which is an enormous benefit for system maintenance.

One of the most significant technical issues addressed by the developers was security. Users sometimes need to modify information after they submit a proposal. However, it is important that no one be able to tamper with information submitted by another user. POPS authorization is handled through a series of authorization procedures implemented within the back-end database. Authentication is handled through the existing NCSA and SDSC Kerberos domains. Support for the PSC Kerberos domain will be added soon. The developers also implemented a POPS-specific instance in the NCSA Kerberos 5 Key Distribution Center (KDC) so that users without a PSC, NCSA, or SDSC Kerberos password can set up a POPS-specific Kerberos account.

There are three levels of access to POPS at this time:

• Public Access is the least permissive level. It is open to the public and allows anyone to view information that is required to be universally accessible, such as the abstracts of awarded proposals and the amounts awarded at a particular meeting.



• User Access is the permission level available to typical users. During a submission window for a particular board meeting, users applying for time on supercomputers can create and edit their own proposals.



• Administrator Access is the highest level of permission. Those with this clearance have access to all aspects of POPS at all times. Administrator access currently provides read/write permission on all POPS data. In the near future, the developers will be subdividing the Administrator Access into read-only and read/write levels.

POPS currently supports three PACI allocations boards—NRAC, AAB, and PRAC. The National Resource Allocations Committee (NRAC) makes allocations on all PACI resources, including those at Alliance/NCSA, NPACI/SDSC, and PSC sites. The Alliance Allocations Board (AAB) makes allocations on only Alliance resources. The Partnership Resource Allocations Committee (PRAC) make allocations on only NPACI resources. In the near future, the Small Allocations Committees (SACs) from NCSA, SDSC, and PSC will also be added to POPS. These allocations boards can be added to the new database simply by making entries in several tablesusing the POPS Administrative Interface.

The developers will continue to support and develop the system indefinitely as part of an obligation to NSF with respect to NCSA's information management requirements, as spelled out in the center's cooperative agreement. This agreement includes internal information needs as well as Alliance- and PACI-based reporting obligations to NSF.

Richard Hilderbrandt, program director of PACI, provided positive feedback regarding the project, "POPS is a significant contribution to the PACI Program that will not only make it easier for users to submit their requests but will also make it easier for the PACI program to track allocation requests and usage statistics."

Dominic Holland, head of Allocations at SDSC, also responded favorably to the new system, "POPS is a tremendous tool, making life a lot easier for all parties in the PACI allocations process: the researchers submitting proposals, the board members reviewing proposals, and the allocations staff coordinating the process. It has all the desired functionality, combined with an intuitive ease of use, that other proposal system developers would do well to emulate."

Melissa Johnson, manager of the NCSA Allocations group, is also pleased with the new system, "The POPS system has greatly simplified the coordination of the board meetings and related administrative tasks. Many of the reports and documents necessary for these meetings used to have to be produced by hand, but are now available at the click of a mouse. This type of capability is a great timesaver for us."

Although the POPS system is still in its infancy, there has already been interest expressed in expanding the system beyond the bounds of PACI. The Army Research Laboratory Programming Environment and Training program is currently exploring the option of porting POPS to meet their proposal tracking needs.

Project members

IRG Technical Program Manager

Steve Quinn

Principal Developers

Anton Chuppin

David DeVon

Steve Quinn

Amy Schuele

Ester Soriano

Collaborators

Haili Kowalski

Chris Pond

Peter Vlach