POSE: Phase I: ColdFront: High Performance Computing (HPC) Community Allocation and Resource Ecosystem (HPC CARE)

This Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) project improves access, efficiency, and collaboration across the national cyberinfrastructure landscape. Data centers and high performance computing (HPC) centers support a wide array of scientific research efforts, yet the management of these complex and shared computing resources is often inefficient and inconsistent. This project addresses this challenge by building a sustainable open-source ecosystem (OSE) around a widely adopted platform designed to streamline the administration of shared computational resources. By supporting collaboration, enhancing transparency, and standardizing processes, the project has the potential to reduce overhead and operational costs for organizations, particularly those with limited staff or technical capacity. These improvements enable faster scientific discovery, better resource utilization, and better access to advanced computing infrastructure. The creation of a vibrant and sustainable OSE will help maintain U.S. leadership in research computing, promote the progress of science, and ensure that even smaller institutions can benefit from cutting-edge technologies. Ultimately, this work will serve a wide range of scientific domains and benefit academic institutions, research centers, and their broader user communities nationwide. This POSE project lays the foundation for a sustainable open-source ecosystem around a popular web-based software application used for managing resource access and allocations in high performance computing (HPC) environments. The primary goal of the project is to implement governance, development, and contribution models that will support the long-term, community-driven development of the software. Planned activities include the development of clear contribution guidelines, implementation of architecture and security policies, and piloting a continuous integration and testing pipeline to support reliable community contributions. By engaging with current users and stakeholders, the team evaluates the project’s present status, gathers feedback, and identifies the technical and organizational steps needed to support the ecosystem’s growth. The project team develops the strategic and procedural documentation required for the successful transition from a single-institution tool to a broader community-led platform. These efforts are foster more robust collaboration, improve the reliability and functionality of the software, and support the long-term viability of the ecosystem in supporting national-scale scientific research infrastructure. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.