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Sync meeting 2025 10 14

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Kenneth Hoste edited this page Oct 22, 2025 · 1 revision

MultiXscale WP1+WP5 sync meetings

Next meetings

  • Tue 11 Nov 2025 09:30 CEST
    • bank holiday in Belgium...
  • Tue 9 Dec 2025 09:30 CEST
  • Tue 13 Jan 2026 09:30 CEST
  • Tue 10 Feb 2026 09:30 CEST
  • Tue 10 Mar 2026 09:30 CEST

Agenda/notes 2025-10-14

attendees:

  • Pedro

  • Kenneth

  • Caspar

  • Susana

  • Thomas

  • Satish

  • Guilia

  • Petra

  • Alan

  • taking away 1 PM for SURF (due to higher PM rate, inflation)

    • Caspar: underspending in WP6, so thinking about consuming from that
      • also from WP1+WP5, proportional to effort
    • Thomas: also underspending in WP6
      • started Happy Hours because of this, could be spending 3PMs if we keep this up until end of the project
      • repeat of webinars could be another PM
    • overspending in one WP, underspending in another is fine in practice
    • for UGent: transferring PMs to travel budget, taking it from WP5

  • Caspar: look into short videos focusing on a particular topic (WP6)

    • just a couple of minutes
    • complements Happy Hours, more focused
    • software-specific (Espresso, OBMD, ...)
    • instruction video on dev.eessi.io, ...
    • Kenneth will make proposal with topics/scenarios
      • motivation for EESSI
      • EESSI hands-on demo
      • EESSI in CI

    • CIT @ UGroningen has some proper equipment for this

  • Alan no longer working at Univ. of Barcelona since end of Sept'25

    • impact on Technical Manager role?
    • Ignacio is trying to find a replacement

Report on 2nd review

  • points relevant to WP1+WP5+WP6+WP7 (Petra)
  • WP1
    • what do they mean with "reproducibility layer"?
      • => ask them to clarify? compat layer? software layer?
      • maybe better not to ask for clarifications
    • immutable release snapsots, DOI-tagged versions
      • tag specific revision of CVMFS repository, put DOI tag on it
        • make sure we don't garbage collect these!
          • need to sync with Bob on this
        • document that specifies how to access that revision, what's in it, etc.
          • incl. overview of available software?
        • combo of compat+software layer, across all GPU targets
        • how often should we do this?
          • attaching this to bi-monthly EESSI update meetings
      • container images or squashfs exports for these EESSI "releases"
        • first step towards "archiving" old EESSI releases
        • can be mounted in container with Apptainer
      • start with minimal report, gradually improve that
        • tagged revision + instructions on how to get access to this specific revision
      • keep track of mapping between DOI and revision in EESSI/filesystem-layer
      • also document/demonstrate how this helps scientific WPs
        • blog post showing how to run Espresso/OBMD/...
    • comprehensive rebuild/run instructions
    • insufficient docs on RISC-V & Arm
      • no overview of available software for RISC-V
      • Arm
        • docs on CPU detection, structure of repo
    • migration of legacy software modules to newest GPU generations
      • already done now?
      • we're building for all supported GPU generations already now (not yet at time of review)
        • GPU software installations have now been reinstalled in new structure (inc. CUDA sanity check)
      • we will also support Blackwell when relevant
  • WP5
    • documentation lacks behind rapid development
      • software overview missing for EESSI 2025.06 & GPU software
      • also PR on squashfs
    • missing reproducility practices
      • document procedure used to reproduce installations for other CPU targets
        • cfr. work done by Bob/Caspar
        • cfr. changes made to EasyBuild
        • will be relevant soon again for zen5 + graviton4 builds in EESSI 2025.06
    • testing should cover edge architectures, mixed CPU/GPU nodes, coupled workflows
      • what's meant with "edge architectures"?
      • mixed CPU/GPU nodes => already done?
        • not running tests for CUDA installations on Snellius yet, Caspar will fix this (by setting EESSI_ACCEL_OVERRIDE)
      • coupled workflows => portable tests coming for OBMD & co
    • scaling up of human resources (amendment?)
      • risk of increased support load due to EFP
      • (Thomas) set up regular meeting with sites?
      • strictly speaking requests not connected to scientific WPs is out-of-scope for MultiXscale
      • there's no room to scale up human resources in MultiXscale, not planned
  • WP6
    • retention of ambassadors
      • more engagement/feedback from ambassadors?
      • more relevant to Transversal CoE
      • get people to refer themselves as ambassador for EESSI
      • clear instructions for ambassadors to give training themselves
        • maybe via Software Carpentry
      • make connection with EVITA project in last year of MultiXscale
        • => reach out to them
      • document ambassadors in EESSI docs
        • list of ambassadors (after they agree)
        • make it clear what it means to be an ambassador
        • share promo material
    • (traning) content should be regularly updated
      • EESSI Happy Hours
      • also planned repeat of webinars
      • ISC'26 tutorial proposal
    • better metrics to identify impact (of training sessions)
      • EESSI user surveys
        • 6 months after hackathon/webinar/...
          • for webinars => Nov'25
          • for hackathon => March'26
            • assess uptake of using EESSI in CI
        • ask them if they're using EESSI, for what, on which systems, ...
      • EESSI system surveys
        • update of EESSI
        • provide tooling to evaluate this
      • usage metrics for EESSI through Stratum-1 mirrors, friendly sites sharing info on proxy usage
    • scaling of training infrastructure
      • Magic Castle allows scaling up according to attendance
      • hybrid format helps with scaling
      • cluster-as-a-service for ambassadors
      • integration of EESSI in EOSC
  • WP7
    • Business and Sustainability Plan (D7.3)
      • governance/ownership models post-M48, leveraging EFP
      • funding mechanisms => services, sponsorship, tenders
        • services:
        • sponsorship:
          • 10k/year as "gold" sponsor, logo on website
          • 50k/year as "diamant" sponsor, priority on support requests
          • in-kind sponsorship
            • people contributing to EESSI, donating their time, building expertise
            • AWS to keep hardware resources
        • support for tenders to solicit help for implementing features, onboarding software, ...
          • comes with overhead: writing tenders, evaluating tenders, legal aspects, ...
        • exploring making EESSI a Linux Foundation project
          • legal entity to accept sponsorship
      • robust KPIs for adoption, retention
    • robust KPIs for adoption, retention
      • some work done in EFP would help here
    • strengthening of qualitative metrics (outreach -> adoption)
      • user/system surveys
      • companies using it (StackHPC, Accenture, Nextmol)
      • try to engage with "lurkers" through focused webinars
    • business oriented messaging
    • D7.5
  • WP8
    • risk mitigation should be improved
  • recommendations

Deliverables/milestones due in coming months

  • ...

WP status updates

  • WP1 (SURF - Caspar)
    • ...
  • WP5 (UGent - Kenneth)
    • ...
  • WP6
  • WP7

Notes of previous meetings

see https://github.com/multixscale/meetings/wiki

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