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August 2026 Community Conversation

This meeting was held on Tuesday, August 11, 2026 at 11:30am ET / 10:30am CT / 8:30am PT / 3:30pm GMT. Monthly community meetings are convened over Zoom to discuss topics of interest. Community members are encouraged to bring questions and ideas to share.

Meeting recording

Meeting summary

Quick recap

The meeting was a monthly ColdFront Community Conversation led by Dori Sajdak, who recapped the recent PEARC conference presentations and Birds of a Feather session. Dori shared feedback from attendees about ColdFront usage, desired improvements, and terminology preferences, highlighting a discussion on whether to change the term "PI" to something more configurable. Participants like Jay McGlothlin and Raminder shared their experiences with customizing ColdFront at their institutions. Dori also updated the group on the project's next phase, including plans for an annual meeting, hiring a community manager, and the concept of institutional stewardship. Jeff mentioned NASA's plans to present on ColdFront at Supercomputing. The conversation ended with an invitation for institutions to express their continued support for ColdFront.

Next steps

Dori

  • Share the PEARC resources and feedback from the Birds of a Feather session with the architecture revamp working group.
  • Consider forming a working group for ColdFront billing and invoicing features, based on community feedback.
  • Reach out to interested institutions to include them as institutional stewards in the Phase 2 proposal, due September 1st.
  • Include a section on the ColdFront website to call out participating institutional stewards.

Jeff

  • Work on obtaining approval to share NASA's ColdFront customizations with the community.

Sajid

  • Get back to Dori regarding consideration as an institutional steward for the proposal.

Summary

ColdFront Community Meeting Discussion

Dori led a monthly ColdFront Community Conversation meeting, providing a recap of recent PEARC conference presentations and sharing insights from a Birds of a Feather session poll. The discussion highlighted community needs, with high interest in case studies and implementation information, while paid support options received no interest. The group engaged in a conversation about potentially changing the "PI" (Principal Investigator) naming convention in ColdFront, exploring alternative terms like "project owner" or "sponsor," with some suggesting a configurable option to accommodate different institutional terminology.

System Terminology Configuration Discussion

The team discussed making terminology configurable in the system, with Jay McGlothlin sharing examples from Tufts University including changes to project terminology and the use of "owner" and "approver" roles. Dori and Raminder agreed that "approver" terminology was useful and should be considered for implementation, with Raminder noting that many attributes like owner, data manager, and approver are already configurable. The discussion also covered customizations and improvements, with NASA and University of British Columbia sharing their experiences implementing ColdFront without core code changes, and conversations about storage allocation policies and data retention practices.

Phase 2 Proposal Planning Discussion

Dori and Jeff discussed the automatic backup process for user accounts and project directories, with Jeff clarifying that backups occur when accounts expire rather than when allocations expire. Dori then updated the team on the Phase 1 project's conclusion and the upcoming Phase 2 proposal due September 1st, which merges pathways to open source and secure ecosystems. The new proposal includes plans for an annual one-day meeting tied to PERC and hiring a full-time community manager, with five institutional partners already committed as stewards. Dori invited team members to express interest in becoming institutional stewards or participating in other ways to support the proposal.

ColdFront Paper Submission Planning

The meeting discussed plans to submit a paper about ColdFront to Supercomputing, with Jeff mentioning that BP will present on Open OnDemand. Dori emphasized the value of community participation, including answering questions on Slack and demonstrating software usage at meetings. Sajid inquired about a template for third-party contribution letters, and Dori confirmed they have five committed contributors and will include institutional stewards in the proposal. The meeting also noted the popularity of ColdFront shirts made by Andrew for PERC and mentioned Jacob Boschee's presentation on ColdFront-related work.