September 2026 Community Conversation

This meeting was held on Tuesday, September 8, 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.

Quick recap

The September ColdFront Community Conversation featured updates on the project's recent NSF proposal submission and ongoing development efforts, including progress towards a version 2.0 release. Dori discussed the proposal's focus on community building and governance, while Casey inquired about SC2026 presence and version 2.0. Natascha raised a question about loosening the PI-project link, especially for long-term storage projects, and Raminder and Jeff shared their institutions' approaches using Unix or LDAP groups. Jeff and Tim discussed several custom ColdFront plugins, including new features for billing, LDAP integration, data at rest encryption management, a campaigns plugin for project communication, and enhancements for managing commercial software licenses. The conversation ended with an invitation for further discussion and demos at the next meeting.

Summary

NSF Proposal Update Meeting

Dori welcomed participants to the September Community Conversation and provided an update on the National Science Foundation proposal submission, which occurred the previous Tuesday. She explained that while funding decisions are expected in 4-5 months, the team will continue working on identified next steps regardless of funding outcome, allowing for faster progress if the proposal is successful.

ColdFront SC2026 Booth Planning

Dori confirmed that the University at Buffalo will have a booth at SC2026 with ColdFront information, but no talks or BOF submissions were made. Dori reported that version 2.0 is in development with significant progress made, and a beta version may be available within the next month or two, potentially for demo at the next meeting. Jeff mentioned that NASA will be at SC26 with a paper and presentation submitted to the SIG-HPC group, where they will present ColdFront. Natascha asked a question about project links to specific PIs in ColdFront, but the transcript ended before the answer was provided.

Flexible PI Connection for Storage

Natascha proposed loosening the connection between projects and principal investigators (PIs) for storage projects that span multiple phases or involve PI changes. Dori and Raminder explained that their current system requires a PI as the directory owner, but they could potentially use Unix groups or LDAP groups to allow multiple co-PIs with equal access rights. The discussion highlighted the need for a more flexible approach, particularly for long-term storage projects that may need to continue even if the original PI leaves.

NSF Grant and ColdFront Development

Dori explained that while they are pursuing a National Science Foundation grant, development work will continue regardless of the grant outcome. The grant would specifically support community building activities including annual meetings, working group management, and governance structure development rather than direct software development funding. Dori invited participants to share any customizations they've made to ColdFront for a future meeting.

Plugin Showcase Updates Discussion

Jeff and Tim discussed recent additions to their plugin showcase, including new metrics for project tracking, easy data export capabilities, and billing features such as fiscal year rate settings. Tim also mentioned improvements to LDAP integration for managing high-end engineering workstations and data at rest encryption controls. The team plans to present these updates in next month's showcase.

DAR Requirements and Campaigns Plugin

Jeff discussed work on DAR requirements and data at rest encryption using Clevis and Tang, with a focus on passphrase recovery via ColdFront for workstations. Tim introduced a new campaigns plugin that allows for creating group votes across projects to track testing progress and gather feedback on system-related questions, with features including scheduled communications and deadline tracking.

Software Feature Development Updates

The team discussed upcoming features and demonstrations for the next meeting. Jeff and Tim explained new functionality including test cluster management, OS upgrades, and commercial license tracking for MATLAB and other software using FlexLM, RLM, and Altair License Manager. Raminder expressed interest in inviting team members to the demo, particularly for the test cluster and OS upgrade features. The team noted that while the plugins aren't yet cleared for full release due to federal government approval processes, they can still discuss and share ideas about the implementation