DOE National Laboratory Computing and the National Laboratory CIOs (NLCIO)
Often called the crown jewels in the national research
infrastructure, the DOE National Laboratories represent major assets devoted to research and
development in science, energy, and national security. As the home of
some of the most cutting edge computing and information technology in use in the
world, the Laboratories are recognized leaders in implementing advanced systems for research and
development at scale, and in securing these systems.
The seventeen laboratories represent a diverse range of missions, sizes, and
capabilities; from from entirely open research to almost entirely sensitive and
classified, from mostly fundamental to mostly applied research, and from a few
hundred employees to thousands. Yet despite this diversity, the
Laboratories are united in their desire to deploy IT that enables world-class
research and development, and to provide security commensurate with risk and
threat that is appropriate to the mission of the individual laboratory.
The Laboratories trace their roots to the earliest days of the Manhattan
Project, and represent unique quasi-governmental partnerships under a
contractual relationship that exists nowhere else in the Federal government.
Each Laboratory is manged and operated by a contractor as a Federally Funded Research and
Development Center (FFRDC), requiring it to operate independently in the public
interest as a strategic partner of the Department of Energy to meet long term
research and development goals that cannot be dependably met by other private
or public sector entities[1].
The Laboratories operate under a federated model which allows each contractor
to allocate resources strategically to support its mission; in turn, each
Laboratory contractor is judged by DOE on how well it achieves that mission,
fulfilling the vision of performance based contracting.
The
National Laboratories Chief Information Officers (NLCIO) are the stewards of
the computing and information technology assets of the Laboratories. The
CIOs have worked together as a group since 1996 to share best practices,
provide oversight and direction for shared initiatives, and to provide input to
the Department, the Laboratory Directors, and other stakeholders on policy and
oversight and its impacts. The NLCIO also functions as a forum for
information exchange, consensus building, and coordination of the major
activities in scientific computing and information processing.
Major Accomplishments and Initiatives:
Best Practice Sharing: At quarterly meetings and through ongoing dialog, the
CIOs of the Laboratories meet to share information about initiatives and best
practices. Previous areas have included substantial sharing around
security, IT governance, scientific computing, and disaster recovery.
Recently, development of special interest groups for green IT and cloud
computing have helped to improve information sharing at the working
level.
Oversight and Direction for Shared Initiatives: NLCIO has negotiated
major software licensing agreements with key vendors on behalf of the
Laboratories and the Department. NLCIO also acts as a steward of the
ESnet Steering Committee, which helps provide scientific and operational input
to the high speed science network which serves the DOE Labs. Recently,
NLCIO has launched a new initiative in Federated Authentication to improve
accessibility of resources across DOE and improve access by our collaborators
outside DOE and for our researchers.
In addition, many of the Laboratories work together in smaller
collaborations to develop more targeted initiatives.
Policy Input: As hybrid entities, the Laboratories and DOE have often had
substantial challenges applying some Federal initiatives. There are many
gradations of contractors within the Federal government, yet the term
contractor is often used as if it applies to a single discrete type of
relationship. This problem has sometimes led to the application of rules
designed for government office workers to researchers working on the cutting
edge of development. As non-Federal research and development
organizations, the Laboratories must be circumspect in these areas and help to
develop policies that are appropriate for our performance based contracting requirements
and ensure that researchers have sufficient flexibility do accomplish their
missions. NLCIO has a long history
of helping DOE to develop requirements that fit our missions. Last year,
NLCIO created a model requirements documents for information management for the
Department which was adopted almost verbatim. Recently, NLCIO provided active
extensive input to assist the CIO in formulating the new requirements
management process currently under review.
Summary:
From supercomputing facilities and high speed networks to accelerators and
small benchtop experiments, the Laboratories depend on diverse,
high-performance IT that enables their research and development missions.
The NLCIO improves the effectiveness of the Laboratories by developing shared
initiatives, sharing best practices, and coordination with DOE and the
Laboratory Directors on matters of importance.
The first seventy five years of the National Laboratories brought incredible
innovations ranging from the development of modern physics to nuclear weapons
to the human genome project. The next seventy five years will see
substantial challenges and opportunities in energy independence, efficiency,
and national security and new discoveries across the sciences. The
CIOs of the National Laboratories look forward to providing the infrastructure
and capabilities that will make these discoveries possible.
[1] NETL is a Federally Managed Laboratory and is not an FFRDC. SRNL does not operate under a classic
M&O contract.