Since Davidson College joined NCShare in June 2022, technical lead Brian Little has recognized key challenges in the program. He also provides accessible software and high-speed networking for faculty, staff and students.
NCShare – a partnership between Duke University, Davidson College, North Carolina Central University (NCCU), and recently, the University of North Carolina -Chapel Hill and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University – provides connectivity to all participating campuses. The program also includes MCNC, a high-speed networking services provider based in Research Triangle Park (RTP).
On a typical day, Little assists faculty with setting up containers while also addressing technical questions or directing them to the appropriate support. Determining a way to frame the discussion around NCShare products, however, has required some finesse.
“It’s hard to convince people to switch to something that’s essentially an experimental product and say, ‘Please teach your class in a way that depends on this,’” he said.
Little is the technical backbone of the NCShare partnership at Davidson, and he plays a crucial role in identifying key issues that drive continuous improvement in the program.
Davidson is a campus with quality resources and advanced software, as such, it has not been easy to decide where NCShare fits.
“A lot of what would be offered through NCShare is part of our JupyterHub installation. So, there’s an R implementation through that, there’s Python… all the things we would normally build a container around are already there,” Little said.
Kevin Davis, the chief information officer at Davidson, said that although the college is fortunate to have in-house research capabilities and expertise, the demand on these resources can be high with limited capacity.
“NCShare offers us an opportunity to scale research computing capabilities to a non-core audience and to provide extra capacity for core users,” he said, adding it was an important complement to the in-demand but capacity constrained local research computing systems Davidson manages.
According to Little, framing NCShare in terms of equity – emphasizing equal access to resources and baseline computing capabilities – has resonated more effectively with faculty at Davidson. In fact, professors now recommend NCShare to their students.
“I know an economics faculty member who teaches with R… and he points students to NCShare as a resource,” Little said. “Others who might use or need NCShare don’t necessarily know they have the need or ability.”
Research computing is increasingly a topic of discussion during the faculty recruitment process, and the availability of NCShare resources and services like the science DMZ is a plus, according to Davis.
“My hope is that this also increases the opportunities for easier research collaboration across a shared platform over time,” he said.
For Little, getting to teach people about the resources and capabilities available through NCShare has been fulfilling.
“It’s interesting to watch someone’s first reaction to [NCShare] which is initially a little confused about what the product is because they don’t have any experience with containerized computing,” he said. “But when I show them the basic interface, and what it takes to start up a container… it literally takes 10 seconds.”
Despite the road bumps in the program, Little is passionate about the partnership and hopes more people can learn about the resources it provides.
“I love the idea [of NCShare], I just wish we could get more people to buy in,” he said. “It’s satisfying in the respect that I get to introduce [people] to something new because I like broadening peoples’ horizons.”