Developing ColdFront for Data Centralization and Task Automation
Raminder Singh, Claire Peters · 2024
ColdFront is an open-source project of the University at Buffalo Center for Computational Research (UBCCR) designed as a customizable platform for resource management and access control. Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Research Computing team (FASRC) opted to implement ColdFront to streamline allocation management, reporting, and billing processes in a way that integrates well with its existing software ecosystem. This paper outlines the history, implementation details, and outcomes of FASRC’s customized ColdFront deployment, illustrating the process by which the platform was tailored to meet the needs of a specific HPC center. FASRC implementation included basic configuration, development of plugins for integration with other internal systems, and modifications to the core library to enable tighter integration with other core services. Adoption of the platform has proved strongly beneficial to FASRC operations by reducing administrative burdens, enhancing reporting capabilities, and offering users a greater degree of information about and control over their services.