Chameleon User Meeting | May 2-3, 2023

 

Welcome to the 4th Chameleon User Meeting!

WHEN: Tuesday, May 2nd - Wednesday, May 3rd 2023
WHERE: Crerar Library, Chicago, IL

 

 

The Chameleon User Meeting is back in person! As in the past years, our objective is to create a forum where users can discuss their research and education projects, share experiences of working with the Chameleon testbed, discuss challenges, and propose new features that will make their experimental and education projects easier. We hope that these interactions will evolve into a discussion of how to enhance and teach experimental methodology for Computer Science – and we will be right there to help make your experimentation more rewarding and fruitful in any way we can. The User Meeting will have features to interest Chameleon newbies as well as veterans, end-users and operators, researchers and educators. 

To support this mission the Chameleon User Meeting agenda includes tutorials, presentations of user experiments, and opportunities to engage directly with the Chameleon team. To help the discussion develop, we the meeting includes a keynote on experimental methodology as well as a presentation from the Chameleon PI with a glimpse of new features coming up in the next year. The first day will conclude with a reception at the University of Chicago’s Rubenstein Forum overlooking the campus. New this year are mini-symposia that will be held on the second day and will provide a focus for community interests that sprang up around Chameleon. They cover themes of education, reproducibility, and Chameleon operations and will be held on the second day concurrently with Chameleon tutorials that come back this year. 

The particular focus of this year's meeting is on teaching with testbeds: using open platforms to support education and educational initiatives, creating and sharing digital teaching materials, and how to best offer logistical support to computing in the classroom. This focus is supported by an excellent keynote on using open platforms in education, emphasis on education-related presentations from users, and an education mini-symposium on the second day of the workshop to discuss and report on educational use cases and their needs. 

We invite you to join us for a couple of days of insightful presentations, hackathon tutorials, and fun!

 

Prior Chameleon User Meetings:

Call for Presentation Proposals

The Chameleon User Meeting will be held May 2-3, 2023 in Chicago, IL, is fast approaching – we are super excited to be holding our first in-person post- pandemic event! The meeting will follow the format of prior User Meetings with the first day containing two keynotes and presentations from our users, and the morning of the second day focusing on tutorials. However, this year we will also hold three parallel mini-symposia on the 2nd day: Chameleon site operators (CHI-in-a-Box) mini-symposium, mini-symposium on education using Chameleon, and a reproducibility hackathon. As before, we will reimburse travel expenses of up to $1,200 for the presenting authors of the top 10 selected presentation abstracts (one author per abstract). Please, take a look at the Call For Presentations below for details.

Chameleon User Meeting represents a forum where users can share their experiences working with the testbed and discuss challenges and suggestions on experimental work in Computer Science. To facilitate this discussion we are soliciting proposals for brief presentations (15-20 minutes) based on your work with Chameleon.

Submission due date: April 3, 2023 April 7, 2023
Send submissions to: presentations AT chameleoncloud dot org
Acceptance notification date: April 10, 2023

Presentation proposals should be  in pdf format, no longer than 2 pages in length, and should include the following information:

Presentation title:
Author/Presenter name(s) and affiliation(s):
Chameleon project(s) under which work was carried out:
Project type {research, education}: 
Resource type used {bare metal/CHI, KVM}: 

Proposal Body Sections: 

Research/Education Project Description:
A brief but clear description of the Computer Science research problem you are working on and your approach (What is the hypothesis? What is the challenge/trade-off? Why is it significant?) or a brief description of your education project (What are you teaching and to whom? What are the objectives of the class?)

A description of your experiment or project (including but not limited to):
Experimental configuration: What are your resource requirements? What capabilities do you need? (bare-metal reconfiguration, advance reservations, custom kernel reboot, type of isolation, the ability to snapshot, complex appliances, etc.) What qualities are you monitoring?
What features of the Chameleon testbed are you using to create your experiment? (hardware, features, appliances, etc.) Did you create any new appliances, notebooks, or other artifacts that you would like to share with others?

An analysis:
Pros and cons: In terms of using Chameleon what worked well and what didn’t? What changes or improvements would you like to see to our features, hardware, documentation, communication between the testbed operators and the user community? What features ideally would you like to see in the future and what is top priority?


As before, for the top 10 selected abstracts we will reimburse the travel expenses of up to $1,200 for the presenting authors (one per abstract). In addition, Chameleon User Meeting attendees will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite presentation and demonstration, and we will recognize the top selections at the next morning's award presentation.

The presentations will be limited to ~20 minutes in length, and may be grouped by topic depending on the number of submissions received. Presenting authors will be invited to submit a short paper after the meeting with proceedings published on Zenodo. 

Please, send your submissions to presentations AT chameleoncloud dot org or contact us at contact at chameleoncloud dot org or via the Chameleon users list if you have questions.

We look forward to seeing you all in Chicago this May!
 

Day 1

8:00 – 9:00 AM Breakfast
9:00 – 9:10 AM Introduction to the Meeting and the Team, Kate Keahey, University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab
9:10 – 10:00 AM KEYNOTE: "Look Above the Clouds", Kate Keahey, University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab
10:00 – 10:30 AM Break
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Chameleon User Presentations Session I 
Session Chair: Kate Keahey, University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab

Using Chameleon to Explore Aspects of a Polymorphic Computing Architecture”, David Hentrich, Erdal Oruklu, Jafar Saniie, Illinois Institute of Technology

Understanding Resource Usage in Science DMZ Environment for Concurrent File Transfer and Data Streaming Services”, Jamil Hasibul, Joaquin Chung, Flavio Castro, Tekin Bicer, and Rajkumar Kettimuthu , Argonne National Laboratory 

"CHI@Edge and ARA Wireless Living lab",  Taimoor Ul Islam and Sarath Babu, Iowa State University

Reproduce, Rerun, Repeat: The Fun Way to Learn Machine Learning!”, Priyanka Bose, Chandra Shekhar Pandey, NYU Tandon School of Engineering

StorRep - Breakable Experiment Pattern”, Yuyang Huang and Ray A. O. Sinurat, University of Chicago

Analyzing Large-Scale Data Transfers with Chameleon Cloud: A Case Study of OneDataShare”, Jacob Goldverg, Jamil Hasibul, Elvis Rodrigues, Tevfik Kosar, University at Buffalo (SUNY)

12:30 – 1:30 PM Lunch
1:30 – 1:45 PM  "A View from NSF", Deepankar Medhi, National Science Foundation
1:45 – 2:30 PM KEYNOTE: "A Roadmap to Deeper Learning Using Research Infrastructure", Fraida Fund, New York University (recordingslides)
2:30 – 3:00 PM Break
3:00 – 5:00 PM

Chameleon User Presentations Session II 
Session Chair: Fraida Fund, New York University

Research and Educational Experiences using Chameleon for Distributed Systems, Cloud Computing and Computer Networks”, Aniruddha Gokhale, Vanderbilt University (slides)

Software/Infrastructure Development and Operations (DevOps) with Chameleon Edge to Cloud”, Alicia Esquivel Morel, University of Missouri - Columbia (slides)

Using Chameleon Cloud to Drive HPC Education - An OpenMP Tutorial Experience”, Jose M Monsalve Diaz, Aurelio Antonio Vivas Meza, Carlos E. Alvarez, Esteban Hernández, Argonne National Laboratory (slides)

IndySCC”, Dan Dietz, Darshan Sarojini, Aroua Gharbi, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (slides)

Chameleon in Education: A Real-World Introduction to Shared System Use”, Melanie Cornelius, Illinois Institute of Technology (slides)

Self-Driving in Miniature Autonomous RC Cars using CHI@Edge”, Richard Anderson, Rutgers University (slidesGitHubnotebook)

5:00 – 5:30 PM Ask the Chameleon Team
6:00 PM Reception in Rubenstein Center

Day 2

8:00 – 9:00 AM Breakfast
8:50 – 9:00 AM Introduction to the 2nd day of the Meeting, Kate Keahey, University of Chicago
9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Tutorial: Introduction to Chameleon (9:00 – 10:00 AM) (slides)

New users to Chameleon should attend this tutorial. We will be going over how to get started with Chameleon:

  • Reserving resources
  • Creating an instance
  • Connecting to an instance
  • Using the 3 different interfaces for Chameleon: GUI, CLI, and Jupyter
  • How to get support!

It is highly recommended to attend this tutorial before the others if you are not an experienced Chameleon user.

Tutorial: Experiments Spanning Chameleon and FABRIC: Stitching with Facility Ports (10:00 – 11:00 AM)

In this tutorial, you will learn how to deploy experiments that span Chameleon and FABRIC. Specifically, you will run a single Jupyter notebook that deploys an isolated network that connects Chameleon servers to the FABRIC FABnet network. This `stitched` network can be used to directly communicate between servers on Chameleon and FABRIC, as well as, between servers on different Chameleon sites.

Tutorial: CHI@Edge (11:00 AM – 12:00 PM) (slides)

Overview and tutorial for usage of CHI@Edge, roughly 45 minutes, self-paced. It will have two sections, and some advanced “homework” examples. First, it will cover a basic workflow, consisting of finding and reserving an edge device, launching a container, running commands and uploading/downloading files, accessing it via a public IP, and cleanly releasing resources. Second is an experiment pattern that streams data via MQTT, and plots it live in your jupyter notebook. Further reading and examples cover an edge-to-cloud experiment pattern and bring-your-own-device features, but will not be covered during the tutorial due to time constraints.

Note: This tutorial assumes basic familiarity with Chamelon, please attend the basic usage tutorial first if you’re a new user.

9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Chameleon site operators (CHI-in-a-Box) mini-symposium

Chameleon site operators mini-symposium is targeted at meeting participants who operate or are interested in operating a Chameleon site or a Chameleon-like site. The event will start with a CHI-in-a-Box tutorial and include segments on site feature requirements, policy discussions, and community channels.

9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Mini-symposium on education using Chameleon

This mini-symposium will bring together participants who teach or are interested in teaching using Chameleon and associated testbeds. It will contain presentations of digital teaching materials using Chameleon and a discussion of teaching techniques.

Session I — Open Educational Resources

  • Gokhale, Vanderbilt University (Github, Github, Github, assignments)

  • Alicia Esquivel Morel, University of Missouri - Columbia (website)

  • Chandra Shekhar Pandey, NYU Tandon School of Engineering (Github)

  • Tyler Estro, Stony Brook University (Trovi artifact)

  • Manvitha Kuncham, Northern Illinois University (slides, Github)

  • Massimo Canonico, University of Piemonte Orientale, Italy (website, video)

Session II — Experiences (pre-recorded)

  • John Rieffel, Union College (video)

  • Massimo Canonico, University of Piemonte Orientale, Italy (video

  • Violet Syrotiuk, Arizona State University (video)

  • David Koop, Northern Illinois University (video)

  • Mike Papka, Argonne National Laboratory (video)

9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Reproducibility hackathon (slides)

This will be a reproducibility clinic with the objective to help participants package their experiments for sharing on Chameleon. The session will contain a tutorial on how to package experiments on Chameleon for reproducibility but most of the time will be devoted to a hands-on clinic helping participants package their individual experiments for reproducibility.

12:00 — 1:00 PM Lunch

 

Registration

REGISTER HERE!

Type Early Cost (until April 7th) Regular Cost (after April 7th)
Regular $300 $400
Student $60 $80

 

Early registration ends on April 7th!

We will host tutorials and workshops on the second day of the meeting, May 3. When registering, please indicate which event you are planning to attend so that we can plan for space:

Tutorials: Chameleon tutorials will start with an introduction to Chameleon for beginners and progress to tutorials on special topics. In line with the data systems theme of the user meeting the special topics will focus on how to use Chameleon resources for research on edge, networking, storage, and machine learning. Detailed tutorials schedule is available on the program page.

CHI-in-a-Box: Chameleon site operators mini-symposium is targeted at meeting participants who operate or are interested in operating a Chameleon site or a Chameleon-like site. The event will start with a CHI-in-a-Box tutorial and include segments on site feature requirements, policy discussions, and community channels.

Education on Chameleon mini-symposium will bring together participants who teach or are interested in teaching using Chameleon and associated testbeds. It will contain presentations of digital teaching materials using Chameleon and a discussion of teaching techniques.

Reproducibility hackathon will be a reproducibility clinic with the objective to help participants package their experiments for sharing on Chameleon. The session will contain a tutorial on how to package experiments on Chameleon for reproducibility but most of the time will be devoted to a hands-on clinic helping participants package their individual experiments for reproducibility.

Lodging

We have reserved a block of rooms at The Study, the brand new hotel on the UChicago campus, at 1227 E. 60th Street. It’s about a 10 minute walk from the conference venue (the Computer Science Department at the Crerar Library) and next door to the conference reception venue. To access the special room block price, please book using this link: https://reservations.travelclick.com/114529?groupID=3843767.

Should you prefer, you may also call directly to reserve a room at the number below:

Reservations by call in: 773-643-1600

Reservations by e-mail: reservations.chicago@studyhotels.com

When calling or e-mailing, please reference the group name: Chameleon User Meeting

Please note that this price is only valid for rooms booked no later than 4/14/23 at 5 PM CT. 

 

Air Travel

Chicago has two major airports: O’Hare International (to the north) and Midway International Airport (to the south). Midway is the closest airport to the University of Chicago. Approximate travel times to campus by car: 30 minutes from downtown Chicago, 45 minutes from Midway Airport, and 60 minutes from O’Hare Airport.

John Crerar Library Building

The University of Chicago Department of Computer Science is in the John Crerar Library Building, 5730 S. Ellis Ave

The building is set back from the street between Drexel and Ellis Avenues and 57th and 58th street, as shown in yellow below. The main entrance is on the east side of the building (marked with *).

For short visits, metered street parking is often available on Ellis Avenue. For longer visits, or during peak hours, we recommend parking in University garages at 55th Street & Ellis or 57th Street & Cottage Grove. A map of all UChicago parking options is available here.

If you are taking a rideshare or taxi to our building, it is often best to choose the University of Chicago bookstore (970 E. 58th Street) as your destination, then walk west past it and northwest across the small quad to the John Crerar Library. University shuttle buses and CTA routes #171 and #172 also stop in front of the bookstore or Levi Hall on the other side of Ellis Ave.

For information on taking CTA or Metra train lines to the University of Chicago campus, see here.

Contact Us

Please send your questions regarding the Chameleon User Meeting to contact AT chameleoncloud.org.