The eXtensible Resource Allocation Service (XRAS) is our platform for managing proposal review and resource allocation processes and is the primary development effort under ACCESS Allocations. We also offer XRAS as a hosted service to other organizations to support their separately managed allocation processes.
For more information on using XRAS to support your allocation management needs, contact allocations@access-ci.org.
XRAS provides interfaces and components to support the submission, review, and administration of allocation requests. With its extensive customization features, XRAS can support a wide variety of policy and procedure requirements. The review component supports multiple review phases, enforces conflicts of interest, and allows allocation panel members to view requests, download documents, and enter their reviews. The administrative system provides panel management, tools for meeting logistics and review assignments, email notification capabilities, award entry and processing functions, and reporting capabilities.
Sites with lightweight allocation procedures can choose not to use the review and panel management features, instead focusing on using XRAS for allocation tracking and basic administration.
To use XRAS, your site needs to meet only minimal technical requirements. Primarily, the resources to be allocated by your site registered in the ACCESS Cyberinfrastructure Description Repository (CIDeR). XRAS supports optional integration with your local identity management and authentication system and your local resource accounting system; XRAS clients also have the option of developing custom submission user interfaces, tailored to their needs and embedded with their organization's web or portal sites.
XRAS was one of the first ORCID Certified Service Providers in 2021. XRAS lets ORCID member institutions post information about allocated projects to your researchers’ ORCID profiles via integration with ORCID for Research Resources.
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Computational & Information Systems Lab (CISL)
NCAR Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL)
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC)
Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot
XRAS Client Administrator Guide v2.0 — To learn more about the many XRAS features provided to help allocations process administrators manage the submission, review, and awarding of allocation requests.
David Hart, Nathan Tolbert, Rob Light, and Stephen Deems. 2024. XRAS at 10 Years: Allocations Software as a Service for the NSF HPC ecosystem. In Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing 2024: Human Powered Computing (PEARC '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 19, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626203.3670515
David L. Hart, Ester Soriano, Carrie Arnold, Steven Peckins, Rob Light, Burt Cubbison, Josh Berger, and Michael Shapiro. 2019. XSEDE Integration with ORCID for Research Resources. In Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing 2019: Rise of the Machines (learning) (PEARC '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 127, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1145/3332186.3333252
David L. Hart, Amy Schuele, Ester Soriano, Maytal Dahan, and Matthew Hanlon. 2014. XRAS: Allocations software as a service in XSEDE. In Proceedings of the 2014 Annual Conference on Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE '14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 65, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/2616498.2616562