Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). Provides access to advanced cyberinfrastructure resources, tools, and services essential to the advancement and transformation of science and engineering.

NSF 21-555: Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) | NSF - U.S. National Science Foundation Archived funding opportunity This solicitation is archived. NSF 21-555: Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) This program solicitation refers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) NSF 21-075 . Download the solicitation (PDF, 1.

1mb) National Science Foundation Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p. m.

submitter's local time): Important Information And Revision Notes Any proposal submitted in response to this solicitation should be submitted in accordance with the revised NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) ( NSF 20-1 ), which is effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after June 1, 2020.

Summary Of Program Requirements Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS) The national research cyberinfrastructure (CI) ecosystem is essential to computational- and data-intensive research across all of 21st-century science and engineering (S&E), driven by rapid advances in a wide range of technologies; increasing volumes of highly heterogeneous data; and escalating demand by the research community.

Research CI is a key catalyst for discovery and innovation and plays a critical role in ensuring US leadership in S&E, economic competitiveness, and national security, consistent with NSF's mission.

NSF, through the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC), has published a vision that calls for the broad availability and innovative use of an agile, integrated, robust, trustworthy and sustainable CI ecosystem that can drive new thinking and transformative discoveries in all areas of S&E research and education.

In support of this vision, NSF is releasing two solicitations in parallel: this solicitation, Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS), and Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support - Coordination Office (ACCESS-ACO).

This solicitation (ACCESS) aims to establish a suite of CI coordination services - meant to support a broad and diverse set of requirements, users, and usage modes from all areas of S&E research and education - and calls for proposals for five independently-managed yet tightly-cooperative service tracks (see Figure 1).

The second solicitation (ACCESS-ACO) focuses on the creation of a coordination office to support the collective and coordinated operation of the ACCESS service tracks. Figure 1: Network of ACCESS services, with a focus on those supported by this solicitation.

This solicitation expects to fund five awards for five independently-managed yet tightly-coordinated services defined in the following five tracks: (1) Allocation Services; (2) End User Support Services; (3) Operations & Integration Services; (4) Monitoring & Measurement Services; and (5) Technology Translation Services.

Together, these services are expected to provide a seamless experience for an increasing breadth of research users across a highly performing innovative array of national computational computing resources.

Allocation Services (Track 1) will be responsible for providing equitable access to NSF-funded CI resources for the Nation's S&E research and education community with the goal of enabling discoveries at scales beyond the reach of an individual or regional academic institution. The Allocation Services track comprises three defined activities: Allocation Services; Innovative Pilots; and a Service Model.

End User Support Services (Track 2) will be responsible for coordinated activities that ensure a high-quality productive experience for prospective and current users when engaging with the NSF-funded CI resource providers at any stage. The End User Support Services track comprises four defined activities: General User Assistance; Allocation and Utilization Assistance; End User Training; and a Computational Science Support Network.

Operations and Integration Services (Track 3) will be responsible for providing coordinating functions across the computational resource providers to enable the different elements of the NSF-funded national CI ecosystem to work together effectively and securely. The Operations and Integration Services track comprises three defined activities: Operational Support; Data and Networking Support; and Cybersecurity Support.

Monitoring & Measurement Services (Track 4) will be responsible for providing an integrated and open data collection and analytics platform to ensure optimal performance, robustness, and usage of NSF-funded resources (including compute, storage, networking, software/data services, etc.) as well as to facilitate timely decision making for a broad range of stakeholders.

The Monitoring & Measurement Services track comprises three elements: Monitoring & Measurement Operations; Service Model; and Data Analytics Framework.

Technology Translation Services (Track 5) will be responsible for the development and establishment of technical and programmatic mechanisms to translate and integrate innovative cyberinfrastructure technologies and capabilities supported by OAC programs into robust production operations within NSF-funded CI resource providers.

The Technology Translation Service track comprises two defined activities: Operations, including both Pilot/Development Phase Operations and Production Phase Operations; and Technology Translation Pipeline, including processes for selection and deployment. NSF expects that these services, when funded, will come online with minimal disruption to the S&E research community.

Please note that each of the five service tracks has an associated set of requirements detailed in the body of this solicitation, including defined roles and responsibilities for the services, and specific requirements to interface operationally with one or more other defined ACCESS service tracks and with a coordination function to be supported by NSF through the separate ACCESS Coordination Office (ACCESS-ACO) solicitation.

Proposers are advised to carefully read this solicitation for these requirements and for guidance regarding eligibility and overall strategy. Cognizant Program Officer(s): Please note that the following information is current at the time of publishing. See program website for any updates to the points of contact.

Robert B. Chadduck, Program Director, CISE/OAC, telephone: (703) 292-2247, email: rchadduc@nsf. gov Alejandro Suarez, Associate Program Director, CISE/OAC, telephone: (703) 292-7092, email: alsuarez@nsf.

gov Applicable Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number(s): 47. 070 --- Computer and Information Science and Engineering Anticipated Type of Award: Cooperative Agreement Estimated Number of Awards: 5 Up to one (1) award is estimated to be made for each award track. Anticipated Funding Amount: $57,500,000 $7,500,000 to $20,000,000 per award, dependent on award track.

A total of $57,500,000 is available for this solicitation, subject to the availability of funds. Who May Submit Proposals: Proposals may only be submitted by the following: Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) - Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members.

Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of subawards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus.

There are no restrictions or limits. Limit on Number of Proposals per Organization: 1 An organization may submit only one proposal as a lead. An organization may also be a subawardee on proposals to tracks other than the track to which it has submitted a proposal as the lead organization.

Collaborative projects may only be submitted as a single proposal in which a single award is being requested ( PAPPG Chapter II. D. 3.

a ). The involvement of partner organizations should be supported through subawards administered by the submitting organization. These eligibility constraints will be strictly enforced in order to treat everyone fairly and consistently .

In the event that an organization exceeds this limit, the proposals received within the limit will be accepted based on the earliest date and time of proposal submission. No exceptions will be made. Limit on Number of Proposals per PI or Co-PI: 1 An individual may be the PI on no more than one proposal that responds to this solicitation.

An individual may also serve as a co-PI or senior personnel on proposals to tracks other than the track to which they have submitted a proposal as the PI. These eligibility constraints will be strictly enforced in order to treat everyone fairly and consistently . In the event that an individual exceeds these limits, the proposals received within the limit will be accepted based on the earliest date and time of proposal submission.

No exceptions will be made. Proposal Preparation and Submission Instructions A. Proposal Preparation Instructions Letters of Intent: Not required Preliminary Proposal Submission: Not required Full Proposals submitted via FastLane: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) guidelines apply.

The complete text of the PAPPG is available electronically on the NSF website at: https://www. nsf. gov/publications/pub_summ.

jsp? ods_key=pappg . Full Proposals submitted via Grants.

gov: NSF Grants. gov Application Guide: A Guide for the Preparation and Submission of NSF Applications via Grants. gov guidelines apply (Note: The NSF Grants.

gov Application Guide is available on the Grants. gov website and on the NSF website at: https://www. nsf.

gov/publications/pub_summ. jsp? ods_key=grantsgovguide ).

Cost Sharing Requirements: Inclusion of voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited. Indirect Cost (F&A) Limitations: Other Budgetary Limitations: Other budgetary limitations apply. Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information.

Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p. m. submitter's local time): Proposal Review Information Criteria National Science Board approved criteria.

Additional merit review criteria apply. Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information. Award Administration Information Additional award conditions apply.

Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information. Additional reporting requirements apply. Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information.

National research cyberinfrastructure (CI) has become essential to computational- and data-intensive research across all of science and engineering (S&E) in the 21 st century. It is a key catalyst for discovery and innovation and plays a critical role in ensuring US leadership in S&E, economic competitiveness, and national security, consistent with NSF's mission.

NSF, through the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC), has published a vision that calls for the broad availability and innovative use of an agile, integrated, robust, trustworthy and sustainable CI ecosystem that can drive new thinking and transformative discoveries in all areas of S&E research and education . National CI coordination services are integral to NSF's CI vision and ecosystem.

Consequently, it is imperative that these services be made broadly available to the Nation's S&E research community consistent with the goals and intent of the diverse set of NSF-funded resources.

These services support critical aspects such as allocation, measurement and user support, and enable researchers across every field of NSF-supported S&E to effectively and efficiently use the CI ecosystem and ensure overall user productivity in spite of rapidly changing application and CI landscapes.

NSF recently published a forward-looking blueprint for future national CI coordination services, " Transforming Science Through Cyberinfrastructure: Coordination Services ." This blueprint was informed by the community through advisory bodies, requests for information (RFIs), workshops and conferences, and national initiatives.

In particular, the 2019 NSF-funded National Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Service Conference specifically focused on the CI service ecosystem. As outlined in the blueprint document, NSF envisions a fabric of national coordination CI services that can effectively support a broad and diverse set of requirements, users, and usage modes from all areas of S&E research and education.

It is also essential that this fabric of services is agile and can evolve and adapt to respond to emerging requirements and technology landscapes. This solicitation, one of two ACCESS solicitations, focuses on the execution of this blueprint and the creation of the national coordination CI services fabric.

The current NSF-supported CI coordination services landscape includes the following major projects: The eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) and XSEDE Metrics Service (XMS), both part of the eXtreme Digital (XD) Program, and the Partnership to Advance Throughput Computing (PATh), funded as a continuation of the Open Science Grid (OSG).

Moving forward, NSF aims to continue to provide these services while also evolving, integrating, and adapting their structures, scopes, and implementations to respond to rapidly-evolving technologies and science needs. This solicitation is part of a pair of solicitations calling for proposals for projects within the ACCESS ecosystem (see Table 1 below).

It complements the second (ACCESS-ACO) solicitation, which focuses on the creation of a coordination office to support the collective and coordinated operation of the ACCESS coordination service tracks.

Table 1: ACCESS Solicited Projects End User Support Services Allocation & Utilization Assistance Computational Science Support Network Operations and Integration Services Data & Networking Support Monitoring and Measurement Services Monitoring & Measurement Operations Technology Translation Services Pilot/Development Phase Operations Production Phase Operations ACCESS Coordination Office (ACO) Communications & Outreach Specifically, in this solicitation, NSF calls for proposals for five independently managed yet tightly cooperative services along the following tracks: 1) Allocation Services; 2) End User Support Services; 3) Operations and Integration Services; 4) Monitoring & Measurement Services; and 5) Technology Translation Services.

These services are expected to: Provide key capabilities including the discovery of and access to available resources, access to relevant and timely expert technical guidance and focused instruction on effective uses of these CI capabilities, and support for developmental efforts to support the evolving portfolio of NSF-funded S&E; Ensure the effective management, operation, monitoring and measurement, evolution, and overall use of computing resources, and integrate these resources into a coherent, coordinated national CI ecosystem; Increase user accessibility, enable collaboration, simplify use of CI in dynamic system-of-systems scenarios, support access to relevant data, and enable timely access to novel technologies and solutions; and Proposals submitted to this solicitation must be responsive to one of the tracks as defined below.

Proposals will be considered for funding only within their selected track. A proposal cannot attempt to respond to more than one track. Track 1 - Allocation Services NSF expects to fund one award in Track 1 at up to $7,500,000 total for a duration of five years, subject to availability of funds.

The successful Allocation Services awardee will serve a forward-looking, community-based facilitation role to enable broad access to allocatable NSF-funded resources using fair and transparent mechanisms. Stakeholders for allocation services will include the Nation's research and education community, as well as NSF-funded CI resource providers.

The successful awardee will collaborate with CI resource providers to implement mechanisms for ensuring that the unique capabilities provided by the resource are equitably allocated to the S&E community.

The successful awardee is also expected to closely engage with the S&E community to understand the evolving nature of the scientific discovery workflow and be sufficiently agile to adapt the allocation process to maximize impact to S&E research.

Moreover, the successful awardee is expected to work with the End User Support Services awardee (Track 2) to ensure that coherent information about the available resources and access request mechanisms are well advertised and supported throughout the broad S&E community.

The Allocation Services track is responsible for developing equitable access to NSF-funded CI resources for the Nation's S&E research and education community with the goal of enabling discoveries at scales beyond the reach of an individual or regional academic organization.

CI resources that will be allocated must include the range of computing resources funded in the NSF advanced computing systems portfolio (including Leadership-class Computing and Advanced Computing Systems & Services ) as well as NSF-funded CI resource providers that have committed to provisioning resources and services to the wider national S&E community, such as those funded through the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) and Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) programs, and any other resources deemed necessary by the proposer to enable transformative research in next-generation, end-to-end S&E discovery workflows.

Proposers to Track 1 are requested to detail plans for three defined activities: a) Allocation Services; b) Innovative Pilots; and c) a Service Model. The listed plans are required, but plans for additional relevant activities at the proposer's discretion are welcome. Proposers are requested to present an Allocation Services plan as part of the Project Description.

This section should detail near-term plans to evolve the current XSEDE Resource Allocation (XRAC) process , with concrete actions to progressively incorporate innovation and efficiencies, such as, but not limited to, leveraging off-the-shelf software components, commercial cloud computing services, new modes of evaluation, new methods for allocation of non-computing resources, etc. Proposers must describe how the proposed Allocation Services will transition into the role currently performed by the XRAC process incorporating all the resources currently funded in the NSF advanced computing systems portfolio, including the NSF leadership-class computing system Frontera , High Throughput Computing (HTC) environments such as PATh/OSG, and CI resource providers funded through the Advanced Computing Systems and Services (ACSS) program .

Proposers must describe annual evaluation metrics and targets to ensure planned goals are being met. Additionally, proposers are requested to detail a longer-term vision (Innovative Pilots plan) to examine novel and potentially disruptive new allocation models and processes to incorporate the agility and responsiveness needed to address the rapidly-evolving research and CI resource provider landscape.

Proposers are requested to outline comprehensive plans for implementing novel allocation pilot(s) with the goal of responding to new emerging technologies, resources classes and usage modes (e.g., cloud services, HTC environments, distributed and federated resources, testbeds and prototype systems, etc.), new and diverse application classes (machine learning-based, data-driven, online/real-time, elastic, long-running, high-throughput, etc.), as well as plans to enable allocation of other elements of the CI ecosystem (e.g., network resources, storage, etc.) that are relevant to end-to-end application workflows.

These pilots must include evaluation plans with annual metrics and targets to measure progress towards a goal of successful transition-to-operations in the third or fourth year of an award. Proposers are requested to describe their Service Model to the S&E community, the NSF-funded CI resource providers, and the End User Support Services track (Track 2), as well as any other tracks defined in this solicitation as appropriate.

This service model must include effective processes for on-boarding and engaging with new NSF-funded CI resources to ensure that the unique capabilities provisioned by the resource are made available to the S&E community.

Furthermore, the service model must describe a well-defined process interface to the End User Support Services track (Track 2) to ensure effective communication with, and direct support of, the S&E research community with respect to the proposed allocation process(es). Other elements of the service model that will promote effective and impactful execution of the allocation services should also be described.

The PIs for the proposal awarded in this track will be expected to serve on the ACCESS Executive Council, as managed by the ACCESS Coordination Office (ACO). Please review the Proposal Preparation and Submission Instructions Section below for more information on the specific sections required for proposals responding to this track.

Track 2 - End User Support Services This track expects to fund one award at up to $10,000,000 total for a duration of five years, subject to availability of funds. The End User Support Services track comprises coordinated activities that ensure a high-quality productive experience for prospective and current users when engaging with the NSF-funded CI resource providers at any stage.

The successful End User Support Services awardee will serve end users with planned, pending, or current allocations on NSF-funded CI resources, or those who are otherwise utilizing associated services (e.g., data and software services).

Additional stakeholders include members of the wider community of prospective and current end users whose computational S&E interests intersect with the capabilities provided by the broader NSF-funded national CI ecosystem. End users may include individuals, groups, or projects such as Science Gateways, CI centers of excellence, and related computational infrastructure community organizations and bodies.

Moreover, the successful awardee is expected to interface with the Allocation Services awardee (Track 1), the Operations and Integration Services awardee (Track 3), and individual NSF-funded CI resource providers. Proposals to Track 2 must detail plans for four defined activities: a) General User Assistance; b) Allocation and Utilization Assistance; c) End User Training; and d) development of a Computational Science Support Network.

Plans for the activities listed above are required, but plans for additional relevant activities at the proposer's discretion are welcome. Note that End User Support Services activities funded via this track are not expected to include general CI community learning and workforce development, which is separately supported through OAC's Learning and Workforce Development programs.

The General User Assistance plan should detail how the proposed project will develop, publish, and maintain information about available ACCESS resources, services, processes, and contact points on a public website, i.e., the ACCESS portal. Such content should be developed and updated in close coordination with other ACCESS services, the computational resource providers, and the ACO.

Allocation and Utilization Assistance The Allocation and Utilization Assistance plan should detail how the activity will, in conjunction with the General User Assistance plan, respond to queries from external individuals (customers) via dedicated, circumscribed staff who rely extensively on coordination with, reach back to, and hand-off to Allocation Services and relevant computational resource providers as appropriate.

Both the General User Assistance and Allocation and Utilization Assistance activities will be required to log, track, and follow-up to customer queries for assistance, using a centralized ACCESS ticketing system to ensure that such queries are fully resolved and completed to the users' satisfaction.

The End User Training plan should detail how the proposed project will organize and develop training materials, courses, and events disseminated via the ACCESS web portal and ACCESS-supported workshops. The plan should also detail how online courses will be made publicly available, and how ACCESS training workshops will be advertised to prospective and current users.

Planned training activities should focus on teaching users how to make maximal, efficient and effective utilization of ACCESS services and NSF-funded CI resources. Proposers should describe how curricular content will be developed in close partnership with the resource providers and with other experts as appropriate.

Planned training activities should also be accomplished through participation, presentations, and training sessions at larger community outreach events and conferences.

Computational Science Support Network (CSSN) Proposers are requested to describe plans to develop and foster a Computational Science Support Network (CSSN) that will assimilate and coordinate the human capital that is separately funded by NSF at the national, regional and campus levels, and engage with the relevant existing community organizations and structures.

This includes, but is not limited, to the existing Campus Champions service, Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC) , and activities currently supported through the XSEDE project , among others, as well as relevant projects and individuals funded in the future.

The CSSN will actively assist prospective, new, and current users through activities ranging from campus-level, one-on-one user engagements to regional and national community events.

The activities of the End User Support Services track are expected to be managed as an integrated and coordinated set, which maintains clear and well-managed connections, and dialog with external users and stakeholders and with interfaces within the ACCESS framework.

The End User Support Services track will be expected to develop appropriate performance benchmarks, metrics, and measures to continually assess them - including through external independent means - and to present the results semi-annually on the public End User Support Services web portal. The PIs for the proposal awarded in this track will be expected to serve on the ACCESS Executive Council, as managed by the ACO.

Please review the Proposal Preparation and Submission Instructions Section below for more information on the specific sections required for proposals responding to this track. Track 3 - Operations and Integration Services This track expects to fund one award at up to $20,000,000 total for a duration of five years, subject to availability of funds.

Successful coordination of CI systems and services with wide geographical distribution, unique capabilities, and broad yet complementary user communities will require an integrative operational framework.

The successful Operations and Integration Services awardee will provide the core integrative services, processes, and policies in support of the assimilation and operations of resources that are part of the NSF-funded national CI ecosystem with the goal of enabling a coordinated, secure, robust, and usable platform for transformative research across all of S&E.

NSF expects that the services in Track 3 will provide coordinating functions to the resource providers to enable the different elements of the NSF-funded national CI ecosystem to work together effectively and securely.

Some of the principal goals of the coordinating activities will be to enhance the cybersecurity of the ecosystem, enable data sharing and information dissemination where appropriate, and provide technical support and best practices to assist in resource provider integration and operations.

The primary stakeholders for Operations and Integration Services will be relevant personnel at NSF-funded CI resource providers, including the operations and maintenance, end user support, and CI research staff.

The successful Track 3 awardee is expected to have well-defined relationships and divisions of responsibilities with such personnel, including, but not limited to the implementation of policies for on-boarding and integrating into the NSF-funded national CI ecosystem.

The successful awardee must maintain sufficient flexibility in their processes to be able to support the wide diversity of systems and services within this ecosystem, including future NSF-funded CI resource providers with new capabilities that are not currently represented. Proposals to Track 3 must include plans for the following key activities: a) Operational Support; b) Data and Networking Support; and c) Cybersecurity Support.

The following plans are required, but plans for additional relevant activities at the proposer's discretion are welcome. The Operational Support plan should detail how the proposed service would function as an information sharing platform between the operations and maintenance staff at the NSF-funded CI resource providers.

Such activities could include, but are not limited to, sharing best practices for the configuration and management of computational systems, the development of resource integration frameworks, and authentication strategies. Data and Networking Support The Data and Networking Support plan should focus on how the existing data and networking infrastructure for the NSF CI ecosystem can best be leveraged and coordinated.

The plan should include information on how coordination of data and networking capabilities and services provided by the current XSEDE award will be transitioned into the vision of the proposer. Furthermore, the plan should detail how the proposer will work with the Monitoring & Measurement Services track on best practices for sharing performance data and improving data transfer and other networking performance.

The plan for Cybersecurity Support should detail how the proposer will work with service providers to ensure a safe, secure, and trustworthy shared CI ecosystem. The plan should detail how continuity from the cybersecurity activities of XSEDE will be maintained and transitioned to the proposer's vision.

Note that activities funded via Track 3 are not expected to include helpdesk-level support specific to a given resource provider, which is separately supported through operations and maintenance (O&M) funds in OAC's service provider acquisition programs, including the ACSS program. Activities funded under this track are also not meant to provide hardware, software, or other infrastructure support for other tracks in this solicitation.

The PIs for the proposal awarded in this track will be expected to serve on the ACCESS Executive Council, as managed by the ACO. Please review the Proposal Preparation and Submission Instructions Section below for more information on the specific sections required for proposals responding to this track.

Track 4 - Monitoring & Measurement Services This track expects to fund one award at up to $10,000,000 total for a duration of five years, subject to availability of funds. NSF invests in a national CI ecosystem that enables a broad and diverse set of requirements, users, and usage modes from all areas of S&E research and education.

Deep instrumentation, monitoring, measurement, and reporting across all layers of the systems and services making up the CI ecosystem is therefore essential to providing the situational awareness necessary for achieving increased levels of efficiency, understanding, autonomous operations, robustness, and performance.

The Monitoring & Measurement Services track will serve in the important role of providing an integrated and open data collection and analytics platform to ensure optimal performance, robustness, and usage of NSF-funded resources (including compute, storage, networking, software/data services, etc.), as well as to facilitate timely decision making for a broad range of stakeholders.

The Monitoring & Measurement Services track is expected to engage with a broad range of stakeholders. This will include CI resource owners, S&E research users, CI software developers, as well as future CI capacity and capability planners.

The successful awardee must engage with the range of CI resource owners and/or operators (including compute, storage, networking, software/data services, etc.) to successfully assimilate a wide range of custom or third-party instrumentation data into their proposed services.

With the assimilated data, the successful awardee must provide services to improve the utilization, performance, and effectiveness of S&E research users on CI resources. Additionally, these services will allow resource owners to better understand how to tune policies and procedures for maximizing impact to the S&E research user community.

The services must also allow CI software developers to optimize code performance to ultimately improve S&E output productivity. Moreover, the services must provide useful information to CI capacity and capability planners for evidence-based decision making. The data captured and visualizations developed by the successful awardee are expected to be shared with the S&E community to the greatest extent possible.

The Monitoring & Measurement Services awardee is expected to interface with the awardees of the other tracks defined in this solicitation to provide additional utility to the stakeholders as appropriate. Proposers to this track are requested to provide the following defined plans: a) Monitoring & Measurement (M&M) Operations; b) Service Model; and c) Data Analytics Framework.

The listed plans are required, but plans for additional relevant activities at the proposer's discretion are welcome. Currently, the XSEDE Metrics Service (XMS), using the XDMoD tool , supports the tracking of operational, performance, and usage data for CI resources funded through the NSF ACSS program.

Proposers must provide an Operations plan with a detailed schedule to begin taking on the production operational role currently performed by the XMS project within nine months of award.

Note that NSF has also invested in a portfolio of monitoring and measurement research and development over the years, including networking-based monitoring and measurement such as the Center for Applied Internet Analysis (CAIDA) , Route Views , NetSage , and perfSONAR . Integration and/or interoperability with existing network monitoring and measurement services in use by the community is encouraged where appropriate.

If a staged deployment of critical features for the Monitoring and Measurement Services is proposed,