Sustainability in the Tapis Framework

Presenter Information

Joe Stubbs, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Richard Cardone, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Sean Cleveland, University of HawaiiFollow
Gwen Jacobs, University of Hawaii - SystemFollow
Michael Packard, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Anagha Jamthe, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Smruti Padhy, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Steve Black, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Steve Terry, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Julia Looney, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Joseph Meiring, University of Texas at AustinFollow
Maytal Dahan, University of Texas at AustinFollow

Location

Online

Event Website

https://hicss.hawaii.edu/

Start Date

4-1-2021 12:00 AM

End Date

9-1-2021 12:00 AM

Description

As more research depends fundamentally on software, sustainability becomes increasingly critical. Nevertheless, despite valiant efforts from a growing number of researchers and practitioners, a basic understanding of best-practices for sustainable software remains elusive. In this paper, we review the specific practices and strategies that have helped to sustain Tapis, a cyberinfastructure project that has been in use for over a decade. The Tapis framework is an open-source, software-as-a-service Application Programming Interface (API) for collaborative, automated, reproducible computational research which began as the Foundation API for the iPlant Collaborative Project in 2008, and today is used by tens of thousands of individuals across more than a dozen active projects. This paper describes our multi-faceted approach to sustaining an increasingly complex ecosystem of software, documentation and other digital assets, including both technical and organizational strategies for minimizing the cost of sustainment while maximizing available resources for sustainment activities.