Summary of work undertaken
In 2022, DiRAC hosted two workshops to explore the use of workflow mapping as a means to define the technical requirements of future UKRI large-scale computing services. The goals of the follow-up workshop in late 2023, and of this report, were to expand the discussion to include all aspects of the Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) Ecosystem and to move the discussion of computing requirements forward ahead of the various formal requirements gathering exercises which are planned for early 2024 (e.g. STFC Exascale Requirements; UKRI Pathway to Exascale requirements).
Given the broad scope of the topics covered and areas of research represented, there is a natural diversity in some of the requirements for the DRI ecosystem if it is to support the full range of UK science. As will be seen in this report, there are cases where these differences appear rather stark and may require multiple, complementary solutions to be deployed in order to meet mutually inconsistent requirements. At this stage, we have therefore retained the conflicting requirements in this document to encourage further discussion of potential solutions as the DRI ecosystem is defined and deployed.
Our intention is that this report can be the basis for additional consultation leading to a science-driven DRI ecosystem which will deliver for UK researchers in both academia and industry.