The Office of the Chief Information Officer held an all-hands meeting on Feb. 17. Presenting were myself, Jon Bakken, CCD division head and deputy CIO, and Jim Amundson, SCD division head. Here are our top five takeaways:
- Our highest priority is operating our scientific data facilities for the benefit of the lab scientific program. This is a lab core competency, and we need to do this in a safe and secure manner.
- The evolving computing landscape for the DUNE/HL-LHC era means we need to change the way we do things. We are leveraging exascale resources like supercomputers to avoid having to dramatically expand Fermilab’s CPU capacity; we will provide computing support for artificial intelligence efforts; and we will need a new mass storage strategy.
- We have made significant progress and are on track to successfully meet our PEMP goals to implement multifactor authentication (MFA) for email and web security protocol (http to https). People will soon need an RSA token to access email while offsite. Read more at https://news.fnal.gov/2020/02/mfa-for-offsite-email/.
- A focus group was formed in response to discussions following the release of the lab Climate Survey results. The focus group is working with WDRS and Computing senior management, and progress is being made.
- Being in a difficult budget situation, our strategy is to ask our staff to be flexible in their work assignments. We want to preserve our institutional knowledge, but shifting priorities will continue to require moving resources into different areas. We thank the staff members who have shown this flexibility.
Liz Sexton-Kennedy is Fermilab’s chief information officer.