4 ms·

I appreciate your comment and links (BTW, I'm slightly familiar with NWChem and similar software :-). Having said that, I'm not sure how your comment addresses

by ablekh 6y ago

I appreciate your comment and links (BTW, I'm slightly familiar with NWChem and similar software :-). Having said that, I'm not sure how your comment addresses my question. You are talking about internally-developed software transfer from the lab to external users, whereas my use case is delivering externally-developed commercial software to national labs' users, a value transfer in the opposite direction. Care to comment on this aspect, if you're familiar with relevant procurement processes?

sseagull 6y ago
I can speak at least a little bit about my field (computational chemistry). A lot of academic software is free and/or open source (like NWChem). These are installed by the cluster support for use by anyone. This is helpful because the software can be optimized beyond what most end users can do. Beyond that, a lot of academics run custom software or uncommon packages. By definition, many academics are doing something no one else has really done, so they are writing their own software and then running that on the clusters. There is one large commercial package that takes up a significant amount of time on many clusters -- VASP. But no idea the details of how that ends up on HPC systems :) My impression from running on lots of clusters is that the software installed is more by 'pull' (user request) than 'push' (cluster dictating what is used). Clusters have to be very accommodating of user software. If you are working in computational chemistry, I would be interested in hearing more details (if you are willing).
- ablekh 6y ago
  I appreciate your feedback. My question above is not about the mechanics of deploying commercial scientific software (it certainly somewhat varies between fields and organizations, though common themes and methods are pretty standard). It is about the procurement processes within national labs ecosystem. That is, about governmental gating / filters "in front of" vendors' go-to-market strategy and processes (RFPs, pilots etc.). Re: more details - I'm not working in computational chemistry per se, but in the adjacent and closely related, as you understand, field of materials science and engineering. Will be happy to discuss my plans (within limits - currently very early and in stealth) through direct channels. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or shoot me an e-mail (see above).
  - lmeyerov 6y ago
    We do visual GPU graph tech close to core national lab missions (sec, fraud, misinfo, genetics, social, ...) so are in a similar boat. While I love the folks doing related work at PNNL (and am inspired!), I also recognize, done wrong, we can be existentially threatening to internal groups building related things. Instead of aggressively persuing contracts and spending effort getting into nasty politics, we let the users come to us: we are there when the internal tools groups rather do other stuff vs do the multi-year investment. We are now focusing a lot more on enabling researchers to find and try us on public cloud / the web -- this road takes literally years longer for reaching those teams, but these are government labs, so that's the default assumption to begin with. (Likewise, not the cornerstone of our revenue.) Years later, folks are starting to write RFPs using us. As a scientist, I love the community, and respect that we should assist it appropriately.
    - ablekh 6y ago
      Thank you for sharing your thoughts. If I understood you correctly (the text's meaning appears somewhat fuzzy), your go-to-market strategy is to first collaborate (and/or consult?) - perhaps, through your "PoCs and Rapid Prototyping" services - and then allow users to "pull" your capabilities and core service into their labs. Right? Having said that, I haven't seen any science-focused channels, resources or offers on your website ...
      - lmeyerov 6y ago
        I do not advocate a go to market that prioritizes these markets. We started more with enterprise/federal data architects, which involved a different go to market - not self serve on a website. We (and our broader market) are now at point where it is easier for us to launch self-serve and help adjacent roles. Stay tuned :) This fits better with national labs market too afaict. We already quite heavily discount on-prem for edu etc, and I expect we will see that carry through here: bottom-up early cloud use -> discounted on-prem. As budgets are mostly hw or small, and follow slow grant/annual cycles, hard to see going another way. Two market trends relevant: -- Federal: without quite special circumstances, can easily take 3+ years for a new fed sales team to pay for itself -- Edu: small budgets to begin with Better to target fast happy-to-spend teams and as tech/sales/product gets easy, easier to help adjacent markets. Got burned whenever we didn't :)
philipkglass 6y ago
I misunderstood your original question. When you asked how they procure domain specific application software I thought you meant "how do they get it?," which includes writing it themselves. (Not just procure as in "procurement" processes.)
- ablekh 6y ago
  No problem, we are on the same page now. Thank you, again, for your feedback.

by ablekh 6y ago

sseagull 6y ago

I can speak at least a little bit about my field (computational chemistry). A lot of academic software is free and/or open source (like NWChem). These are installed by the cluster support for use by anyone. This is helpful because the software can be optimized beyond what most end users can do. Beyond that, a lot of academics run custom software or uncommon packages. By definition, many academics are doing something no one else has really done, so they are writing their own software and then running that on the clusters. There is one large commercial package that takes up a significant amount of time on many clusters -- VASP. But no idea the details of how that ends up on HPC systems :) My impression from running on lots of clusters is that the software installed is more by 'pull' (user request) than 'push' (cluster dictating what is used). Clusters have to be very accommodating of user software. If you are working in computational chemistry, I would be interested in hearing more details (if you are willing).

ablekh 6y ago
I appreciate your feedback. My question above is not about the mechanics of deploying commercial scientific software (it certainly somewhat varies between fields and organizations, though common themes and methods are pretty standard). It is about the procurement processes within national labs ecosystem. That is, about governmental gating / filters "in front of" vendors' go-to-market strategy and processes (RFPs, pilots etc.). Re: more details - I'm not working in computational chemistry per se, but in the adjacent and closely related, as you understand, field of materials science and engineering. Will be happy to discuss my plans (within limits - currently very early and in stealth) through direct channels. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or shoot me an e-mail (see above).
- lmeyerov 6y ago
  We do visual GPU graph tech close to core national lab missions (sec, fraud, misinfo, genetics, social, ...) so are in a similar boat. While I love the folks doing related work at PNNL (and am inspired!), I also recognize, done wrong, we can be existentially threatening to internal groups building related things. Instead of aggressively persuing contracts and spending effort getting into nasty politics, we let the users come to us: we are there when the internal tools groups rather do other stuff vs do the multi-year investment. We are now focusing a lot more on enabling researchers to find and try us on public cloud / the web -- this road takes literally years longer for reaching those teams, but these are government labs, so that's the default assumption to begin with. (Likewise, not the cornerstone of our revenue.) Years later, folks are starting to write RFPs using us. As a scientist, I love the community, and respect that we should assist it appropriately.
  - ablekh 6y ago
    Thank you for sharing your thoughts. If I understood you correctly (the text's meaning appears somewhat fuzzy), your go-to-market strategy is to first collaborate (and/or consult?) - perhaps, through your "PoCs and Rapid Prototyping" services - and then allow users to "pull" your capabilities and core service into their labs. Right? Having said that, I haven't seen any science-focused channels, resources or offers on your website ...
    - lmeyerov 6y ago
      I do not advocate a go to market that prioritizes these markets. We started more with enterprise/federal data architects, which involved a different go to market - not self serve on a website. We (and our broader market) are now at point where it is easier for us to launch self-serve and help adjacent roles. Stay tuned :) This fits better with national labs market too afaict. We already quite heavily discount on-prem for edu etc, and I expect we will see that carry through here: bottom-up early cloud use -> discounted on-prem. As budgets are mostly hw or small, and follow slow grant/annual cycles, hard to see going another way. Two market trends relevant: -- Federal: without quite special circumstances, can easily take 3+ years for a new fed sales team to pay for itself -- Edu: small budgets to begin with Better to target fast happy-to-spend teams and as tech/sales/product gets easy, easier to help adjacent markets. Got burned whenever we didn't :)

philipkglass 6y ago

I misunderstood your original question. When you asked how they procure domain specific application software I thought you meant "how do they get it?," which includes writing it themselves. (Not just procure as in "procurement" processes.)

ablekh 6y ago
No problem, we are on the same page now. Thank you, again, for your feedback.