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Sustainability & Transition

The MESA prototype must demonstrate a credible path to production sustainability for the follow-on Category I or II NSF operations proposal. Sustainability work is concentrated in Phase 2 (continued), Months 18–24.

Strategy

MESA pursues a multi-track sustainability model rather than relying on a single funding source:

  1. Follow-on NSF operations award (Category I or II) — primary track. Phase 2 (continued, Months 18–24) delivers the submission-ready package.
  2. CyVerse cost-recovery model — calibrate per-resource cost recovery for sustained prototype use beyond the award period using existing institutional cost-recovery infrastructure.
  3. ACCESS-CI / Jetstream-2 allocation — continued GPU and compute access through the standard ACCESS allocation process.
  4. Partner institution contributions — RENCI, ESIIL, NCEMS, AIIRA continue to host data and services they care about.

Empirical hardware specification (WBS 8.0)

The project explicitly produces an empirical hardware spec dataset derived from prototype benchmarks on leveraged infrastructure. This dataset provides measured performance numbers that justify the production hardware ask in the follow-on proposal.

Deliverables (Month 22):

  • Benchmark dataset across Lakehouse query patterns, MCP/RAG latency, iRODS federation throughput, and concurrent-user load.
  • Hardware-spec derivation: GPU/CPU/RAM/storage requirements for the production cluster at 1,500–2,500 user scale.
  • Cost-recovery sustainability-model calibration.

Letters of support (WBS 9.0)

Target: ≥ 8 letters of support from early adopters by Month 23, gathered from ESIIL, NCEMS, AIIRA principals and individual research groups served by the prototype.

After the award closes

All open-source software repositories, documentation (including this site), training materials, and DOIs are hosted on GitHub and CyVerse and remain accessible after award close. The hosted prototype service on Jetstream-2 continues on a best-effort basis under existing institutional support through the gap between this award and the follow-on operations award.