Minutes for the ITC-Research Computing Management Meeting
December 14, 2006 at 8:00AM
2015 Ivy Road, 2nd Floor Conference Room

Members: Alice, Hamp, Jim, Joe S., Mark, Mike, Robin, Terry, Tim S., Tom S., Tim T.

Attending: Alice, Hamp, Jim, Joe S., Mark, Mike, Robin, Tim S., Tom S., Tim T.

Chair: Tim T. Recorder: Alice Howard

I. Corrections to minutes from last meeting on October 30, 2006? None.
( Click to review the agenda from this meeting )

II. Old Business:

· Condo-Cluster 2, aka dogwood-

o Steven de Wakker (EnvSci faculty) wants to buy nodes of dogwood - but interested in no queue wait. (Tim T.) This is an opportunity to try the "set-aside" condo cluster approach and sell him some existing nodes.

• HS faculty (Steve Rich) may purchase 8-16 of existing nodes when he gets here – he too might want to try the “dedicated nodes” option. (Tom in contact with Bill Woolfolk on this.)
• Network switch problem, testing with NorTel switch, how to proceed?
• Will switch to the Nortel switches over Christmas break.
• Cedar Cluster:
• Avaki gateway setup-New software version released yet? Need to ping again.
• 64 bit test cluster status? Gotten two user requests for 64-bit software/cluster usage – Hamp will find out the status
• Aspen & Birch Clusters:
• Request for Aspen nodes from EnvSci. Despite my best effort to discourage, still interested.
• Part of issue is grad. students in EnviSci have trouble getting jobs through the queue in timely fashion. Can we find ways to deal with this problem?
• Can we transfer 8-10 nodes to them? First talk to the LSP supervisor and get a better understanding of their issues and needs.
• Renewing maintenance support on Birch for another year?
• Will NOT renew Birch maintenance contract for another year – hence may have to let a few nodes die if replacement parts are unavailable
• Parallel use is on definite increase. Many VASP users on birch.
• Oak Cluster: "round-robin" logon enabled
• Teal Cluster: Any issues or concerns?
• Need for running Gaussian until/unless licensing issues can be overcome.
• Andrew Grimshaw's request for Linux front-end to campus grid project – still waiting on next version of Avaki.
• Are all clusters now running Marty Humphrey's GLOBUS gatekeeper client that does direct file transfers?
• Any update on conversion to authenticate to Eservices via Kerberos for Unix logins/connections to blue.unix, HSM & Longtmp? (AKA Phase 2 of Netbadge CDP).
• This transition will involve a major user education issue – especially for blue.unix users.
• No timeline for this project yet – it has to wait until after the password synchronization web site is up.
• ftp to blue.unix is being phased out, ITC-Service Transitions CDP working on schedule.
• Infrastructure Supporting Research Task Force (https://www1.seas.virginia.edu/itrtf/). (Maillist is itrtf@virginia.edu)
• CI-TEAM NSF proposal funded. Course has a time (MWF, 9-10) and course number (CS494 Computational Mathematics), fully enrolled (40+ undergrads, mostly 3rd & 4th year, mix of E-School disciplines, not all CS.
• UVa's participation in ORNL's response to NSF RFP for next generation/iteration of Supercomputing Center . The full proposal is due on 2/2/07.
• Update on longtmp and HSM upgrades? (HSM scheduled for next spring07 semester)
• Longtmp switched to NetApp - more disk space now. Snapshot frequency should be?
• SURA survey request- Phil Parrish's reply to pull together working group to respond.
• Or should we concentrate on trying to find some users who could run on the SURA grid? Tim T. will do email.

III. New Business:

· Future of UnixLab in E225? Currently has eight Sun Ultra60 workstations that are at least 5 years old that get almost no use. Continue to provide? Continue to maintain "Lab"/machines in E225? NO – but need to let users know!

o Plan/vision for Research Computing Lab in Brown is in spring or summer (depending on funding) to put a one or two each of Linux, Sun and Macintosh workstations in there. So little demand by anyone to work on Unix workstation directly.

· Security concern about password storage on clusters by LSP in Psychology Dept. Tim Nowaczyk (TAN7F) left me voicemail message.

· What to do for next “cluster”? Or -- how do we want to allocate the $150 hardware funds?

o Do a combination of a 24-36 infiniband cluster (for fine-grained parallel) to replace birch; PLUS

o 1 or 2 very large memory computers (not clusters) – 4way CPU with 32 GB memory, and with Linux OS to replace “Athena”. Requires 64-bit kernel.

· Have two proposals for “buy-in” to clusters (new one and dogwood): one gives priority to running jobs anytime you want by dedicating X purchased nodes to the exclusive use of the researcher; the other gives priority queue access to the entire cluster.

IV. Adjourn by 9:30 and next meeting

· Do we need to meet on Monday, 12/18, 10:30 AM ? Yes.

· Next Scheduled Meeting of ITC ResComp Standing Committee: Monday, January 29th, 10:30 AM in ITC-2015 Ivy Road, Room #220.

Please send suggestions, additions, corrections to: Tim Tolson or Alice Howard

Go to: ITC Research Computing Committee Home Page