June 25, 2007 Minutes of the ITC-Research Computing Management Meeting

Minutes for the ITC-Research Computing Management Meeting
June 25, 2007 at 10:30 AM
2015 Ivy Road, 1st Floor Conference Room

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

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

I. Connection Question: What contribution to research computing have you made recently or are planning to make in the near future?

Note: (Italics indicate agenda item; normal font, the meeting notes.)

III. Old Business:

Elder.itc cluster: 12 compute nodes and 1 head node: Xeon 5160 (80w) 3.0 GHz, 4MB cache, 32GB (8 x 4 DIMMS) 160 GB HD (mirrored) nodes for new cluster to replace Athena. Have operational by mid-summer.
Elder is up now – should be ready to rollout sometime in July.
One “Elder launch” idea is to give a researcher a chance to use it exclusively – as both a shake-down run and for promotional material. Will solicit researchers.
Retire Athena early August?

Genomics might just use what we have. – Tom says they're not interested for now.
Jim & Hamp will come up with rate for buying "priority" time on dogwood cluster.

The rate issue is related to the queuing issues: we are trying to address “immediate needs” for guaranteed availability (with an advance reservation system) – and would want to have a policy about minimum/maximum number of nodes – and minimum advance notice. We do have some flexibility in setting rates; it does not have to just be a straight cost recovery. Will roll this into the queuing policy topic at the Open Forum for researchers in October.

Tim's group working on testing applications and software on elder.itc and making a table of what's 64-bit, what's 32-bit and any issues, concerns for each package. Will have testing done and report ready by end of June.
Tim/RCS staff will do review of other institutions queuing and cluster purchase programs in preparation for public forum on queuing policies. (for our August meeting)

Linux Clusters: Cedar, Dogwood - any issues, concerns or upcoming updates/changes?

Cluster upgrades this summer, depending on when next version of ROCKS released (RHEL 5 out) otherwise fall break.
We have the Globus GateKeeper on Cedar, Dogwood, and Elder.

Any update or news on VT-UVa IT Collaboration.
HPC Bootcamp August 6 to 17th. Working with VT to finalize syllabus and marketing.

Proposal for Software Licensing for Computational Science and Engineering funded for three years (starting in June 07), then will be re-evaluated.

IV. New Business:

Notification of cluster shutdown for emergency power needs and subsequent Postnews announcement.

Emergency power and shutdowns will be automatic.
Only Hamp’s group will post all downtimes about the clusters – plus automatically post this info to Systems Status page – and will add a reference to res-consult@virginia.edu for more information about downtimes.
Tim will review Hamp’s template and suggest support contact wording.

Engineering has expanded their cluster. And will be on emergency shutdown as well if power outage.

Consider for next meeting (in July): In light of our familiarity with collaborative model of communities, consider using some of these tools. We cannot be a "community" but many of the tools of community and powerful speaking could make the meetings more productive and enjoyable.

stating our possibility
establish operating principles
member roles (steward, knowledge manager, outreach manager) which rotate periodically?

Any other Items?
Completion: Review promises and requests from this meeting.
Final or unsaid thoughts to share?

V. Adjourned at 11:20

Next Scheduled Meeting of ITC ResComp Standing Committee: Monday, July 30th, 10:30 AM in ITC-2015 Ivy Road, Room #102 First Floor Conference Room)!

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

NOTE: (italics indicate agenda item, regular text the meeting notes.)

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