Minutes for the ITC-Research Computing Management Meeting
October 5, 2007 at 9:00 AM
2015 Ivy Road, 1st Floor Conference Room

 

 

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

Attending: Aron (for Joe S), Alice Hamp, Jim, Lori (for Mark), Robin, Tom, Tim T

Chair: Tim T. Recorder: Alice Howard

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

 

I. Connection Question: chair forgot to ask…

 

II. Corrections to minutes from last meeting on July 30, 2007? None.

(Click to review the agenda from this meeting)

III. Old Business:

• Impending Cluster rollout and retirement
• Elder transition went very smoothly.
• Athena retirement – was fine -- without even a whimper.
• Tim/RCS staff will do review of other institutions queuing and cluster purchase programs in preparation for public forum on queuing policies – note: we should do the forum before Thanksgiving or next semester. Katherine has gathered some information while at BioMed HPC Conference in Boston.
• Complaints from Hossein Haj-Hariri (hh2b), Donald A. Jordan, Jr (dj8n) in Mech/Aero in mid-August: Not heard from them since – might have been related to the HPC bootcamp.
• Linux Clusters: Cedar, Dogwood – no issues, etc.
• Cluster upgrades, depending on when next version of ROCKS released (RHEL 5 out): RHEL 5 not out yet, and no indication when coming – so no update plan.
• Retiring/removing Sun Ultra60s from E225. Complaint from one faculty (Ben Calhoun) & resolution – EE helped with resolution.
• Update on setup of SunBlade 150 & Ultra60 for RCL? No update – these are old systems, likely just surplus– Robin will look for some newer desktop boxes.
• Linux workstations (two or three) at RCL? These to be purchased and tried with a public login, Tim to coordinate with Hamp on specs for computers and setup.
• VT-UVa IT Collaboration?
• HPC Bootcamp: Interest in having one during J-Term; Mike, James, TimT and Tom willing to help; we have been asked to give “Intro to Unix” short course too.
• Gaussian use by UVa researchers at VT – TimT is talking to them.
• Retiring solaris.license.
• Update: not announced. When we do it, we will treat it like the retirement of aix.license. ITC-Transistions CDP notified?
• Oak cluster upgrade - testing applications under Solaris 10. Went smoothly.

 

IV. New Business:

• Gaussian on teak.itc update on Gaussian procurement and on teak?
• Could we use the VaTech agreement? Is theirs for source code? Mike Warrick in Procurement working with contact at Gaussian who thinks he’s going to be able to write a contract that will be acceptable to owner of Gaussian and us.
• Time for our next "condo cluster" planning - what, when, policies about procurement.
• Request from Economics dept. – they are interested in some kind of hardware purchase and also interested in having some dedicated access.
• All agree that will offer dedicated/restricted access (with 80% rule) and possibly try pre-emptive queuing for these nodes.
• CSAC request to Tom for report on current cluster use vis-a-vis PBS queue use/analysis.
• Tom looked at PBS queue logs before and after bootcamp – found 8 users requesting significant numbers of processors – would any of these be candidates for TeraGrid? Tom will get in touch about getting accounts – but we lack institutional incentives for researchers to work this way.
• Hamp has identified a couple of users that regularly blow out swap – moving them to Elder.
• Item in announcement of Ariel Gomez's not being re-appointed said as one of his achievements, ...the creation of a Advanced Research and Technology building ...enhancing select interdisciplinary research collaborations (to be completed March 2008): No update.
• Computational Science Speaker Series information.
• First speaker is Larry Smarr, Monday, Oct. 15, noon, in Harrison-Small.
• Input to the drafts by the Commission on the Future of the University? No.
• Should we migrate our document from "ResNotes" web site?
• Yes, to intranet.itc – and have it open to ITC, but not indexed for searching.
• Operating Agreements: notification of attending? rotation of chair and note taker? Others? Think on it.
• Any news, information from E-School? SURA? CSAC brownbags? UCIT? Other organizations?
• Tom suggested making CSAC notes available to ResComp group.
• Any other Items?
• Completion and review promises and requests from this meeting.

 

V. Adjourn by 10:30 and next meeting

• Next Scheduled Meeting of ITC ResComp Standing Committee: Monday, October 29th, 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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