Notes for the ITC-Research Computing Standing Committee Meeting
April 28, 2008 at 10:30 AM
2015 Ivy Road, 1st Floor Conference Room

Members: Alice, Hamp, Jim, Joe S., Mark, Mike, Robin, Terry, Tim S., Tim T., Tom and members of Systems, Research Computing and ACHS as desired

Attending: Alice, Hamp, Jim, Joe S., Mark, Tim S., Tom, Ed, Katherine
Chair: Tom
Recorder: Alice

I. Corrections to minutes from last meeting on March 31, 2008? (Click to review the agenda from this meeting)

II. Old Business:

• Linux Clusters: Dogwood, Elder
• Downtime for UPS switchover: Dogwood and Elder left. (UPSes are here)
• Dogwood and Elder should get done in May.
• Update on CSAC, NSF PetaScale Track 2 meetings, and related.
• Computational Science and HPC Center formation
• CSAC Meeting Wednesday, April 2^nd -- there was some discussion about having a computational science speaker series again next year and the consensus was to do it again – suggestions for future speakers were collected. There was discussion about a ‘resource allocation and governance structure’ for the ‘HPC center’.
• Storage needs assessment -- LSP dialog, survey(Joe)
• The goal of the survey is to try to get at what is important to users with respect to storage options. The survey will be reviewed before it gets put up.
• Cluster node purchase by faculty – revisit
• There is potential interest from a Chemical Engineering faculty candidate – Hamp sent him some estimates – and we’ll see.
• UVa/Univ of Michigan/Stanford collaborations update/report. No update.

III. New Business:

• Report on VT visit (Click to review the agenda from this meeting)
• There will be another VaTech/UVa High Performance Parallel Computing Bootcamp from July 28 – August 2 – the Bootcamp will be held at VaTech this year.
• There was discussion about visualization and Andrew’s grid projects.
• Tim T.'s new assignment
• Tim will be moving to the Security and Policy Office in 4-6 weeks. ITC and the Library are working on the ‘gaps’ left as a result of this move.
• Future role of RC Standing Committee
• There was some discussion about what the roles of the RC Standing Committee and the new faculty resource allocation and policy board might become – but mostly we need to wait and see – and maybe revisit this topic in 6-12 months.
• Any news, information from E-School? SURA? CSAC brownbags? UCIT? Other organizations?
• Any other Items?
• Hamp reported that Purchasing might be getting closer to resolving our issues with Gaussian – if this does get worked out, we can get a different version and get rid of the IRIX machines.
• Which queuing system to go to?
• There was some discussion about which queuing system to switch to – Katherine will do a pros/cons for the queuing systems that are candidates. Also the new faculty group may want to have some input into the options and choices. Tom asked about whether any queuing systems can look at other clusters and see other queues.
• There was also some discussion about ‘good’ times of the year to make changes (e.g. changes to the queuing system): if we do it over the summer (as we usually try to do) then faculty come back in the fall and have to learn a new system at the start of a new semester. Clearly we do not want to wait and do it at the last minute – and we certainly want to do one cluster at a time.
• Jim asked who is using Elder with its large memory – there seems to be use from the medical side of UVa.
• Completion and review promises and requests from this meeting.

IV. Adjourn by 11:45 and next meeting

• Next Scheduled Meeting of ITC ResComp Standing Committee:) Monday, June 30, 10:30 AM in ITC-2015 Ivy Road, Room #102 (First Floor Conference Room)!
  Please send suggestions, additions, corrections to: Tom or Alice