Minutes of the
ITC-Research Computing Standing Committee
Meeting on
Members:
Alice, Bill, Brian, Dawn, Ed, Hamp, Kathy
G., Katherine H., Jim, Mark S., Martha, Michael, Robin, Sue Ellen, Steve,
Terry, Tim S., Joe Simard, Tom S.
Attending:
Alice, Bill, Ed, Hamp, Kathy G., Katherine H., Jim,
Mark S., Robin, Terry, Tim S., Tom S.
I. Corrections to minutes from
the last meeting on
II. Ongoing Discussion Topics:
1. Magnetic
tape retirement – done!
2.
VPN and IP filtering for FlexLM license
daemons. Coming along in
the manner outlined below.
·
Unix Systems set up a separate server;
testing and documentation proceeding; Mathematica
done; working on other packages 1-by-1 and notifying affected users first.
3. UnixLab machines – Console logging turned on and can detect
direct logins (which is sufficient).
Notes:
· We need usage stats to make/justify choices about future uses
for the room – so we want to see who is logging in and out of the console.
· The machines are aging – do we replace with workstations? Or
PCs/linux? Or nodes?
In any event we need to start publicizing that the SGIs
will be going away as they fail – so need to generate a list of who is using
what on the SGIs.
· Decided to put the clustering of the unix
lab machines on a back burner – and instead work on making the orange and teal
cluster ready as a compute cluster.
4.
PBS Pro upgrade on Birch to get in version sync with
5.
Update on
·
Put crick behind ACHS firewall for HIPAA
use -- Tom reports so much trouble with watson (bad performance with database builds and bus
errors) that they might want to move everything back on crick – Robin proposed
testing on a different Sun architecture that she has – do not want to do
anything with crick until get the watson situation
resolved.
·
Teal Cluster: Outstanding (Timeline needed): PBSPro
upgrade. Put 2 processors removed from
crick and put into one teal node; use Craylink to
hook them together. If other 4 CPUs are
compatible, link them as well. Define a
“teal-login” machine – block interactive login on all but teal-login.
·
Orange Cluster: PBSPro upgrade
complete. Define “orange1” as the “orange-login”
machine – block interactive login on all but orange-login.
·
Long term goal is to have routing queues
set up (or Condor-G) so that users can log into central system and submit to
any PBS queue we have.
6.
Intel compiler upgrade:
·
Tie
to upgrade of cluster – can we wait for 2.6 kernel? Can
wait until mid-May at earliest.
·
It
is likely that users are going to have to recompile everything.
7.
Update on Enterprise Linux rollout, licensing, and pricing:
·
Wait for 2.6 kernel and see where
·
We’ll probably stick with some RedHat flavor for now
·
Some discussion about making a yum server/config in order to mirror updates for users.
8. Unix systems considering Linux Cluster
support as a for-fee service?
·
This is labor intensive and there is not
much consistency between different clusters – not something we could do without
more staff and more $$; could offer a backup service for the head node without
doing system administration for the whole cluster.
9.
ITC’s research computing “white paper” draft will be out for review and
discussion this afternoon or tomorrow.
10. DNS allocations in 10.x.x.x range
update:
·
No meeting yet – still looking at some
segment of this range as a free-for-all (and not routable at all) and another
segment as restricted and routable within UVa; need to make and publish
recommendations for how departments can use it and the limitations of this
scenario.
·
Also need a guide for departments and our
own ITC staff on using the 192.168.x.x space.
III. New Topics:
11. Update on SEAS SUR grant clusters –
very little use so far.
12.
Need to announce the dropping of Patran as the
license has expired already – and delete it out of “Available Software” list.
13. Addenda request for a new, larger
cluster with gobs of storage is being written by Jim and Hamp.
·
Do users need another bigger SMP box? Not clear.
Next meeting is Monday, March 29, at
Go to:
ITC Research Computing Standing Committee Home Page