Minutes of the ITC-Research Computing Group Meeting
April 28, 1998 at 4:00 pm in Forestry 117

Members: Chris, Dawn, Dee, Ed, Hamp, Jacques, Jim J., Mark S., Ross, Sue Ellen, Tim S., Tim T., Tom S.,
Conveners:Tim T. and Dee
In Attendance: Chris, Dawn, Dee, Ed, Hamp, Jacques, Jim J., Tim T., and Tom S
Recorders: Tim T.
Next Meeting: May 26 at 4pm in Forestry 117.

To Dos & Old Business: 

Numbers in parenthesis match the numbers on the To-Do Table
we reviewed at this meeting. 
 

(1) Plans for unix cluster and Home Directory Project
    - How will home directory project affect researchers?

    JAJ:  Not much -- want to keep each directory smaller in size.
	  Second phase of the home directory project will have disk
	  wedges, so more space.  Therefore, its focus will be for research
	  types.

    - Watt migration -- will begin May 19th
    - Shutdown to migrate files to unix.mail and NetApp
    - Oct 21st - target demise of Watt

    JAJ:  There are also funds in budget for SP upgrade and further
	  cluster funds in next budget for research computing; adding
	  Sun boxes; possibly SGI's for its cluster?

    EHC:  Have ordered AIX cluster boxes; but not Suns yet.  There are
    five more nodes being added for the watt.seas migration.

    Jacques:  is "police" running on SGI?
    JAJ/EHC:  think it is not running.

TODO> EHC:  Will get "police" running on SGI, thought is was there. 

(2) Archive (hardware and software)
    EHC:  Dave S. - did test of ADSM, moved file at rate of 1GB/4
	  minutes from disk to tape.  Dave S. leaves by June 30.
    EHC:  Have ordered disks to expand Maggie's cache - to migrate users. 
    
(3) "Research News"
    - Next issue after budget decisions - target Fall.
    - Legion success stories, etc.
    CPR:  Beginning to look at users to move to Legion.

(4) Software Installations and Updates (including GIS/ESRI and GCG)
    Jacques:  Next GCG release that does NOT support AIX is due out in
    fall.
    EHC:  Will pull GCG software off AIX this summer (5/18) from
    avery.med, Landus, etc. to and migrate those users to SGI

    DMA:  Trying to hook Shirley Payne up with Ray Argo at Georgia to pursue 
	the state-wide ESRI licensing.
    EHC:  Is $10,000 in budget for ESRI?   
    TFT:  It's been requested as budget item, not decided yet.

(5) NPACI (National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure)
    and SUR Grant
    No discussion     

(6) SP
    TAS:  Chris working to figure out if there is a shortage of CPU
          cycles (checkpointing tangential) or are users way out of
          queue?  i.e., in 1 wk queue for 2 hour job 
    TAS:  If shortage, should we institute accounting?  Send the big
	  jobs to super computer?  Motivate by using better tools?
    TAS:  Mitch and SNS5R feel like they can't get their work done.
    JAJ:  Accounting is big can of worms - political hot potato.  Who
          do users convince for more CPU cycles?  Hard to take away
          what they have.
    CPR:  Can we sanction users who abuse?
    JAJ:  He'll talk to them - but we need to have made
          rules/expectations very clear.

TODO> CPR:  Will survey/monitor class usage and see how accurately
            classes are used.
    DMA:  Do we need class jobs?  Could it be more open?      

(7) ITS Research Advisory Committee
    No discussion

(8) GRA Training 
    No discussion

(9) Departmental Outreach
    No discussion

(10) Y2K Issues
     - Have tested important Unix apps.
           
(11) Process Simplification
     No discussion

(12) Non-IBM Research Computing Engines (both SUN and SGI)
     No discussion