Minutes of the
ITC-Research Computing Standing Committee
(
Meeting on
Members:
Alice, Bill, 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., Jim, Mark S., Robin, Steve, Tim S., Joe Simard, Tom
S.
II. Ongoing Discussion Topics:
1.
Schedule from Hamp for getting these done:
·
Splitting SGI (crick) behind the VPN
firewall for HIPAA use/compliance
Most users probably already have iKeys tokens but Tom and Dawn each need one.
Will post an announcement and do this
within the next week or so.
Sybyl license manager is not an issue.
·
Teal cluster. 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. Put PBSPro on them.
Pete looking at Craylink.
Define a teal-login machine block
interactive login on all but teal-login.
Can use an SGI from old Unixlab for frontend.
Will do this the week after doing Crick
(i.e. around second week in August).
·
Make old dump.itc
(RS6000 H70) the 64-bit frontend (mplogin.itc)
of the SMP (mp0.itc).
This is ready. Tim will announce a 2 hour downtime for this
Thursday (7/29).
·
Aspen & Birch cluster upgrade to 2.6 kernel? Timeline
dependent on ROCKS upgrade.
No word on the ROCKS upgrade or the 2.6
kernel for
2.
Additional disk space for /longtmp and script
to automate checking usage and reminding users.
·
Will be September at the earliest
(dependent on getting decommissioned some disk arrays from the Library).
3.
Schedule for adding additional disk space to /common on jeeves for pending software installs (e.g., SAS, Maple)
·
Will add disk during this fiscal year
meanwhile can do the new version (9.5) of Maple.
4. Update on SEAS SUR grant clusters
·
One cluster is ready for testing Ed ran
the standard scientific apps and Katherine tested PBS Ed will test the
compilers. Second cluster is not ready
for testing yet.
5.
Any update related to meeting in May with IBM on comprehensive
computational strategy for UVa?
·
Nothing new on this item.
6. Linux Cluster support as
a for-fee service
·
Working on three strategies for providing
cluster setup and management:
If we get funds, we plan to start a new
central cluster using the condominium approach to clustering.
Providing long-term Linux cluster support
for a fee.
Providing one-time assistance for getting a
cluster up and running
·
Need guidelines for how to handle support
for researchers who dont purchase cluster support but expect assistance and
guidance from ITC for their cluster.
III. New Topics:
1. 102
Small Hall Unixlab closing to give space to CS.
·
Mitch
has not had any responses to his query to SEAS faculty to see if anyone needs
this lab.
·
Decided
to make our seats in the
·
To
keep remote computing capabilities we will move the remaining Sun CPUs to the Carruthers server room possibly reconfigure them to add
memory to some (maybe around 12) and then add them to
·
Tim
will announce the closing of the Small 102 Unixlab
and later, in a separate announcement, will document the reconfigured and
relocated resources.
·
We
are arranging to move out quickly will leave the tables but take the Herman
Miller pieces.
2. Researchers need research database/db
management. Users who want space on
ITCs MySQL server need more space than the default
allocation. Can they supplement space
with disk wedge purchases?
·
Yes
contact Hamp about disk requests.
Next meeting was scheduled for Monday, August
30 -- but this is Back-to-School so decided to move the meeting to the
preceding week and decide later whether to meet in August at all meeting is
currently scheduled for Wednesday, August 25,
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