Bulletin 196 - 2009 December 22

1. CSIRO SX-6/TX7 system close
2. CSIRO shutdown period
3. CSIRO ASC: New and Upgraded Software
4. CSIRO shared software licenses wiki
5. End of 2009

1. CSIRO SX-6/TX7 system close

On Wednesday the second of December, the five CSIRO NEC SX-6 nodes were turned off, after clearing all the jobs and queues.

This brings to an end the service on the SX systems for CSIRO.

(There are still a few stragglers using the shared queues on the Bureau SX-6 nodes, and CSIRO users still have access to their files through the TX7 systems).

I want to pay tribute to those who have supported the CSIRO SX service since 1997 - to my fellow staff (both CSIRO and Bureau) in the HPCCC, to the Bureau NMOC operations staff, and especially to the NEC support staff here in Melbourne.

The NEC support staff have done a superb job, and it is true to say that we would not have had such a successful service across the SX-4, the two SX-5s and the SX-6/TX7 system without them. Indeed, CSIRO has recruited well from the NEC support team!

Some great science was done on the SX systems. CSIRO's modelling input to the IPCC was based largely on work done on the SX systems.

- Rob Bell

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Cherax and Burnet will be available through the Christmas - New Year period, but any failures may not be attended to until 4th Jan. There may be flow on implications for workflow on other systems including CSIRO SX6 jobs.

The Help Desk will be unattended during this period.

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3. CSIRO ASC: New and Upgraded Software

The following have been recently installed:

• Sun Studio 12.1 update 1 (burnet)

  SunStudio has a number of development tools, but has primarily been installed for the performance analyzer functionality.

  Note: Sun Studio is also available on vayu and xe at the NCI-NF.

  For more information and usage instructions please see the software map: http://nf.nci.org.au/facilities/software/index.php?site=CSIRO

The following have been recently upgraded:

• OpenMPI 1.3.3 (32 and 64 bit) (burnet)

  For more information and usage instructions please see the software map: http://nf.nci.org.au/facilities/software/index.php?site=CSIRO

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4. CSIRO shared software licenses wiki

The Advanced Scientific Computing (ASC) group within eResearch manages a number of shared software licenses for use by CSIRO researchers.

A space has been set up on the CSIRO wiki for the users of shared licensed software to contribute information about upcoming priorities and usage patterns to help the community to have a better experience using the shared licenses. The wiki space is at: https://wiki.csiro.au/confluence/display/eResearch/ASC+shared+software (login required)

There are currently pages for:

• matlab
• COMSO
• MSC
• mathematica
• Accelrys Materials Studio

and more pages will be added as researchers have information to contribute.

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5. End of 2009

Have a good break and see you next year!

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