Bulletin 200 - 2010 May 05

1. SX-6/TX7 shutdown
2. Model Data Fusion in Earth System Modelling - Workshop/retreat
3. CSIRO ASC - License scheduling now enabled on the GPU cluster
4. CSIRO ASC - New and Upgraded Software

1. SX-6/TX7 shutdown

General user access to the SX-6/TX7 system will be terminated on Wed 19th May 2010.

After 19th May:

• more SX-6 nodes will be shutdown to free up power and cooling
• the remaining nodes will be reserved almost exclusively for operations
• CSIRO disc areas will be re-deployed.

Here is a timetable for the shutdown stages

1. Wed 12th May. All users should have made archive copies of all the files they need from the SX-6/TX7 system. Backups of CSIRO $HOME (/cs/home) will cease.
2. Thu 13th May. Cross-mounts of SX-6/TX7 GFS file systems on gale will be disabled.
3. Wed 19th May. Logins will be disabled.
4. Thu 20th May. At least six more SX-6 nodes will be shutdown. CSIRO $WORKDIR and $DATADIR areas will be purged.
5. Tues 15th June. Cross-mounts of SX-6/TX7 GFS file systems on d2 will be disabled.

Below are detailed notes on actions for users to take at each stage.

1. Use the command

    quota
   

   to check your file holdings.

   In general, you should check the $HOME, $WORKDIR and $DATADIR areas, and any of the alternate data or flush areas that you might have access to, e.g. /bm/data3.

   List of areas containing files will be made available to Bureau users.

   For CSIRO users, to make copies of your $HOME files, use a command like:

    rsync -av --stats --delete $HOME/ cherax:\$WORKDIR/tx7-home/
   

   and then tar up needed files into the CSIRO Data Store.

   Backups of the /cs/home area will be kept for some time, but older holdings will be progressively culled. Do not rely on these backups to retrieve wanted files - please make your own copies, as above.

   Bureau users should follow a similar procedure.

   Please remove unwanted files on the SX-6/TX7 file systems, to help identify the remaining work to be done.

2. Users of the SX-6/TX7 from gale should ensure their work is ported to alternate systems. In particular, ensure you are using other facilities to set up and run the Unified Model.

   Ensure you are not relying on storage on the cross-mounts - follow similar procedures to those above.

3. Users who need to continue to use the SX-6/TX7 after this date should contact HPCCC staff to seek approval, and must have prior approval from CAWCR management.

   As well as logins, batch job access will cease, including from gale and cherax.

4. The CSIRO /cs/flush* and /cs/data* areas will be flushed of data except for that belonging to continuing users and support staff. These areas will be made available for operational use and support.

5. Users of the SX-6/TX7 from d2 should ensure their work is ported to alternate systems. In particular, ensure you are using other facilities to set up and run the Unified Model.

   Ensure you are not relying on storage on the cross-mounts - follow similar procedures to those above.

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Where: RACV Club, Cape Schanck, Victoria
When: 10-12 May, 2010.

Contact one of Luigi Renzullo (water), Peter Oke (ocean), Cathy Trudinger (land and carbon), Eddy Campbell (biogeochem) or Peter Steinle (atmosphere) for more information. The following issues will be addressed:

• current state of the science and where we expect it to be in 10 years or so
• where the Australian research community should be aspiring to be
• current and planned activities in this direction
• current and future stakeholder needs and requirements
• gaps in capability and/or capacity, including
  • areas where rapid progress is possible
  • important areas where progress is likely to be limited
• related research areas (e.g. observation campaigns etc.)

Representatives from each University (and other) research group will describe their activities, and expand on:

• potential avenues for addressing research gaps etc.
• how CAWCR/CSIRO/WIRADA can assist other researchers in this area
  • organization & communication
  • increasing capacity

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3. CSIRO ASC - License scheduling now enabled on the GPU cluster

See the 'Batch Resources' section of the Shared Clusters Userguide.

http://intra.hpsc.csiro.au/userguides/blade/

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4. CSIRO ASC - New and Upgraded Software

• PGI 2010 10.3 on linuxgpu

  PGI 2010 release 10.3 includes expanded support for Fortran 2003. A complete list of supported Fortran 2003 features and enhancements is available at: http://www.pgroup.com/support/new_rel.htm#F2003.

• TotalView 8.8.0-0 on cherax,burnet,linuxgpu
  • Remote Display Client for the Mac and Windows 7
  • Improved run-time performance at scale
  • Support for Linux Fedora 12 and Ubuntu 9.10
  • Support for PGI 10.1

  See more at http://www.totalviewtech.com/company/pressrelease.html?id=326.

• Matlab R2010a on myhost and linuxgpu
  • Additional multithreaded math functions and enhancements to file sharing, path management, and the desktop in MATLAB
  • New System objects for stream processing in MATLAB, with over 140 supported algorithms in Video and Image Processing Blockset and Signal Processing Blockset
  • Multicore support and performance enhancements for over 50 functions and expanded support for large images in Image Processing Toolbox
  • New nonlinear solvers in Global Optimization Toolbox and Optimization Toolbox
  • Ability to generate Simscape language equations from Symbolic Math Toolbox
  • Stochastic approximation expectation-maximization (SAEM) and pharmacokinetic dosing schedules support in SimBiology

  See more at http://www.mathworks.com/products/new_products/latest_features.html.

  An additional matlab license is also available (now a total of 7 licenses).

• Materials Studio 5.0.1 on myhost

  This is a bug fixing update that addresses the followings

  • CASTEP calculations on certain Intel processors no longer diverge
  • Corrected token usage for modules running in parallel with the Flexible Library
  • Masks now work correctly with MesoDyn
  • Legacy Amorphous Cell jobs now run correctly with PBS Pro queuing system
  • Building supercells with pi-systems no longer cause Materials Visualizer to crash
  • Find symmetry calculations now work for projects generated with previous versions of Materials Visualizer
  • Multiple structure documents can now be "discarded" from the study table without memory leak
  • Save or copy documents with certain customized Brillouin Zone points no longer fails

  See more at http://accelrys.com/resource-center/downloads/updates/materials-studio/mstudio50/details.html.

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