Below is listed the computing platforms that ITC maintains and are meant to be used for computation/memory intensive computing jobs. Depending on the platform, either serial and parallel programs can be run using either compiled code (e.g., Fortran or C/C++) or using problem solving environments such as Matlab, Mathematica, Ansys, or SAS.
To access any of the computer systems listed below is restricted to U.Va. faculty, staff, and graduate students. An undergraduate who can demonstrate the need for accessing a high performance platform and who has a faculty sponsor can also obtain an account. You can request a research computing enabled account, if you don't already have one at: Getting a research computing enabled account.
In addition, access to all of these computer systems is restricted to on-Grounds internet (IP) addresses only. That is, to login from an off-Grounds address, you have to use the "UVa-Anywhere VPN client", or else login on blue.unix.virginia.edu first, then login into the computer platform listed here.
Support and assistance with using these computing platforms is provided by ITC's "Research Computing Support group" and ITC's Unix Systems group".
If you have any questions about any of these computer platforms, how to decide which is appropriate for your purposes or research computing support in general, please contact us either by emailing Res-Consult@Virginia.EDU telephoning the Research Computing Lab in the Charles L. Brown Science & Engineering Library at 243-8799 or Scholars' Lab in Alderman Library at 243-8800.
ITC has three Linux-based commodity clusters, which are called Birch, Cedar, and Dogwood. Each cluster has its own homepage:
Notice: The Aspen Cluster was retired from service permanently on October 16, 2006
Birch Birch consists of 32 nodes with two Intel Xeon (P4) cpus and 2GB of RAM per node. Birch also has a high-speed Myricom interconnect among the nodes, and for this reason it is reserved for parallel jobs, preferably those which can take advantage of the Myrinet interface.
Cedar Cedar is a general-purpose cluster consisting of 125 nodes, with two AMD Opteron cpus and 2GB of RAM per node. The interconnect is GigE.
Dogwood Dogwood is a general-purpose cluster consisting of 200 nodes, with two Intel EMT cpus and 3GB of RAM per node. The interconnect is GigE. The number of simultaneous jobs per user is more limited on Dogwood than on Cedar in order to prevent parallel jobs from waiting an excessive time.
All ITC Linux clusters are queue-controlled via the PBS Pro queueing system. New users should read the Getting Started Guide for information about utilizing the clusters via the queueing system. New users should also consider working through the hands-on tutorial. For advanced users, more details about the PBS system may be found in the PBS User's Guide.
Anyone considering their own purchase of a Linux cluster are invited to consider the purchase of nodes on an ITC Linux cluster instead. ITC has a program that enables researchers to purchase nodes in a Linux cluster that ITC houses and maintains for a three-year period. Details about this program are available from www.itc.virginia.edu/research/itc-clusters.
The IBM p640 Model B80 Symmetric Multi-Processor (SMP) is a 4-cpu shared-memory system. The cpus are 375MHz IBM Power3 processors with 4MB of Level-2 cache and 12 GB of total memory that is available to any processor. The IBM SMP uses AIX 5.1 as its operating system and the Portable Batch System (PBS) software to distribute the computational workload across the nodes. PBS is a batch job scheduling application that provides the facility for building, submitting and processing both serial and parallel batch jobs on the IBM SMP.
Restrictions on use: currently users are restricted to a maximum of 2 processors and/or 6 GB of memory per job and may run a maximum of 2 runs at a time. These restrictions will be monitored and are subject to change to optimize utilization of the machine.
The cluster is intended for interactive use and can be logged into by connecting to "oak.itc.virginia.edu" which will automatically assign the login to any of the eight servers. Like on blue.unix.virginia.edu, users who wish to login on the same server later should make note of the server to which their login session was assigned, so they can later reconnect to that server by name. The eight servers are named: oak1.itc.virginia.edu, oak2.itc.virginia.edu, oak3.itc.virginia.edu, oak4.itc.virginia.edu, oak5.itc.virginia.edu, oak6.itc.virginia.edu, oak7.itc.virginia.edu, and oak8.itc.virginia.edu.
Because of its relatively small number of cpus, the Oak cluster is not appropriate for parallel jobs. It should be used for serial jobs.
If you have any questions about any of these computer platforms, how to decide which is appropriate for your purposes or research computing support in general, please contact us either by emailing Res-Consult@Virginia.EDU telephoning the Research Computing Lab in the Charles L. Brown Science & Engineering Library at 243-8799 or Scholars' Lab in Alderman Library at 243-8800.