ITC Research Computing Support Newsletter September, 2000

This is the September, 2000 newsletter of the ITC Research Computing Support Group. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the information presented here please contact the ITC Research Computing Support Group via email to res-consult@virginia.edu, or at the Research Computing Support Center, 244 Wilson Hall, 243-8800. The Research Computing Support Center is open 9AM-5PM, Monday through Friday.

Contents

Brownbag Series at the Research Computing Support Center

Join the members of the ITC Research Computing Support Group for our Fall 2000 Brownbag Series. Each brownbag will be held at 12 noon at the Research Computing Support Center (244 Wilson Hall). Bring your lunch, we'll supply the drinks and cookies.

20 September: Code Optimization
This talk is the first of a three part series of brownbag talks on getting high performance from compute intensive programs. This first talk will focus on techniques for optimizing the performance of serial program code. The next two talks will discuss using parallelization to achieve high performance.

18 October: Automatic Parallelization and OpenMP
This talk is the second of a three part series of brownbag talks on getting high performance from compute intensive programs. This second talk will focus on easily accessible techniques to parallelize code where parallelization is appropriate, including automatic parallelizing compilers, IMSL F90 MP library calls, and OpenMP.

15 November: Parallel Processing Using MPI
This talk is the third of a three part series of brownbag talks on getting high performance from compute intensive programs. This third talk will focus on using MPI (Message Passing Interface) to efficiently parallelize code where parallelization is appropriate, including naturally parallel programs such as Monte Carlo simulations.

If you need additional information, contact the Research Computing Support Group at res-consult@virginia.edu or calla the Research Computing Support Center at 243-8800.

New Site License for S-Plus

ITC has entered into a new site license with Mathsoft, Inc., makers of the S-Plus statistical software package. Under this new site license, S-Plus will be available to all faculty, staff and students at no charge for any of the supported platforms (Windows, Linux, AIX, Solaris, and DEC-Alpha). Two versions of the software are available (Network and Personal), and the appropriate software for a user is determined based on one's classification and intended location of use. Guidelines are as follows:

Network Version: For use by faculty, staff and departments on-grounds. All software is installed locally with this version, but, at invocation, the software will communicate with a central license manager to check out a license.

Personal Installation: For use by faculty and staff off-grounds, and for ALL students either on-grounds or off-grounds.

Users can obtain S-Plus at the Research Computing Support Center. S-Plus 2000 for Windows is also now available in all ITC public labs and classrooms, and ITC continues to maintain S-Plus on all of its Unix platforms.

Splus on RS6000 and Solaris Platforms Upgraded to Version 5.1 on 9/25/00

Beginning on Monday Sept 25, 2000, the default Splus command (/uva/bin/Splus) will invoke Splus Version 5.1 on ITC maintained RS6000's running AIX 4.3 (and above) and Solaris machines. On RS6000 machines running AIX 4.2.1, the command Splus will invoke the older version of Splus, Splus Version 3.4.

The current version of Splus, Version 3.4, will remain available for several months. Beginning Sept 25, Splus Version 3.4 will be available via the command:
/uva/bin/Splusold

Note that there are important differences between Splus 3.4 and 5.1. Objects created with Splus 5.1 can not be used with earlier versions of Splus. For more information on the differences between Splus 3.4 and 5.1 see the Splus 5.1 release notes at:

http://www.itc.Virginia.EDU/research/splus51.release.notes.html

For more information on Splus visit:

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/research/splushelp.html

Annual Renewal of SAS Software

Email reminders were sent on August 11 to all registered SAS users at the University notifying them of the availability of the new 2000-2001 SETINIT.SAS license codes for their SAS software. Users who didn't receive this notice or have misplaced it should follow these steps to renew your current license:

  1. Using a web browser, go to the following URL: www.itc.virginia.edu/research/licensing.html

  2. Log in using your University ID (usually SSN) and last name

  3. If a SAS license for the version that you are trying to renew does not appear under your name, you should click on the link labeled "License SAS" at the bottom of the main licensing page that appears after you log in to the site and license the appropriate version.

  4. If you already have a license for the version that you are trying to renew, click on the box next to that license and select the option to "Renew"

  5. Review the information about the license, update any information that has changed or is incorrect, and then select "Continue"

  6. If available, select the option to "Download Renewal Utility". This is the easiest way to renew your license. If this option is not available for your version of software, select the option to "Display Renewal Codes and Instructions." If neither option is available for your software, please send email to res-consult@virginia.edu

For users of SPSS, new licenses for the 2000-2001 period should be available on the licensing website in the late September/early October timeframe.

Users with questions about this procedure should contact the Research Computing Support Center (243-8800; res-consult@virginia.edu).

SAS on AIX and Solaris Platforms Upgraded to Version 8 on 9/25/00

Beginning on Monday Sept 25, 2000, the default sas command (/uva/bin/sas) will invoke SAS Version 8 on ITC maintained RS6000 and Solaris machines.

The current version of SAS, Version 6.12, will continue to be available for several months. Beginning September 25, SAS 6.12 will be available via the command:
/uva/bin/sasold

For more information on SAS see:

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/research/sashelp.html

For specific information on what is new in SAS Version 8 see:

http://www.sas.com/products/sassystem/index.html

On-line Information for SAS 8 can be accessed at:

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/manuals/sas8/onldoc.htm

Anticipated Change in SPSS Modules Licensed by ITC

With our SPSS site license up for annual renewal shortly, ITC is planning currently to change the SPSS modules licensed by the University. Specifically, we plan to stop licensing the SPSS Conjoint, Categories and Data Entry modules for the Windows and Mac platforms and add the SPSS Missing Values module for the Windows platform (Missing Values is not available on the Mac). The primary reason for dropping certain licenses is lack of use by the user community. Under the new license, the following modules will be licensed for Windows and Macintosh:

Please contact the Research Computing Support Group (res-consult@virginia.edu) with comments or questions regarding this issue.

SPSS 9.0 for Windows To Be Removed From ITC Labs/Classrooms

With SPSS 10.0 for Windows having been deployed in all ITC public labs and classrooms since March 2000, ITC will remove SPSS 9.0 from its lab/classroom machines as of January 2001. Any users of SPSS 9.0 should note that SPSS 9.0 cannot read the output (.spo) files created by SPSS 10.0 (although SPSS 10.0 can read 9.0 output files, and both versions can read data and syntax files from the other version). Users should contact the Research Computing Support Group (res-consult@virginia.edu) with comments or questions regarding this issue.

MPEG Movie and VCD utility for Solaris and Irix platforms

mtvp, a MPEG Movie and Video CD (VCD) player has been installed in the /contrib area of ITC maintained SGI's and Solaris machines. (Software available in the /contrib area is provided as a service to the University of Virginia community but is not supported by ITC.)

For more information about mtvp, visit the MpegTV home page at:

http://www.MPegTV.com

To configure Netscape to use this software:
In Netscape, go to Edit | Preferences.
On the left side of the dialog box, expand the Navigator category by clicking the left arrow, and click on Applications.
Scroll down the list of applications until you find MPEG Video, and click on it.
Click on the edit... button. In the dialogue box that appears, click on Application and type in: mtvp %s

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