ITC Research Computing Support Newsletter - April, 2001
This is the April, 2001 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 e-mail 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
The Office of Information Technologies (OIT) and
the Office of the Provost for Research and Public
Service co-sponsored a campus-wide review of
institutional support for research through computing
and information technology. The Research Computing
Task Force was charged with identifying the gaps and
needs for additional support and formulating specific
short- and long-term recommendations on enhancements
and new resources. The task force was comprised of
faculty and graduate students across the broad
spectrum of disciplines at the University.
The Task Force recently released their Final
Report, which is available for your review and
information. In addition to the Final Report, the
Task Force has a website that includes the interim
reports and minutes from the meetings of the last
5 months. Please visit the Task force website at
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/rctf and the Final
Report:
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/rctf/finalreport.html
As part of the report the Task Force recommended
the immediate creation of three ad hoc committees to
make recommendations on three critical areas of
research computing. The three committees will
examine:
- High Performance Computing.
The committee will identify and
acquire appropriate successors to the IBM SP2
at the University.
- Mass Storage and Backup.
The committee will examine mass storage and backup requirements of
researchers at the University and recommend
any hardware the University should acquire as
well as the usage policy for said hardware.
- Advanced Computational Support Center.
One of the recommendations of the Research Task
Force was the creation of an Advanced Computational
Support Center - this committee's charge is to
evaluate the best mechanisms for structuring this
center.
If you're interested in serving on one of these
committees, please contact George Williams,
gfw6s@virginia.edu
Join the members of the ITC Research Computing Support Group for our final Spring
2001 Brownbag Series. Each Brownbag is held at 12 noon at the Research Computing
Support Center (244 Wilson Hall), usually on the third Wednesday of the month.
Bring your lunch, we'll supply the drinks and cookies.
April 18: IDL 5.4
This talk will provide an introduction and overview of IDL 5.4. Topics discussed
will include analysis and visualization using IDL as well as using the Wavelet
Toolkit. For further information about IDL, see the Research Computing Support
webpage www.itc.virginia.edu/research/idl.html
Three new Silicon Graphics O2 visual workstations are installed in Small Hall
and are on line. Each O2 has a 300Mhz R12000 CPU with 1MB of secondary cache
and 256MB of RAM. The new O2's are named sgi-7.unixlab, sgi-8.unixlab
and sgi-9.unixlab,they replace the three old SGI Indy's in 102 Small Hall.
There are now ten SGI O2s in this facility.
As part of these new SGIs being installed, the operating system for all
the O2s in 102 Small Hall was upgraded to Irix 6.5.10. All ten SGI O2s are
running the same version of Irix.
For a full listing of the machines in the UnixLab and their respective load
check out
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~userv/usage.html
For more details on the Silicon Graphics O2 visual workstation visit the SGI
O2 homepage at
http://www.sgi.com/o2/
On Tuesday, April 10, the Industry Forum on Research Computing will feature
presentations and discussion with Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). Hosted by the
UVA Office of Information Technologies in cooperation with the Dean's Technology
Council and the Academic Computing Advisory Council, the forum will take place
from 9:30am - noon in Newcomb Hall room 389l. Topics include SGI's vision of scientific
computing and long term approach for supporting research, future architectures
and operating system strategies for high performance computing, and examples of
SGI work with other universities.
The agenda for
the discussions is outlined below:
9:30-9:40 - Introduction
by Eric Nerenberg (SGI Education Sales)
9:40-10:20 -Vision and Strategy by Bert Wakely, (SGI Director, Strategic
Alliances)
SGI's vision of scientific computing and long-term approach for supporting research.
Briefly review significant high-level alliances with key university customers
that are helping to drive our product development and long-term HPC strategy
(10+ years). Discuss potential co-investment strategies with UVA. Open discussion
will be encouraged.
10:20-11:30 - Technical by Mike Watkins (SGI Reseller Manager) and Kent
Kamischke (SGI Systems Engineer)
Future architectures and O/S strategy for HPC. Why did we choose those? What's
driving SGI's strategy? Discuss long-term projects. How will our strategy/products
affect research and application development.
- Linux and IA-64
- IRIX/MIPS
- Software and O/S research tools
11:30-Noon - Examples, Programs & Q/A by Eric Nerenberg
SGI successes working with other universities.
A UVA researcher's experience with SGI.
by Dana M. Elzey, Research Assistant Professor,
Materials Science and Engineering
The Research Computing Support Group is accepting applications for
student consultants. We are interested in hiring students to start
either this summer or fall. The student(s) hired will be expected to
work at least through the 2001-02 academic year at the Research
Computing Support Center in 244 Wilson Hall.
The preferred applicant would be:
- A graduate student with experience in the statistical packages
(SPSS, SAS and Splus) and in statistical analysis and experimental
design. This applicant would have a good working knowledge of
Microsoft Windows and possibly some experience with Unix.
- 2. A graduate student with experience in compiled languages (Fortran,
C++), as well as familiarity with those packages typically used by
researchers (Matlab, Mathematica, LaTeX, etc.). This applicant
would have a broad working knowledge of Unix and familiarity with Microsoft Windows.
However, we encourage students who wish gain expertise in these areas to
apply. A requirement is the maturity and social skills needed to work
closely with a variety of computer users, ranging from undergraduates to
faculty, and from novice to experienced users.
If you are interested in a position with the Research Computing Support
Group please contact Tim Tolson via e-mail to:
TTolson@Virginia.EDU
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