Login node #1 unavailable
2018-12-06, 7:15 pm
Update (2018-12-07, 3:30 pm):
Both login nodes of Superior are accessible and usable as before.
2018-12-06, 7:15 pm
superior-login1.research.mtu.edu will be unavailable for about an hour starting noon on Friday, 7th December 2018. Ongoing simulations will not be affected.
superior-login2.research.mtu.edu may be used to continue the work during this maintenance window.
2018 Annual maintenance
2018-11-07, 10:05 am
Update (2018-12-17, 8:45 am):
Any running/waiting simulation has been terminated with administrative privilege, any user still logged in has been logged out, and login and compute nodes of Superior and Portage have been powered down.
2018-11-07, 10:05 am:
Superior and Portage will be undergoing pro-active maintenance routine during the finals week of Fall semester to ensure smooth and sustainable operations in 2019. The systems will be powered down at 8 am on Monday, 17th December 2018. They will be accessible and usable from 9 am on Monday, 24th December 2018. Researchers are requested to ensure that the simulations are completed (or at least checkpointed) and transfer the necessary data to your local workstation to continue the analysis, manuscript preparation, etc. during the maintenance window.
Should the work go as planned and completed ahead of time, Portage and Superior will be made accessible sooner. In the unlikely event that things take longer than expected, you'll be notified as well.
Annual proactive maintenance
2015-04-17, 9:30 am
In order to ensure that Superior and Portage continue to operate consistently at a high level, IT will be performing proactive maintenance work starting at 8 am on Tuesday, 5th May 2014.
All nodes -- including the front end, login and storage nodes -- will need to be powered down. Any running simulation at that time will be automatically terminated without further notice.
As such, researchers are requested to complete (or at least checkpoint) their simulations, and transfer any necessary data to a local workstation so that analysis, visualization, and manuscript preparation work can still be continued.
Superior and Portage should be accessible as before starting at 8 am on Friday, 8th May 2014.
VASP Implicit Solvation Model
2015-04-07, 8:46 am
An additional variant of VASP to facilitate implicit solvation model computations has now been compiled (for version 5.3.3) and is now available for use on all clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers specifically authorized to use VASP are strongly recommended to verify the results for simpler/inexpensive systems with available literature before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts for bigger/complex systems.
VASP Spin Orbit Coupling
2014-12-25, 7:30 pm
An additional variant of VASP to facilitate spin orbit coupling computations has now been compiled (for versions 5.3.3 and 5.3.5) and is now available for use. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to verify the results for simpler/inexpensive systems -- preferably with both versions when permissible -- with available literature before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts for bigger/complex systems.
R 3.1.2 (Pumpkin Helmet)
2014-12-25, 12:30 pm
R 3.1.2 (Pumpkin Helmet; Release Notes) has been compiled and is now available for use on all computing clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and make sure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
Unless there is a request from researchers to do otherwise, 3.1.1 (Sock it to me) will be retired on Friday, 27th March 2015.
MATLAB R2014b
2014-12-25, 8:45 am
MATLAB R2014b (Release notes) has been installed and is now available for use on all computing clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and make sure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
Unless there is a request from researchers to do otherwise, R2013b will be retired on Friday, 27th March 2015.
R 3.1.1 (Sock it to Me)
2014-07-29, 12:39 pm
R 3.1.1 (Sock it to Me; Release Notes) has been compiled and is now available for use on all computing clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and make sure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
Data Center Switch Upgrade
2014-07-16, 9:00 am
Telcom will be upgrading the software on the data center switches, and as such, all computing clusters housed in GLRC will be inaccessible during 6-7 am on Thursday, July 17th 2014.
Running simulations will be unaffected.
Superior in review with insideHPC
2014-06-20, 9:50 am
insideHPC, a renowned platform that distils news and events in the world of HPC and presents them in bite-sized nuggets of helpfulness as a resource for supercomputing professionals, did an interview reviewing Superior's performance during the past year.
Read the complete interview here.
R 3.1.0 (Spring Dance)
2014-06-03, 3:11 pm
R 3.1.0 (Spring Dance; Release Notes) has been compiled and is now available for use on all computing clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and make sure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
Quantum ESPRESSO 5.1
2014-06-03, 12:26 pm
Quantum ESPRESSO 5.1 (Release Notes) has been compiled and is now available for use on all computing clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and ensure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
CONVERGE 2.2.0 β
2014-06-03, 9:36 am
CONVERGE 2.2.0 β, a computational fluid dynamics software suite, has been installed and is now available for use on Athena, Portage and Superior. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers specifically licensed and authorized to use this software suite are strongly recommended to run test simulations to ensure reproducibility of results from elsewhere before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
CALYPSO 3.6
2014-05-10, 11:30 am
CALYPSO 3.6 has been compiled and is now available for use on all computing clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers specifically authorized to use this software suite are strongly encourage to run a test/example simulation with our installation and ensure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
VASP 5.3.5
2014-05-10, 10:15 am
VASP 5.3.5 (Release Notes) has been compiled and is now available for use on all computing clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers specifically authorized to use this software suite are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and ensure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
MuSTI adds 64 more processors
2014-05-08, 2:01 pm
Multi-Scale Technologies Institute (MuSTI) has added four more CPU based compute nodes to Superior, forming musti.q (a higher priority queue for MuSTI researchers with a lower priority access to everyone else) and taking the overall compute capacity to nearly 31 TFLOPS.
Multi-scale technologies are those that bring together functional elements to form systems where the relative size of components within the system spans from the nano through the micro and into the macro domain. The systems focus of the MuSTI emphasizes the challenges associated with integrating technologies that have relative feature sizes orders of magnitude apart and operating characteristics that are size dependent. This presents many problems that must be addressed by interdisciplinary teams of researchers using specialized equipment.
Research focuses on engineered systems and components such as nanoelectronics, nanosensors and systems, and associated materials. MuSTI is home to interdisciplinary nano- and micro-technologies education programs -- such as an interdisciplinary minor in Nanoscale Science and Engineering. The establishment of MuSTI is based on Michigan Tech's focus on applied research, established practices of interdisciplinary research, capabilities in testing, and strong engineering and science programs.
qsummary
2014-05-08, 1:15 pm
A new tool, qsummary, is now available on all clusters and it can be used in one of the following two ways:
qsummary
qsummary USERNAME
qsummary displays useful information about all completed jobs by the currently logged in user (i.e., you).
qsummary USERNAME displays same information for a specified user.
Updated qgenscript
2014-05-08, 8:05 am
Researchers will need to generate fresh submission scripts on all clusters using the updated qgenscript. The new scripts are designed to considerably reduce the wait time and improve the overall performance.
The old scripts will not work.
IDL 8.2 SP1
2014-04-16, 4:21 pm
IDL 8.2 Service Pack 1 is now available for use on all computing clusters. The necessary variables will be set up from within a qlogin session.
Researchers are strongly recommended to run test simulations to ensure reproducibility of results from elsewhere before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
MCCCS Towhee 7.0.6
2014-04-07, 8:36 am
MCCCS Towhee 7.0.6, a Monte Carlo molecular simulation code, has been compiled and is now available for use on Portage and Superior. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to run test simulations to ensure reproducibility of results from elsewhere before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
Power outage on 7th May 2014
2014-04-03, 8:12 am
A planned power outage has been scheduled by Facilities and Management on Wednesday, 7th May 2014. ITS will be powering down all computing clusters at 9 pm on Tuesday, 6th May 2014.
Any running simulation at that time will be automatically terminated without further notice. As such, researchers are required to complete (or at least checkpoint) the simulations.
Computing clusters will be accessible as before starting at 8 am on Thursday, 8th May 2014.
CONVERGE 2.1.0
2014-03-27, 8:03 am
CONVERGE 2.1.0, a computational fluid dynamics software suite, has been installed and is now available for use on Athena, Portage and Superior. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers specifically licensed and authorized to use this software suite are strongly recommended to run test simulations to ensure reproducibility of results from elsewhere before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
Superior's annual proactive maintenance
2014-03-21, 9:18 am
In order to ensure Superior continues to operate consistently at a high level, ITS will be performing proactive maintenance work starting at 8 am on Monday, 5th May 2014.
All nodes -- including the front end, login and storage nodes -- will need to be powered down. Any running simulation at that time will be automatically terminated without further notice.
As such, researchers are requested to complete (or at least checkpoint) their simulations, and transfer any necessary data to a local workstation so that analysis, visualization, and manuscript preparation work can still be continued.
Superior will be accessible as before starting at 8 am on Thursday, 8th May 2014.
XSEDE Research Allocation
2014-03-15, 11:30 am
XSEDE is now accepting Research Allocation Requests for the allocation period, July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015. The submission period is from March 15, 2014 through April 15, 2014. Interested researchers may review the new XSEDE systems and important policy changes before submitting the request through the XSEDE User Portal.
Researchers needing assistance in writing a proposal can contact it-help@mtu.edu.
VASP 5.3.3 Non-Collinear Spin
2014-03-12, 11:16 am
A new variant of VASP 5.3.3 that supports Non-Collinear Spin calculations has been compiled and is now available for use on Athena, Portage, Rama and Superior. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers specifically licensed and authorized to use this software suite are strongly recommended to read through the thread on VASP discussion forum and understand what it does before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
R 3.0.3 (Warm Puppy)
2014-03-11, 10:45 pm
R 3.0.3 (Warm Puppy; Release Notes) has been compiled and is now available for use on all computing clusters. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and make sure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
Gnuplot 4.6.5
2014-03-10, 12:30 pm
Gnuplot 4.6.5 (Release Notes; Demo) has been compiled and is now available for use on all computing clusters.
Researchers interested in integrating plotting features into their work flow may contact it-help@mtu.edu.
MATLAB R2013b
2014-03-06, 9:31 am
MATLAB R2013b has been installed and is now available for use on all computing clusters. GPU version is also available on Portage and Superior. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and make sure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
CRYSTAL 14
2014-03-05, 9:39 am
CRYSTAL 14 has been installed and is now available for use on Portage, Rama and Superior. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers specifically licensed and authorized to use this software suite are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and make sure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
LAMMPS 2014.02.27
2014-03-04, 9:19 am
A newer, parallel, version of LAMMPS (marked 20140227) has been compiled on Athena, Portage and Superior, and is now available for use. Necessary job submission script can be generated via qgenscript.
Researchers are strongly recommended to re-run a previously successful simulation with this newer version and make sure that the results are consistent before proceeding ahead with subsequent, production quality attempts.
Intel compilers unavailable
2013-12-20, 3:30 pm
In light of the message below, Intel Cluster Studio 2013.0.028 (ICS) that provides icc, icpc, ifort, mpiicc, mpiifort, etc. is temporarily unavailable.
While pre-compiled software suites might continue to run as before, researchers will experience errors when attempting to compile newer (versions of) software suites.
Monday, 23rd December 2013 @ 5:10 pm:
Intel compilers are available as before.
A message from CTO
2013-12-20, 3:00 pm
A number of computers on campus have been compromised; as a result, some username/password combinations have been recorded and sent off campus. If you have received notification that you need to reset your password please proceed immediately to login.mtu.edu and do so.
If you have used the same password for other sites you should reset those as well. Please note that this compromise involved a number of Linux servers and that SSH (secure shell) access to them may be temporary blocked or rerouted as those machines are being secured.
Detailed information is here.
qresources
2013-10-31, 9:45 pm
Researchers may use this utility from within qgenscript or by itself to get real time information about the number of licenses (total, in use and available) for each software suite.
Custom serial jobs via qgenscript
2013-10-28, 7:30 pm
qgenscript now generates the necessary job submission script to run any custom program in serial fashion. It does not, however, support the Array Jobs feature yet.
BASH and Python via qgenscript
2013-10-22, 3:30 pm
qgenscript now provides an option to generate the necessary job submission script for BASH and Python (version 3.3.2). These do not, however, support the Array Jobs feature yet.
This is intended to help submit post-processing tasks (especially the ones that take longer than 4 hours and as such, do not fit within qlogin session) to the queue, akin to any other simulation.
Array Jobs
2013-05-29, 5:05 pm
qgenscript now offers a new but optional feature with which users submit a large number of jobs (say few tens, hundreds or even thousands) via one batch submission script. The need for this feature and its advantages are described in the Array Jobs section.
As of now, this feature is only available and has been tested successfully for the following software suites: all versions of LAMMPS, serial version of MATLAB and, R. Users are strongly encouraged to test this feature for smaller/test cases before proceeding ahead to run real ones.
If users need more information about this feature and/or if the scenario is more complex than the simple one described in the Array Jobs section, please contact Information Technology Services.
LAMMPS 2013.05.23
2013-05-23, 5:20 pm
Newest version of LAMMPS (marked 2013.05.23 in qgenscript) is now available for use.
qgenscript now also lists all previous versions of LAMMPS. As such, users are encouraged to be cautious in selecting the appropriate one.
Exclusive Compute Node Access
2013-05-13, 3:10 pm
qgenscript now offers a new but optional feature with which users may request exclusive access to a compute node (for any job with up to a maximum of 8 processors).
Advantage:
If chosen, a job will be sent to a compute node that is completely free, and no other job will be assigned to that node until that given job is completed. This feature will satisfactorily handle CPU
and/or memory intensive jobs.
Disadvantage:
If chosen, a job will very likely wait in qw mode for longer than usual while the queuing system finds a node that is completely free. This feature, for normal jobs (i.e., not CPU and/or memory intensive), will hog the entire node and prevent it from being used by other normal jobs. If chosen for a job with more than 8 processors, it will never run and stay in qw mode forever.
Mathematica 9.0.1
2013-05-08, 2:29 pm
Mathematica 9.0.1 is now available for use. Users may run qgenscript to generate the required SGE script.
Power Outage
2013-04-30, 1:50 pm
Please note that facilities will be performing a high voltage switchgear inspection and repair on campus (more information). In light of this work, the cluster will need to be shut down gracefully to avoid potential damage to the hardware.
As such, users are requested to checkpoint any/all simulations and stop them (use qdel JOBID command) by 11 am on Sunday, 5th May 2013. The cluster is expected to be inaccessible until noon on Wednesday, 8th May 2013.
Should the aforementioned inspection and repair work take longer than expected, users will be informed via the cluster's mailing list.
Smarter qgenscript
2013-04-04, 1:31 pm
Please note that qgenscript will not henceforth be prompting to choose a specific compute node in case of parallel computations.
Based on the usage statistics gathered so far,an overwhelming majority of jobs have used 8 or less processors. As such, qgenscript now offers a maximum of 8 processors for any parallel job.
It has been made smart enough to not spread a parallel job across multiple physical nodes - especially for those computational suites for which scratch files/folders have been localized (to reduce communication overhead and improve the overall performance).
Two Factor Authentication
2013-03-28, 12:16 pm
Looking for volunteers to test the Two Factor Authentication set up on wigner. The set up expects that the user has a smart phone (Android or iPhone) with Google Authenticator app installed. The app is free and may be downloaded/installed using the following links:
Android | iPhone
If willing to help test this set up, please reply to the email message sent to the wigner mailing list to receive further information.
Power Outage
2013-02-12, 4:00 pm
Greater Houghton area experienced two power outages yesterday: one shortly after midnight and another around 5 pm. As a result, any/all running simulations have been terminated, eventhough quser (or qstatus) will indicate otherwise.
All components of this cluster have been powered on and users may continue using the facility as before: either by continuing from the previous checkpoints, if any, or by restarting the simulations.
VASP 5.3.3
2012-12-22, 11:40 am
VASP 5.3.3 is now available for use. Users may run qgenscript to generate the required SGE script.
qgenscript
2012-10-25, 8:58 am
qgenscript now offers three more features - Relative Job Priority, Dependent Job ID and SMS Notifications - for every job. Please refer to the email for details about each one of these new features.
VASP 4.6.31
2012-10-24, 3:30 am
VASP 4.6.31 is now available for use. Users may run qgenscript to generate the required SGE script.
Quantum ESPRESSO 5.0.1
2012-10-18, 10:13 am
Quantum ESPRESSO 5.0.1 is now available for use. Users may run qgenscript to generate the required SGE script.
qgenscript
2012-10-08, 10:10 am
While the changes observed by users when running qgenscript might appear only cosmetic, the underlying code has been almost completely re-written to provide the list of available software in a real time and up to date fashion.
MATLAB R2012b
2012-10-08, 9:02 am
MATLAB R2012b is now available for use. Users may run qgenscript to generate the required SGE script.
R 2.15.1
2012-10-07, 11:30 am
R 2.15.1 is now available for use. Users may run qgenscript to generate the required SGE script.
Mathematica 8.0.4
2012-10-06, 10:06 pm
Mathematica 8.0.4 is now available for use. Users may run qgenscript to generate the required SGE script.
Planned Maintenance Work
2012-08-15, 12:50 pm
2012.08.22 @ 4:55 pm: Please note that compute nodes that make up long.q (compute-0-N; N: 8 - 31) have also been powered up and ready for your use as before. Also, special.q does not exist anymore - it has been merged with long.q 2012.08.20 @ 4:15 pm: Please note that front end, login node, storage node and compute nodes that belong to short.q (compute-0-N; N: 0-7) have neen powered up. You may resubmit previously terminated and/or new computations to short.q - there's no limit on walltime for this queue through end of this month. Please be considerate to your fellow users and share the resources of short.q well over the next few days until long.q becomes available. 2012.08.15 @ 12:50 pm: With Rekhi 317 becoming a NIH standard facility, all computing infrastructure that is fully administered by Information Technology Services in Rekhi 315 will be moved to Rekhi 317. Also, all self administered computing infrastructure in Rekhi 317 will be moved to Rekhi 315. As such, wigner.it will be down for this move from 8 am on Monday, August 20th 2012 through 8 am on Monday, August 27th 2012. Please make sure that you have all necessary data to continue your research, analysis, etc. during this down time.
Intel Compilers License Renewed
2012-08-06, 9:46 pm
License for Intel Cluster Studio XE 2012.0.032 has been renewed and is good through 2013.08.05.
New Tools & Utilities
2012-07-10, 11:37 pm
Many new tools & utilities (q* scripts) have been (and will continue to be) added to wigner.it - a full listing with a brief description of their functionality is included under the Job Submission section.
Additional Nodes
2012-07-06, 11:12 am
wigner.it now has a total of 32 compute nodes (8 in short.q, 16 in long.q and 8 in special.q). All users have access to short.q while select users (based on their needs) have access to long.q and special.q.
Also, short.q has a limit of 24 hours for maximum wall time for any given computation and long.q & special.q have no such limitations.
Planned Power Outage
2012-04-19, 10:05 am
Please note, per Tech Today, there will be a brief power outage in Rekhi Hall on starting 7 am on Monday, 30th April 2012. Please be sure to complete and/or checkpoint any all currently running and/or subsequent calculations before 9 pm on Sunday, 29th April 2012. wigner.it will be powered off shortly after 9 pm. You will be notified as and when the facility is powered on and becomes available for use.
NAS Node
2012-04-18, 6:43 pm
A network area storage (NAS) node, worth about 2 TB, has been added to wigner.it - /state/partition2/research/ from the NAS node is mounted across the cluster [front end, login and compute nodes] at /research/. Users are strongly suggested to run any/all I/O intensive computations from their respective research folders, found under /research/$USER/.
pauli.phy --> wigner.it
2012-04-09, 9:22 pm
pauli.phy (along with its compute nodes) has been retired and replaced with wigner.it - in its current form, it includes a front end (wigner.it), a login node (wigner-login.it), 8 compute nodes (each with 8 CPU cores and 8 GB RAM). Users' data on pauli.phy has been moved over to wigner.it as is - users will need to SSH into wigner-login.it.mtu.edu and may use the cluster as they did pauli.phy.