If you have important data on scratch, you will need to transfer it to the Fortress archive or to Gilbreth scratch. Instructions for transferring data from scratch can be found here.

We hope this transition will provide an even better research environment for you! Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you!

We will provide an update by 5 pm this afternoon.

• SSH
• Thinlinc remote desktops
• CIFS access to cluster scratch

On-campus access to community clusters will remain unchanged, and VPN is not required for Globus data transfers.

Purdue's VPN network allows users to access campus resources, including the community clusters, from anywhere in the world at any time of day. If your department IT staff administers your computer, you will need them to install the VPN client for you. If you maintain your own computer, go to the AnyConnect WebVPN portal and follow the instructions to get connected.

Purdue's network is a large target and as such under attack regularly by cybercriminals trying to access sensitive information. To ensure the integrity of the Purdue network, ITaP began enforcing the use of BoilerKey on the WebVPN in September.

If you do not yet have BoilerKey, go to purdue.edu/boilerkey to sign up today. For VPN and BoilerKey assistance:

• GoldAnswers
• VPN FAQ
• BoilerKey FAQ
• YouTube instructional video

Tech Support:

• West Lafayette and IUPUI campuses: itap@purdue.edu or (765) 494-4000
• Purdue Northwest: csc@pnw.edu or (219) 989-2888
• After hours support for BoilerKey, as well as password resets, is available for all campuses by phone at (765) 494-4000.

Further information about using ITaP Research Computing resources can be found in the community cluster user guides or by contacting rcac-help@purdue.edu.

Thank you,

Preston Smith, Director of Research Services and Support, ITaP Research Computing

During this time, will have critical security patches made to the operating system.

Any PBS jobs which request a walltime which would take them past Thursday, January 31st, 2019 at 8:00am EST will not start and will remain in the queue until after the maintenance is completed. Any jobs which are still running at Thursday, January 31st, 2019 at 8:00am EST will need to be terminated. Unfortunately, due to the critical security nature of the work, these patches cannot be postponed to allow for normal job completion.

Direct access to Data Depot via Windows drives (SMB/CIFS) is no longer planned to be affected by this work.

Systems will be returned to service as soon as possible during the day, and we expect all systems to be back in service by 11:59pm. Please plan your work accordingly around this date. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

On July 9 - 16, 2018, the old scratch space will be made read-only, and on July 16, this space will be permanently removed and all remaining data purged. As scratch storage, there are no backups of this space, so please be sure you have any data you need moved to the Fortress Archive or the new scratch storage.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

During this time, will have the default scratch path change to the new scratch filesystem, as explained in the New Halstead Scratch Storage announcement. will also have minor operating system security patches and upgrades applied.

Any PBS jobs which request a walltime which would take them past Monday, May 14th, 2018 at 8:00am EDT will not start and will remain in the queue until after the maintenance is completed.

We are working with the vendor to address this and expect to have the issue resolved within an hour or two.

• $CLUSTER_SCRATCH_NEW (new scratch space)
• $CLUSTER_SCRATCH_OLD (old/existing scratch space)

The new scratch space ($CLUSTER_SCRATCH_NEW) is already available on all submission front-ends and compute nodes. During the maintenance on Monday, May 14th, 2018, the $CLUSTER_SCRATCH variable will switch from matching $CLUSTER_SCRATCH_OLD to matching $CLUSTER_SCRATCH_NEW.

The old scratch space will remain available for one additional month as the $CLUSTER_SCRATCH_OLD variable. However, this scratch space will be removed from at that point and all files remaining there will be permanently deleted. The $CLUSTER_SCRATCH_NEW and _OLD variables will also be removed at that time.

Please be sure to copy any files you need from the old path to the new path. All files not transferred by June 15th, 2018 will be lost.

Any jobs whose requested walltime will take them past Tuesday, March 20th, 2018 at 5:00am EDT will be held in queue until after this maintenance. Any interactive Thinlinc sessions still open at that time will be terminated.

After this maintenance, the new scratch filesystem will be made available through a new path on the system and some time given for workflows to be gradually changed to use the new scratch filesystem. More details will be announced after the maintenance on how to start changing your jobs to do so. We will announce a cut-over to fully using this new filesystem at a future date.

Your feedback from HalsteadGPU made clear that a key requirement was "larger", to keep up with demand - therefore, the new system consists of 15 compute nodes, each with 2 Intel Xeon Gold 6126 processors (24 cores total), 192GB of RAM, EDR Infiniband, and 3 Nvidia P100 GPU accelerators - a total of 45 GPUs with a total 211.5 TF of double-precision performance (418.5 TF single-precision).

The GPU nodes have access to the same high-speed parallel scratch (3.4PB) as the main Brown cluster. These P100 “Pascal” GPUs are well suited to accelerate computations in molecular dynamics, machine learning, quantum chemistry, and many other domains.

This annual charge gets you and your group access to a shared queue, only available to researchers who have purchased access. If you purchase access to the system, you can add your students to the shared queue exactly like you do on other community clusters.

Alternatively, if you require a dedicated queue like you may have on other community clusters, that is available as well.

You can purchase access to the Brown GPU nodes here: https://www.rcac.purdue.edu/purchase.

We look forward to your feedback as we continue to invest in providing the right resources for you via our community cluster program. Our goal is to provide GPU systems that are as cost-effective, efficiently utilized, and capable as our CPU-based community clusters, so that you can focus on your research rather than operating computer systems.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at rcac-help@purdue.edu.

You should change your mapped network drives to connect to: \\scratch.my_cluster_name_here.rcac.purdue.edu\my_cluster_name_here

Or for home directory access: \\home.rcac.purdue.edu\home

The old server, samba.rcac.purdue.edu, will be retired at the end of this month, so please change your connections as soon as possible to avoid any disruption in service. This change will allow us to better maintain this type of service during cluster maintenance and upgrades in the future. More information on this is available in the cluster user guides:

• Brown
• Halstead
• HalsteadGPU
• Rice
• Snyder
• Conte
• Scholar
• Radon

Contact us if you have any questions. Thank you!

desktop.my_cluster_name_here.rcac.purdue.edu

The old Thinlinc service on thinlinc.rcac.purdue.edu will be retired at the end of this month. Please update your client and bookmarks soon to avoid any issues then. This change will allow us to do upgrades and maintain the clusters with less disruption of overall service. More information is available in the cluster user guides:

• Brown
• Halstead
• HalsteadGPU
• Rice
• Snyder
• Conte
• Scholar

Contact us if you have any questions. Thank you!

Many nodes in these clusters temporarily lost access to Depot. Jobs accessing files on Depot may have paused or terminated depending on the severity of the issue on each node and the nature of the job being run.

The issue is already being corrected and access restored, but some job failures or delays may be seen.

During this time, Research Computing services will continue to be available, but all staff will be on leave. Critical system outages will be dealt with should they occur during this time. Other support needs will be handled when the University re-opens on January 3rd. There will also be no coffee hour consultations during this break.

Scratch file purging (only on community clusters with scratch space) will continue as normal during the break, so be sure to archive your files in scratch storage or check for any upcoming purge warning email during the break. This does not apply to Data Depot or home directories--only scratch storage.

Have a wonderful break, everyone, and we look forward to great things in the new year!

During this time, the system will receive minor updates and patches.

Any PBS jobs which request a walltime which would take them past Wednesday, December 13th, 2017 at 8:00am EST will not start and will remain in the queue until after the maintenance is completed.

During this time, the system will receive minor updates and patches.

Any PBS jobs which request a walltime which would take them past Wednesday, November 8th, 2017 at 8:00am EST will not start and will remain in the queue until after the maintenance is completed.

During this time, the server will receive operating system patches and minor upgrades.

The cluster will return to normal production by Wednesday, September 13th, 2017 at 5:00pm EDT.

We will provide an update by 4:00pm if the issue is not resolved sooner.