HPC Systems operated by the ITP

Adapted from the cluster pages at http://www.uibk.ac.at/zid/systeme/hpc-systeme by courtesy of the HPC Team of the Central Information Technology Services (ZID).

HPC Systems

REGULUS Compute Cluster:
Distributed memory cluster: 48 Intel nodes, 2592 cores total.
(since 2015 - Currently in Operation)
TEAZER Opteron Cluster:
Distributed memory cluster: 10 Opteron nodes, 184 cores total.
(2008 - Currently re-start with reduced number of nodes)

The hardware was purchased from transtec AG.

Use of the HPC Systems

How can I use the cluster?

To get a quick overview, see the Short Tutorial or have a look at the following specific topics:

Login to the cluster
Change your password
Set up your environment
Using the Son of Grid Engine (batch system):
- SGE tutorial
- Vendor documentation
- Queues of the Regulus Compute Cluster
- Queues of the Teazer Opteron Cluster

Where can I store my data?

Three different types of storage are available on the HPC clusters: /home, /scratch and /tmp.

Please note, that the directories /home and /scratch are avaliable on every cluster node. These directories are shared, whereas the /tmp directory is local on every node.

If the above mentioned quota limitations are too strict for your needs, please contact the system administrator (system-admin[at]mcavity.uibk.ac.at). It is no problem to increase the limits if there are reasons to do so.

User Accounts

The user accounts on the HPC clusters are managed via the Network Information Service (NIS). Ordinary users can run the command yppasswd to change their NIS password. It will prompt them for their old NIS password and then ask them for their new password twice, to ensure that the new password was typed correctly.

$ yppasswd Changing NIS account information for "user ID" on regulus.uibk.ac.at. Please enter old password: <type old value here> Changing NIS password for "user ID" on regulus.uibk.ac.at. Please enter new password: <type new value> Please retype new password: <re-type new value> Changing NIS password has been changed on regulus.uibk.ac.at.

If the old value does not match the current value stored for that user, or the two new values do not match each other, then the password will not be changed.

Back Up of Home Directories

The files in the "home" directories of the HPC Clusters are automatically backed up daily by centrally-scheduled ADSM/TSM tasks. Thus, if you have deleted files or directories in your home by mistake you can restore them yourself by running the command /usr/bin/dsm at the command line on the master node, where your home directory physically is located (see Restore deleted files/directories).

Note: Files in directories named tmp or cache will be NOT backed up!

For more information about ADSM/TSM, see Tivoli Storage Manager or ADSM/TSM-Server (FABS: HSM, Backup) and TSM V5: Sichern und Wiederherstellen von Daten at the ZID home page.

User Quota

In order to get a better grip on some of the more pesky users of the ITP HPC Clusters we have activated quotas on the central login servers regulus & teazer. To check your disk quota type quota at the command line. The quota(1) command displays the current disk usage along with your personal limits for disk space (blocks) and number of inodes (files). The soft limit (quota) can be temporarily exceeded (for a grace period of 7 days) whereas the hard limit (limit) is an absolute upper bound.

If you run out your quota you might first choose to tar and gzip directories. This is convenient as the kfm-window manager allows you to view and manipulate tgz files just like ordinary directories. Other simple strategies are:

remove unused dvi, aux, log files;
clear your firefox cache;
avoid keeping many huge matlab data files if possible.

Note: If your (hard) quota is exceeded and/or you do not have any grace time for your soft quota, your submitted jobs will be aborted (due to write errors)!

Installed Software

Operating System
The cluster is running CentOS, which is a compatible rebuild of Redhat-Enterprise Linux.

Job-Management-System
Submit your jobs via Son of Grid Engine.

Software environment
Set up your software environment by using Modules environment.

Software packages
Have a look at the available packages like compilers, parallel environments, numerical libraries, scientific applications, etc.

Contact

If you need additional information about the ITP HPC Cluster or an account on it or if you have problems with applications, please contact your system administrators:

E-mail address:	system-admin[at]mcavity.uibk.ac.at
Phone number:	52212