NWSC ASD

SCEC/Princeton has been awarded an Accelerated Scientific Discovery (ASD) allocation from the NCAR Computatioinal and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) for research on NCAR Wyoming Supercomputer Center (NCSW).

Allocation Leads

• Project Leads: PI: T. H. Jordan (USC); Co-PIs: P. Chen (U. Wyoming), Y. Cui (SDSC), and J. Tromp (Princeton)
• Project Collaborators: E. Bozdag (Princeton), E.J. Lee (U. Wyoming), P. Maechling (USC), K. Olsen (SDSU), D. Peter (Princeton), J. Shaw (Harvard), C. Tape (U. Alaska)

Getting Started

We received the following Getting Started Instruction from NCAR.

ASD project leads and technical leads,

Congratulations on your Accelerated Scientific Discovery (ASD) project and being one of the first projects with a chance to showcase the capabilities of Yellowstone and its potential for scientific impact! (Project leads should have received the official award letter on Friday.)

Now the work begins.

This message covers a number of logistical topics and will help ensure that CISL and the ASD teams are on the same page regarding schedule, deadlines, support, and system access, and to make sure all projects have the best chance at success.

As explained below, you will be receiving information on user accounts, support contacts, and system access from various channels. Please read this message carefully; it describes your responsibilities as well as what you can expect from CISL.

For general ASD questions, please don't hesitate to contact me, but otherwise please work directly with your designated support contacts, who will be contacting you soon, (or cislhelp@ucar.edu) from this point on.

Best regards,

Dave

David L Hart - dhart@ucar.edu - 303-497-1234 Manager, User Services Section, Computational & Information Systems Laboratory National Center for Atmospheric Research, PO Box 3000, Boulder CO 80307-3000

SYSTEM ACCESS: JANUS, JELLYSTONE, AND YELLOWSTONE

To prepare for Yellowstone access, we will provide access to the Janus cluster at CU-Boulder for the purposes of porting, compiling, testing, and benchmarking of codes to be used. Next, once the Yellowstone test system is available -- it's named "Jellystone" and comprises 32 16-core nodes -- we will give your team access to this system to port and test codes on Yellowstone-equivalent hardware.

For these first two systems, we will provide user accounts for the project's technical leads and any additional team members that you identify. To minimize unnecessary accounts, we ask that you limit Janus and Jellystone account requests to users essential to running the HPC jobs on Yellowstone.

Project leads or technical leads can send user account requests to cislhelp@ucar.edu. (Please see LOGINS AND ACCOUNTS at the end of this message.)

Once the Yellowstone system has passed acceptance, we will be happy to add user accounts for additional team members.

PROJECT CODES

On Janus, all ASD teams will share a common project code that has been established for this purpose: "NCAR46660123". Please communicate with your designated consultant before submitting any very large jobs.

As Yellowstone and its new accounting system become available, each ASD team will be given a unique project code for use on that system. Jellystone may use this code or may not require a project code.

CONSULTING AND VISUALIZATION SUPPORT

Each ASD project will be assigned a consultant from CISL's Consulting Services Group (CSG) and a CISL visualization expert. These persons will contact the technical lead within the next week to introduce themselves and help begin work on Janus.

Please feel free to contact these individuals directly (no need to work through me!) or you can always contact cislhelp@ucar.edu (303-497-2400). Be sure to mention your ASD involvement and help requests will get to your designated point(s) of contact.

ASD DEADLINES AND SCHEDULE

The ASD call for proposals (https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/docs/allocations/asd) noted several key deadlines for benchmarks and reports. These deadlines are in place to ensure that ASD teams are engaged and ready to take advantage of Yellowstone as soon as it is available. As stated in the call, "If a project is unable to meet these benchmark and production deadlines and guidelines, the ASD allocation will be reduced to 10% of the original allocation, and CISL will reallocate the resources."

-- Preliminary benchmark: June 29, 2012. On Janus or Jellystone (if available).

-- Yellowstone benchmark: July 31, 2012 (or no later than 10 days after Yellowstone acceptance).

-- Primary HPC runs: August 2012 - October 2012. To accommodate all meritorious ASD requests, university ASD projects will be able to complete some of their runs in November 2012. Please note: You will be running alongside the entire Yellowstone community in October and November and should plan your HPC runs accordingly.

-- NWSC GRAND OPENING: October 14-15, 2012. NCAR and the University of Wyoming are planning the NWSC Grand Opening for mid-October. The director of NSF, the governor of Wyoming, and other dignitaries will be in attendance. CISL would like to showcase the early accomplishments of the ASD program at that time. Please work with your designated consultant, visualization expert, and CISL's communications specialist (Marijke Unger) to plan runs, prepare visualizations, and briefly describe your projects in time for this event and the surrounding publicity. (This work will satisfy the preliminary reporting requirement.)

-- Preliminary report: November 5, 2012. You may choose to provide additional details beyond the materials requested for the NWSC Grand Opening.

-- Geyser/Caldera, GLADE access: August 2012 - June 2013. ASD projects will continue to have access to the Geyser and Caldera clusters, as well as their GLADE project spaces for data analysis and visualization through June 30, 2013.

-- FINAL REPORT: July 1, 2013. The final report should be up to five pages describing the research results, the computational experiments performed, the code efficiency, and listing the scientific papers in preparation, submitted, or published as a result of the ASD computations.

-- HPSS access: November 2013. CISL will allow ASD projects to keep data for one year after the end of the ASD period on the HPC system. After that point, projects should plan to make arrangements for there data or discuss other options with CISL.

(Should the Yellowstone installation schedule change significantly, we will notify you of any changes to these deadlines.)

ACKNOWLEDGING CISL AND YELLOWSTONE

ASD projects are required to acknowledge CISL and Yellowstone support for the provision of computational resources in all resulting publications. Please see https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/docs/acknowledging-ncarcisl.

• • • Such acknowledgments are a requirement for participation in any future Accelerated Scientific Discovery opportunities. ***

LOGINS AND PASSWORDS

If you currently have or previously had CISL user accounts, your login and token will be unchanged.

If you do not have a CISL account, you will receive a YubiKey via FedEx. Instructions will be emailed to new users. We require you to return all access tokens to us when your CISL use ends. Otherwise, there will be a charge of $15 per YubiKey (or $67 per previously issued CRYPTOCard).

Users may not share passwords or accounts on NCAR/CISL computers. Project leads or technical leads may send account requests for additional users to cislhelp@ucar.edu. Please include full contact information, including a *shipping* address for the YubiKey.

For Janus accounts, each user will receive a message from rc-help@colorado.edu with their Janus login. Otherwise, you should work with your designated consultant or cislhelp@ucar.edu for any issues.