March HPCF Newsletter

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 08:26:12 -0400
website

Hi everyone,

I'm writing to give a brief update on the status of a few projects related to the UMBC HPCF and Research Computing.

System Status

The new chip HPC is still in its “soft launch” phase. We expect the system to move to a “normal operations” on April 10. In the meantime, please communicate any issues/questions to the Research-Computing RT Queue.

Migration

All users and groups that existed on ada and taki now exist on chip. All users can login to chip, but note that 2FA via Duo is required unless you are already on the campus VPN.

In this soft launch phase, the compute hardware from ada and taki are being migrated into chip. Nearly half of ada and taki have already been integrated into chip. The remaining machines will be brought over in the days between April 3 and April 10.

Requesting Help

The scope of this queue is being broadened beyond the HPCF to include cloud computing, data management, data center space requests, and consultations around research computing and data. For now, any queries related to research computing as described above can be directed to the Research Computing RT queue. The Research-Computing RT Form is in the process of being updated to reflect this broadened scope.

Find the Research-Computing RT Form at hpcf.umbc.edu > Forms .

Website & User Documentation

The HPCF Website is in the process of being updated. The user documentation is in the process of being ported to the university wiki deployment at wiki.umbc.edu under Computing & Technology > Research Computing.

Publications

If you have any publications, presentations, theses, or other works that made use of the campus cluster(s), please submit an RT Ticket with bibliographic information so that we can accurately reflect this work in our records and on the HPCF Website.

Governance

The SIG Subcommittee on Advanced CPU met for the first time Monday March 24, 2025.

The SIG Subcommittee on Advanced GPU will meet in April, time and location TBD.

The SIG Subcommittee on Cloud Computing will meet in late April or May, time and location TBD.

Thanks for reading!

Roy Prouty

Assistant Director for Research Computing

UMBC DoIT