URSA Q&A

1) Do all programs run have to be queued, or can some programs, like Maple, be run in real-time?

URSA is a batch resource. All production jobs are supposed to be submitted via LoadLeveler. Users might use node 33 for direct submission of test jobs. ResearchComputingPortal offers a user-friendly interface for job submission and job management in general.

2) What is the byte order of the IBM Power5+ processors? Is it setup for big-endian or little-endian?

Power5 is a big-endian.

3) Is the Message Passing Interface (MPI) installed on the node the IBM version, or based on OpenMPI? ?

The MPI version installed is the IBM version. You will need to inclde the IBM MPI libraries in your code.

In the C compiler use:

# include “mpi.h”

In the Fortran compiler use:

Include ‘mpif.h’

For more in-depth information:

MPI

OpenMP

4) Are the compilers installed on the node an IBM version, or are they GNU-based compilers? (GCC & GFortran specifically)

We have the IBM compilers installed as well as the gcc GNU-based compiler.

The IBM compilers are xlf and xlC.

For further information please look here:

Compilers

Compiler Optimization

Scientific Libraries

5) How much disk space do PI's get for their projects by default? One PI generates ~2 TB of data per simulation.

The Georgia Southern researchers will be sharing 4 TB of data space. There are no PI specific quotas in place at this time. Georgia State University researchers have shared access to another 9 TB.

6) What shells are available on the command line? Which one is given to users by default?

The shells that are available on the command line are Korn and Bash. The users' default shell is Bash.

7) What data is backed up when the node is backed up? Is it possible to not back up specific files & data sets when data usage agreements prohibit those select data files & data sets from being backed up?

A full database backup occurs every night. Data is backed each night incrementally. Tapes are sent offsite once a week. It is possible to set parameters for specific data sets and files to not be backed up. A list of such data would need to be supplied to be removed from the process.

-- JaroKlc - 02 Mar 2009