Research Computing News
November 9, 2009
Welcome to the latest edition of Research Computing News. Please forward this to new colleagues and students. The availability of the software discussed below is described at http://oit.utk.edu/software.php, and our services are described at http://oit.utk.edu/research. You can contact us at (865) 974-9900. Subscribe or unsubscribe, and read back issues of Research Computing News at:
http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/rcnews.html, and its predecessor at:
http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/statnews.html.
-Bob Muenchen, Editor
OIT Reorganizes
The Office of Information Technology recently reorganized. Among the many changes, Research Computing Support (RCS) merged with ITC, which was renamed Innovative Technology Consulting. RCS also gained several new staff members: Geri Ragghianti supports High Performance Computing (HPC); Chris Hodge supports collaborative efforts in research projects and will soon also support web survey development and site licenses. We also now have responsibility for the site licenses for ESRI, ERDAS and Autodesk Products. Betsy Lillie, Kristen Vandergriff and Andrew Bass joined RCS, bringing expertise in software distribution. The new organizational chart is available at: http://oit.utk.edu/ITOrgChart.pdf.
Software Distribution Changes
The software download area at http://oit.utk.edu/software, under Internet Downloads, distributes software to all UT campuses, and is one of our most popular services. It is particularly useful for people outside the Knoxville campus, since it offers a quick way to get software from across the state. We have expanded the number of packages distributed on this server and will continue to add to the selection in the coming months. Our goal is to distribute everything possible through the server. For people needing media, the UC Computer Store (UCCS) at the Knoxville campus will handle all our software orders. OIT is no longer distributing media. The UCCS ships to all campuses. You can reach them at 865-974-2930.
Mail Large Files with Accellion
Collaborating with colleagues at other campuses or institutions can be frustrating when it requires transferring large files. Most email systems will not allow large attachments. However, OIT's Accellion Secure FTP server makes it easy to transfer large files. To use it, point your browser to https://utfta.utk.edu, login with your NetID and password, then follow the simple instructions. The server will send an email to your colleagues telling how they can use their browsers to download the file(s).
Newton High Performance Computing Upgrade
The Newton High Performance Computing (HPC) program has completed its latest version of the UTK HPC cluster. Newton is a cooperative program between the Office of Research, OIT, and the academic departments of UTK to build in-house computing infrastructure to service researcher's scientific computing needs. The upgrade was financed with funds contributed to the program by the Office of Research, Drs. Bamin Khomami and Brian Edwards in the Chemical Engineering Department, and Dr. Igor Jouline at the Joint Institute for Computational Science. The upgrade expanded the current Newton HPC cluster to 1,568 CPU cores. The 120 new compute nodes now feature the newest Intel Nehalem processors and a Qlogic Infiniband network fabric capable of 40 Gbit/sec data transfers between compute nodes.
The upgrade allows OIT to provide greatly increased capabilities to Newton customers: decreasing turnaround time, making resources available to a larger group of researchers, and making possible ever more computationally intensive scientific investigation.
SAS and MATLAB have been installed on Newton. The next change will be to move to the Lustre file system, which should provide dramatically faster input/output to disk. More information about the program is available at http://hpc.usg.utk.edu/.
Long-running Jobs Added to Analysis.utk.edu
Our Citrix XenApp Server, Analysis.utk.edu, lets you run 30 different research software packages, as if they were installed on your Windows, Macintosh or Linux computer. When you open a file, the data is transferred from your computer to the server without you having to know how to transfer data. When you print, the server sees your local printer and prints like any other application. This ease-of-use has made it a favorite of almost 2,000 users in 262 departments.
However, being an interactive system, it logs you out after one hour of inactivity. We have a new user account feature that gets around this limitation. By request, we can add you to a special group that enables your program to run unattended for 24 hours. You merely start your job and choose "Disconnect" on the server's display. You can then log back in fewer than 24 hours later and choose "Reconnect". If your job is not done, simply interact with it by clicking on anything in the application window. That will restart your timer and you will have another 24 hours of use.
To keep long running jobs from interfering with other people's work, the jobs are run at a lower priority.
New MATLAB Version
The MathWorks updates software twice per year and periodically updates platform support. The latest software release of MATLAB is R2009b. It includes new features in MATLAB and Simulink, and updates and bug fixes for many other products. R2009b also adds support for the 64-bit Apple Mac OS X 10.5 platform on Intel processors. The plan for September 2010 is to remove support for the Macintosh OS X 32-bit and provide no new release past R2010a. Support for 64-bit Macintosh OS X will continue. The plan for March 2010 is to remove support for Sun SPARC Solaris and provide no new release past R2009b.
Stata Logins Increased
Due to the increased popularity of the Stata package for statistics and graphics, we have increased the number of simultaneous logins to 14. This powerful software is especially popular in Economics, Finance, Sociology, Political Science and Geography. Students have access to this software at http://analysis.utk.edu for free, and faculty/staff can use it, and all other software installed there, with a one-time $17 payment for a Client Access License.
SigmaPlot Site License Ends
The use of SigmaPlot has declined to the point where we will no longer centrally manage those licenses. SigmaPlot is a perpetual license, so if you have it, you can continue to use it as long as you like. SigmaPlot, and its future updates, will continue to be available on our Citrix XenApp Server, Analysis.utk.edu.
MATLAB Does Maps
The Mapping Toolbox which works within the MATLAB environment is now available and can be downloaded from http://mathworks.com. The base map commands, combined with other Mapping Toolbox display commands, can be used to analyze and create geographic displays with your data.
The MathWorks, Inc. MATLAB and Simulink programs are computational software environments used to perform a variety of computational tasks such as in engineering, science, mathematics, statistics and finance. The UT system-wide Total Academic Headcount (TAH) license includes MATLAB, Simulink and 56 add-on products. All products are listed at http://oit.utk.edu/matlab/MATLABtoolboxes.htm. The license agreement provides free access to UT faculty, staff and students for use on work, home, lab and laptop computers. To learn how to acquire MathWorks products, download the MATLAB installation document at http://oit.utk.edu/software.
SPSS / PASW Statistics 18 Available
The latest version of SPSS is available for download. We will also make it available on DVD, and install it in the computer labs and on our various servers between semesters. The early rollout of version 18 was caused by the new Snow Leopard release of the Macintosh operating system. That system broke earlier versions of SPSS, forcing the company to release it earlier than usual, and forcing us to put it into distribution mid-semester. This did not speed the testing process of the software however. Our experience so far with version 18 is that it is the most stable version of SPSS in several years. Their transition to a user interface written in Java allowed the company to release versions for Macintosh and Linux, but it contained far more bugs than usual. With that transition finished, we hope that the software will return to its high level of quality in the future.
New features in version 18 include new nonparametric tests, significance testing in Custom Tables, and the addition of both Python and R on the product's DVD. For details, see http://www.spss.com/statistics/ .
ATLAS.ti Interest Grows
The qualitative analysis software, ATLAS.ti is available on Analysis.utk.edu where it is available for use at all campuses. Dr. Trena Paulus, of the Educational Psychology and Counseling Department, is working to get an expert to come to the Knoxville campus to provide on-campus training. If you are interested, please contact her at tpaulus@utk.edu +1 865 974 8144. RCS currently supports only QDA Miner, but we carefully monitor growth in new areas and adjust our support accordingly.
New R Workshops
OIT is offering a new workshop each semester at the Knoxville campus. It covers a brief overview of the R language plus the point-and-click interfaces R Commander (similar to SPSS) and Rattle, which is aimed at data mining.
On May 5, 2010, we will offer a full-day workshop that will focus on the R language, its various user interfaces and how it compares to the statistics packages SAS, SPSS and Stata. Registration for both workshops will begin at the start of Spring semester at http://oit.utk.edu/training.php .
ITC Newsletter
Faculty and staff at the Knoxville campus may also be interested it ITC's monthly newsletter. The latest issue and subscription information is available at: http://itc.utk.edu/newsletter_monthly/.