=========================================================== APAC National Facility Plans Service Soon =========================================================== As recently announced (see http://www.apac.edu.au/), a contract has been signed with COMPAQ to supply a peak computing system for the APAC National Facility. The purpose of this email is to inform researchers who received allocations of resources under the Merit Allocation Scheme last year of the arrangements for accessing the new system. 1. Facilities Available and Commencement Date --------------------------------------------------------------------- The service is planned to begin on 30 April. The system will be installed in two stages, with a major upgrade ready for service in late October. The initial system will have 184 processors (667Mhz alpha chips) in 46 ES40 nodes each with 4 processors and Gbytes of memory. These will be connected by a fast low latency SC switch. The final system will replace the ES40's with 120 ES45's (480 processors) with 1 Ghz chips. The final disk capacity will be around 10 Tbytes. (An option to add a single 16 processor system traded for a slightly reduced number of ES45 nodes is being considered). Message passing programming models (eg. MPI) and shared memory programming models (eg. OpenMP within a node) will be supported. Details and an outline of a user guide will appear on the National Facility website shortly (http://nf.apac.edu.au/) 2. Transfer of Existing Allocations to the COMPAQ System --------------------------------------------------------------------- Grants to researchers who were awarded resources last year will now run until 31 Dec 2001. Allocations were made last year for approximately three quarters. These will now be rolled over into the three 'quarters' of 2001 as May-June, July-Sept, Oct-Dec. The number of hours allocated in each quarter will be scaled so as to provide each project with at least the same computational power as would have been provided on the originally planned system during each corresponding quarter, ie. while the number of hours allocated will decrease until the Oct-Dec quarter, the computational power represented by those hours on the Compaq system will be at least that which was allocated last year on the Sun system. (The scaling factor will be 0.33 in May-June and 0.4 in July-Sept.) The allocation for the Oct-Dec quarter will not be made until later in the year. As will be apparent, the resources available will be significantly enhanced during that quarter. Users can expect a substantial boost in the number of hours allocated to a project in that quarter and an even larger boost in throughput over that which would have been provided in the corresponding quarter on the originally planned system. However the exact size of the increased grant will depend on the requirements of new projects approved in mid-year by the MAC. 3. Variations to Allocations and Users Connected to a Project --------------------------------------------------------------------- In late April the Principal Investigator of each project will be mailed the scaled allocations. Please let us know at that time if your expected usage pattern over each quarter has altered or if the level of allocation is no longer appropriate. The Principal Investigator will also be mailed a list of users connected to the project (and passwords) and invited to make any additions or deletions. Please note that under US export laws, citizens of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria may not be given access to the system that is now planned. It is the Principal Investigator's responsibility to request usernames for citizens of other countries only. We request your understanding on this point and ask you to please advise us of deletions where necessary. 4. Calls for New Proposals to the Merit Allocation Scheme --------------------------------------------------------------------- In May a call will be issued for additional proposals for the period July 2001 - June 2002 from those not already holding grants. Researchers already holding grants need not apply at that time. Late this year there will be a call to submit proposals for the period Jan 2002 -Dec 2002 to which current grant holders should respond. 5. Support from National Facility Staff --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please remember staff are available to help in your use of the National Facility. In particular, assistance and advice on parallelization of your codes is available. Contact help@nf.apac.edu.au. 6. Job Opportunities --------------------------------------------------------------------- We are currently advertising for additional Academic Consultants/Staff Scientists to assist in the above and other roles. If you know of anyone who may be interested, please direct them to http://anusf.anu.edu.au/Positions-Vacant/ ===========================================================