Compute Servers
Applications such as Mathematica and cplex require lots of memory and cpu cycles so that they often impede other, usually interactive, activities on your desktop or even cannot run. And the weekly reboot/upgrade procedures on desktop systems may terminate your compute job prematurely.
In those cases, revert to one of the remote compute systems below. They can be accessed with your Linux account unless indicated otherwise. They do not take part in the weekly reboot/upgrade procedures, and a notice will be sent to in case of planned maintenance.
Disk space
Disk space is available on /home and /scratch as usual on linux systems. We may impose limits also on /scratch if we get too many disk full problems because on filesystems with hundreds of GB, it may take hours only to find out who is using disk space. You are welcome to use the space and speed that /scratch provides but in case you plan to use a considerable amount of that space, please also plan a date to clear disk space. If you need to store compute results or other precious data that are too big for /home, consider a secondary copy on the storage server .
Running GUI programs
In order to run GUI programs on these servers, you need to login with ssh -Y, else they will not have sufficient access to your display facilities and will appear with a grey window, without warning.
To run GUI programs from Windows systems, you need to install and setup Exceed.
Modest resources requirements
Although the systems below may not provide more memory than the newest desktops, they are still useful to keep resources on your desktop free for other activities or for jobs that need more compute cycles than your desktop can provide between the weekly upgrade procedures.
- tiger.win.tue.nl
- 4 x 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB, Fedora 14 / 64-bit
- leopard.win.tue.nl
- 4 x 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB, Fedora 14 / 64-bit
Note that all servers have different internal names (for example svlin002). We kindly ask you to use the names listed here; we will try to make sure that these will always refer to the latest available set of compute servers, and we reserve the right to change the internal name at our whim.
Bigger resource requirements
In case you really need more resources than your desktop provides, consider the systems below.
- ngrid01.win.tue.nl .. ngrid32.win.tue.nl
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32 servers with each: 16 processor cores, 2 Ghz, 12 GB memory, 194 GB local disk, Fedora 14 / 64-bit
Provided by LaQuSo, managed by BCF. The 32 servers that can be used as separate systems or as a cluster. It is a cluster only in the sense that the subsystems have relative fast network connections. There is currently no special cluster software installed but you can ask for such software if needed. The live statistics page can help to find resources for your job. - mammoth.win.tue.nl
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56 x 2 Ghz, 935 GB memory (aggregated), 2.8 TB local disk, Fedora 12 / 64-bit
Provided by LaQuSo, managed by BCF. The system is composed of 7 servers with each 144 GB that are aggregated by the vSMP software to appear as one system. All of the memory appears as a contiguous block of memory to the OS and to programs. The performance depends on your memory access profile which is a complex matter. In general, vSMP gets the most out of the hardware. A few typical cases follow below:- Accessing all of the memory, fully random: latency of infiniband
- Accessing all of the memory, sequential: bandwith of inifinband
- Clustered access, within a server's memory size: normal server performance
- elephant.win.tue.nl
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4 x 2.5 Ghz, 64 GB memory, 2.7 TB local disk, Fedora 12 / 64-bit Managed by BCF. There is no more hardware service any more for this system so we may need to close it at any moment. The CPU board is broken which is why only 4 of 8 cores and 64 of 128 GB of memory are available.
Even more resource requirements
If the previous systems are too busy, or do not fulfill your needs adequately, you can ask us to set up a new (desktop) PC for private usage. Such requests will be granted without formalities but only for a limited period. PCs of this nature are usually set up in a day or two.
If the previous proposals do not work for you, request another system through your GCA representative.