INFORMATION SERVICES DIVISION
Computational Resource Allocation Group (CRAG)
Monthly Meeting
Friday 20th November 2015, 13:00
Room 103, Podium Building, 1 Eversholt Street, London NW1 2DN
Chair:
Dario Alfe [DA]
Present:
Sergey Yurchenko (SY]; Andrew Martin (AM); Javier Herrero (JH); Owain Kenway
(OK)
Apologies:
Thomas Jones (TJ); Clare Gryce (CG); Michail Stamatakis (MS); Nikolas
Kaltsoyannis (NK); Ian Kirker (IK); Jo Lampard (JL); Tom Couch (TC); Nick
Achilleos (NA); William Hay (WH); Ton Jones (TJ); Michail Stamatakis (MS)
In attendance:
Kerry Deane (KD) - Minutes
MINUTES
1. Approval of Minutes of last meeting held on Friday 18th September 2015 [Chair]
The Group approved the Minutes of the last meeting. There were no matters arising.
2. Update on status of current Actions (Chair/All)
The list of current Actions (see table at end) was updated.
3. Review of any requests for additional resources on local HPC facilities
(Chair/All)



Ana Ferreira requested an extension of her previous request of 7th October 2014 for
an increased Scratch quota of 2 TB and this was approved.
Federico Minneci requested his Scratch space be increased to 5 TB for work on
bioinformatics projects.
Patrick Lombard requested her Scratch space be increased to 5 TB for work on
projects with sequencing data.
Page 1 of 6
4. Review of Legion usage statistics (OK)








Everything except GPU nodes were moved up until this week.
Due to a bug that was discovered this week, the stats are for the old part of the
cluster
New users are experiencing longer wait times but hopefully people can be moved to
Grace.
The longest that a newly submitted job will wait is 12 hours.
There are now 6 type T nodes.
The advantage of Grace is that it is based within UCL and it has no legal limits
ACTION: OK to investigate what happens if somebody buys nodes and subsequently
leave UCL.
5. Review of EMERALD usage statistics (OK)

Emerald is up and running.
6. Update report on Cfl and new HPC (OK)





Grace has passed all acceptance tests and we are addressing a minor issue.
People have access to their data on Legion, which was not originally intended.
There was a CI with DFS and authentication service was impacted, but this is being
addressed. Applications such as LAMPS will be rebuilt and then access to them will
be given to users. If there are no further issues, they will be available at the end of
this month.
We may have to look at storage infrastructure for Legion next year.
ACTION: OK to give people a script so that they can move data across to the new
system.
7. AOB


Other names apart from Grace and Legion are needed. The Group can think about
this for the next meeting.
It would also be useful to have names for the machines.

ACTION: All to think about alternative names for Grace and Legion for discussion at
the next meeting.

ACTION: OK to circulate text for citing Legion to this group.
8. Next meeting date
Friday 18th December 2015 from 13.00-15.00.
Venue: Room 103, 1st floor, Podium Building, 1 Eversholt Street, London, NW1 2DN.
9. Agenda (Items) for the next meeting:
Standing items:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Approval of Minutes of last meeting.
Update on status of current Actions.
Review of any requests for additional resources on local HPC facilities.
Review of Legion usage statistics.
Review of EMERALD usage statistics.
Page 2 of 6
6. Update report on CfI and new HPC (from CG).
7. Data repatriation plans.
CURRENTLY APPROVED EXCEPTIONAL REQUESTS
Requesting CRAG
approval
user
date
details of
exception
start date end date
agreed
agreed
Implementation
date
removed Notes (for info)
Conde
17/07/2015 Scratch quota
increased to
3TB
Pikoula
17/07/2015 8 U-type nodes 17/07/2015 13/08/2015
for a month
18.09.2015
Agreed to
extend for
another month
Meng
09/09/2014 Scratch quota
increased to
3TB and
extended
09/09/2014 30/09/2015
18.09.2015
Agreed to
extend for
another year
Herrero
09/09/2014 Scratch quota
increased to
6TB and
extended
09/09/2014 30/09/2015
19.09.2015
Agreed to
extend for
another year
Ferreira
07/10/2014 Scratch quota
increased to
2TB and
extended
07/10/2014 31/10/2015
18.09.2015
OK to contact
user closer to
the expiry date.
17/07/2015 16/07/2016
20.11.15
Agreed to
extend for
another year.
Wang
20/02/2015 Scratch quota
increased to
2TB and
extended
08/01/2015 31/01/2016
Wellington
23/02/2015 Scratch quota
increased to
1TB for the
period
23/02/2015 01/08/2015
Bloch
20/03/2015 Scratch quota
increased to
1TB and
extended
20/03/2015 31/03/2016
Page 3 of 6
Advise user to
reapply upon
expiry as had
requested longer
timeframe
Requesting CRAG
approval
user
date
Oostra
details of
exception
22/05/2015 Scratch quota
increased to
3TB and
extended
start date end date
agreed
agreed
Implementation
date
removed Notes (for info)
22/05/2015 31/05/2016
22/05/2015 40+ nodes to
16/06/2015 23/06/2015
Terras/
be reserved for
Hetherington
JISC Data
Spring project
events
Javed
23/10/15
Additional disk 10/2015
space required
for MRC DTP:
structural study
of the role of
the ribosome in
co-translational
protein folding
during protein
biosynthesis.
06/2017
Minneci
20/11/2015 Personal
23/11/15
scratch space
increased to 5
TB. Working on
bioinformatics
projects.
22/11/16
Lombard
20/11/15
Scratch space 10/11/15
increased to 5
TB. Working on
projects with
sequencing
data.
09/11/16
Advise user to
reapply upon
expiry as had
requested longer
timeframe
Between the
hours of 09:0018:00 on both
dates only
LIST OF CURRENT ACTIONS
Shaded (closed/completed) items will be deleted in the next version.
166
Actions
Status
Owner
Re-application process, stats
for re-application and project
account/ publication data
(09/12/14) NEW ACTION: Check with
RAGG to add to backlog and confirm
usage.
Report back to CRAG with plan on how to
implement.
OK
(20/02/15) ONGOING: Contractor has
been hired.
Page 4 of 6
G/OK
Actions
Status
Owner
(20/03/15) ONGOING: OK to check on
progress.
(22/05/15) ONGOING
(19/06/15) ONGOING
(17/07/15) ONGOING: New web form is
almost complete and will be approved
internally before it is presented at the next
CRAG meeting.
(18/09/15) ONGOING: OK and CG have
reviewed the data with the developer and
confirmed that it is almost complete. Slight
changes to be made to how the funding
information is gathered. Approval for
renewal granted.
(23/10/15) ONGOING
169
Legion usage statistics
(20/11/15) ONGOING: As Helen is leaving,
JH is currently recruiting a software
developer who has the necessary skills for
this.
(17/04/15) NEW ACTION: OK to talk to
OK
Systems team re metrics/file system
performance.
(22/05/15) ONGOING
(19/06/15) ONGOING
(17/07/15) ONGOING
(18/09/15) ONGOING. Currently waiting
for what packages come with Grace in
terms of statistics gathering.
(23/10/15) ONGOING: OK is putting fixes
in place. Legion and Grace will be
separate but the same system.
(20/11/15) ONGOING: Legion and Grace
are still separate but will hopefully be on
the same system by the next meeting.
173
CfI
(19/06/15) NEW ACTION: CG to alert
EMERALD user community to the
possibility of extending the service into
2016/17 if users can find funding.
(17/07/15) ONGOING
(18/09/15) ONGOING: Have not received
any updates from CG.
Page 5 of 6
CG
Actions
Status
Owner
(23/10/15) ONGOING
20/11/15) ONGOING: No updates.
176
STFC Statistics reporting
quality
(17/07/15) NEW ACTION: OK to contact
STFC to discuss/ identify a better method
of obtaining stats reports.
OK
(18/09/15) ONGOING: CFI have stopped
providing statistics; OK has been
attempting to contact them via email.
(23/10/15) ONGOING: OK will continue to
investigate.
(20/11/15) ONGOING: No statistics this
month as the server was down.
177
New Grace Scheduling policy
(17/07/15) NEW ACTION: OK to ensure
new policy is implemented in Grace prior
to rollout.
OK
(18/09/15) ONGOING
(23/10/15) ONGOING: Interactive access
with a time limit was previously agreed.
178
Legion user statistics
179
Making Iridis home directories
available on Grace
180
Decide on text for citing the
use of RC Platforms Services
181
Circulate current wording for
180
(20/11/15) ONGOING: William has made
implementations already but needs to test
it.
(20/11/15) NEW ACTION: OK to
investigate what happens if somebody
buys nodes and subsequently leave UCL.
(20/11/15) NEW ACTION: OK to give
people a script so that they can move data
across to the new system.
(20/11/15) NEW ACTION: All to think
about the language used for citing the use
of our services (due to the fact that there
will now be both Grace and Legion) for
discussion at the next meeting.
(20/11/15) NEW ACTION: OK to circulate
current text for citing Legion to this group.
Page 6 of 6
OK
OK
All
OK