CUG.Log

IGC Report

The IGC is a group of system and networking administrators in the German speaking parts of Europe. We are focussed on both, Cray and SGI HPC equipment. Participants of our workshops (held twice a year) do not only come from Germany, but also from the Netherlands and Switzerland. Here comes an overview of our recent meetings, and a preview of the next ones:

2000:

Spring: IPP, Garching, 06./07. April
Fall: TU, Dresden, 21./22. September

2001

Spring: RRZN, Hannover, 05./06. April
Fall: RHRZ, Kaiserslautern, 25./26. October

2002

Spring: ETH, Zürich, 21./22.March

Permanent Topics are

• a roadshow from our associated vendors
• short reports from the sites (what's going on, what's planned)
• center topics like batch-environment, LINUX, Mosix, ...
• special presentations, mostly by the hosting site
• report from recent CUG events (activities, plans, Bylaws, elections)

Outlook:

Formerly, we had separate meetings of Unicos and IRIX groups. But as SGI bought Cray Research, and Cellular IRIX was designated to become their one and only HPC Operating System, we felt to have joint meetings like CUG did, too. And there were many good reasons, really. The former Cray focussed group, named Unicos-AK, and the IRIX group built a new group named IGC, which stands for IRIX German Council. But since the divorce of the Cray and SGI part, on CUG meetings we had separate Cray and SGI days. Yet, the German IGC kept common meetings with the presence of Cray and SGI vendor persons at the same time. Today, you may philosophize what IGC means:

• IGC holds for Interest Group Cray (name of the group before Unicos was borne, and which is the heritage), or
• IGC holds for IRIX German Council

As long as we have common meetings, it's just IGC.

Recently our Cray representative at the workshops argued to have the same procedure like at CUG meetings, that is no common sessions with the SGI representative. Moreover, Cray Germany feels it would be sufficient to have one meeting per year only. After one whole evening's discussion, the IGC decided the following (which is not explained here):

• the IGC continues to meet twice a year with common presence of the site people
• we have one day with Cray reps only, and another with SGI reps
• vendor's presence on the first or second day will be alternatively from one meeting to the other, because the vendor's timeslots are different on both days

Uwe Olias
UniKiel
olias@rz.uni-kiel.de