The XTreme meeting this CUG was conducted for the first time during the
normal CUG week over two half-day sessions (May 5 & 7) and was well
attended by numerous sites: ARSC, AWE, CSC - IT Center for Science
Ltd., CSCS, DMI, Hector/HPCX, NAVO, NERSC, NICS, ORNL, PSC, SNL, U of
Bergen. and UT-Knoxville.
Top 3 Site Issues – Dave Wallace of Cray
The first meeting started off with the discussion entitled “Top 3
Site Issues”. Various sites pre-submitted their top three
pressing issues and Dave presented Cray’s respond to
each. Items ran the gamut from Crayport usability, compute
node health, login node stability, little penguin vs. big penguin
requirements on compute nodes, RAS, Lustre failover, esLogin node
support, user access to release notes, job summary statistics, trace
back capabilities, requirement to relink apps under CLE, slippage of LA
& GA releases, APLS ease of use and recoverability, CLE seems less
user-friendly than Catamount, HSS software scalability, filesystem
management tools, and support of CSA accounting.
Software Deployment Rate - Charlie Carroll & Janet Lebens
Cray expressed a concern that they appear to be producing software
faster than sites can deploy it. Cray has moved from quarterly releases
to half-yearly to annual releases. Cray pointed out that there
are a number of sites that are still running Catamount 1.5. An
observation by Cray that production systems can’t upgrade as fast
as Cray is releasing software was discussed.
Cascade Market Requirements Overview - Dave Wallace
This presentation focused on the discussion of customer requirements,
which included Marketing and Service generated requirements for
Cascade. Cray wanted input from XTreme sites with their obvious
customer point of view. The Marketing and Service requirements
included a few existing product requirements but Dave requested
XTreme’s help in creating a more definitive set of requirements
with Cray.
Business Session, Wrap-Up, and Open Discussion
Next meeting will be held on the Sunday (November 15, 2009) before SC09
in Portland.
Elections
Jim Craw of NERSC was elected SIG Chair and Kurt Carlson was elected
SIG deputy. Former SIG Chair Ann Baker of ORNL
