NCSA Senior Associate Director for Scientific Computing and Visualization John Towns expands the group to include users of NCSA high-performance resources. He invites a project PI and other members of the computing team to participate via speaker phone in a Comp Pol meeting. The users give feedback of any type to the assembled NCSA staff. Adams, a faculty member at University of Arizona, and his team are active users of the NCSA Origin2000 and have been computing at NCSA for more than 10 years. Adams' comments to Comp Pol included a way to gather more system information, such as system status and the status of jobs, readily.
Efforts are underway to provide such data as a tool on a web portal.
In the meantime, Computing and Communications staff made available job status information on the Origin2000 including machine status as well as load and utilization information, LSF host and queue tables, a user's current jobs and all the jobs in the queues, and all running and pending jobs. This information is currently available on a secure server that requires a user's Kerberos login and password. While comments on systems and services are anticipated, the form may be used for any ideas. NCSA Associate Director Bruce Loftis will review each suggestion and will reply within one week to each. Loftis, who is responsible for consulting and training, considers this a constant priority for staff in the Scientific Computing Division, which he directs.