NCSA IBM pSeries 690 Retirement

June 27, 2007

Dear colleagues:

On September 30, 2007 the IBM pSeries Model 690 at NCSA -- known as Copper -- will be retired after more than 4.5 years of computational service. This notice is to inform you of the details surrounding the final shutdown of the p690s. First and foremost, we want you to be aware of the transition to begin migrating your work to alternate platforms. We have made it a priority over the past several months to ensure that you have the tools and information available to successfully port your applications to alternative platforms. We anticipate you will be targeting Cobalt, Tungsten, Mercury and the soon-to-be available Abe. Additional information on these systems is available on our hardware page at: http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/UserInfo/Resources/Hardware/

If you require assistance in migrating your codes, please contact the HPC Consulting Office at 217-244-1144 or by e-mail at consult@ncsa.uiuc.edu.

All user processes on the p690s will be terminated at 11:59 PM, September 30, 2007. After this time user access will be denied to cu.ncsa.uiuc.edu and all batch hosts. All users are responsible for storing any needed data on the p690s' filesystems to the UniTree mass storage system or some other alternative location prior to the deadline.

The unused balance of allocations on copper may be transferred, at the request of the project's Principal Investigator (PI), to other NCSA machines (Cobalt, Tungsten, Mercury or Abe). These allocations will expire on their original expiration date. The PI must specifically request that an allocation balance be transferred and specify the system to which it will be transferred, otherwise the project will be terminated. p690 SUs will be converted to Cobalt SUs by applying a conversion factor of 1/3.2, to Tungsten SUs by applying a conversion factor of 1/2.0, to Mercury SUs by applying a conversion factor of 1/2.2, and to Abe SUs by applying a conversion factor of 1/3.5. PIs may also request to have the balance of their allocation transferred to other TeraGrid resources. In any case, transfers will only be approved if resources are available and appropriate on the system to which the PI desires to transfer their balance.

All requests for unused Copper balance transfers should be sent to the Allocations department at allocations@ncsa.uiuc.edu. The request must list the project's Principal Investigator, the project PSN, the amount of SUs to be transferred, and the machine to which transfer will be made. A transfer request must be made by September 22 in order to guarantee that the transfer will be made before Copper is shut down.

We have been working during the past several months to make this transition as smooth as possible for you. If you have questions or concerns, please contact John Towns, Director of Persistent Infrastructure, by phone at 217-244-3228 or by email at jtowns@ncsa.uiuc.edu. If you require further assistance in migrating your applications, please contact the HPC Consulting Office as soon as possible, as noted above.

Thank you,
John Towns