Transition from SGI Altix (Cobalt)

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This document provides an overview on transitioning from the SGI Altix (Cobalt) to the SGI Altix UV (Ember). For complete information on Ember, please see Ember's home page.

• Projects Available on Ember
• Continuing Access to Cobalt
• Recompiling Codes
• Transferring your Cobalt home directory files
• Managing User Environment
• Intel compiler version
• Linking to Intel Math Kernel Library (MKL)
• Hierarchical Data Format (HDF)
• Batch System
• Netcdf

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• Projects Available on Ember

  • TRAC October 2010 Allocation Awards on Ember
  • All Startup and TRAC projects on Cobalt with expiration date beyond 09/30/2010 have been transferred to Ember at a 1:1 SU conversion rate.
  Note: Jobs will not be charged SUs until Ember is in production mode.

• Continuing Access to Cobalt

  All projects with expiration date beyond 09/30/2010, and TRAC projects with continuing allocations on Ember will have access to Cobalt until Ember is in production.

• Recompiling Codes

  IMPORTANT: Due to platform differences (Intel IA-64 Itanium on Cobalt vs. Intel 64 on Ember), all programs will need to be recompiled.

• Transferring your Cobalt home directory files

  The Cobalt home directory filesystem is available on Ember under /projects/cobalt-u/u. For academic users, your home directory is in /projects/cobalt-u/u/ac/$USER.

  To copy a subdirectory called "source_code" to your Ember home directory:

  [jdoe@ember]$ cp -r /projects/cobalt-u/u/ac/$USER/source_code $HOME
  

  On Cobalt, you can tar up your home directory and transfer to NCSA MSS using the following command:

          [jdoe@co-login]$ cd $HOME; msscmd "tar cf cobalt_home.tar ."
  

• Managing User Environment

  While Cobalt used SoftEnv to manage user environments, Ember uses Modules.

• Intel compiler version

  Ember has the Intel version 11.1 compilers vs. 10.1 on Cobalt. There are no significant differences between them.

  • Intel Fortran Compiler 11.1 Release Notes
  • Intel C/C++ Compiler 11.1 Release Notes
  • New Compiler Options
  • Deprecated and Removed Compiler Options

• Linking to Intel Math Kernel Library (MKL)

  The syntax for linking with Intel MKL has changed. See Intel Math Kernel Library for details.

• Hierarchical Data Format (HDF)

  See here for information on HDF4/HDF5/PHDF5.

• Batch System

  The batch system on Ember is the same as on Cobalt. Cobalt batch scripts will work on Ember; please update your job resource specifications to reflect current queue availability.

• Netcdf

  Users who had previously linked to the netcdf libraries on cobalt with "-lnetcdf" may need to link with "-lnetcdff" on ember for standard Fortran calls; cf. Usage Information