Hi Ray, I was also unable to attend this meeting, but I did send David Colling a summary of SPAT's current computing prior to the meeting, which I understand was not shared with the rest of the people at the meeting. I've attached this below, in case anyone is interested: Hi David, Apologies, but I won't be able to attend this first meeting as I'm recovering from the flu (I've cc'ed Ralf Toumi just in case he would like to come along). I would be very interested to hear about what is discussed at the meeting, so if I could arrange to come and have a chat with you later in the week, or if a summary is provided to the list after the meeting, then that would be appreciated. I have a couple of issues / questions that I would like to voice: 1. SPAT has an excess of ITTVIS IDL licences (we have 250 for SPAT, which we realistically only use about 100 of at any one time). Would other groups in the Department be interested in getting access to our IDL licences (for a small price)? 2. Can we persuade ICT to allow the reps access to the PXE network installation images for Linux and Windows? 3. What are the future plans for network infrastructure improval - moving to 1Gb/s throughout Huxley and Blackett. 4. Plans for the Departmental Server Room (H147) - is this facility to remain for the foreseeable future? Are there any plans for this room that we should know about? I'll try and summarise SPAT's computing: - Series of Suns (running SOLARIS 10 SPARC), Workstations running the College Redhat Linux ES4 (64bit & 32bit), and various Windows PC and Macs. - Main use of computing facilities [1] archiving and analysis of satellite data sets [~12TB storage in H147 - NAS devices] [2] numerical modelling of the Earth's atmosphere / ocean / climate / solar wind / planetary magnetic fields [3] space craft operations (Cassini, Cluster, GERB) - Additional computing usage: College HPC (climate models, coupled ocean-atmosphere models, etc.) - Sun computers have about 4TB of high performance disks - backed up offsite (in Mech Eng using our own backup device) There are probably lots of other things that I've missed. I'm very sorry to miss this first meeting. Rich -----Original Message----- From: physics-departmental-computing-bounces@imperial.ac.uk [mailto:physics-departmental-computing-bounces@imperial.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Raymond Beuselinck Sent: 14 November 2009 15:18 To: Clements, David L Cc: physics-departmental-computing Subject: Re: [Physics-Departmental-Computing] Minutes of the Physics Departmental Computing Meeting: 2/11/2009 Not all groups were able to attend the meeting. The comments in the minutes were from those that did attend; any inaccuracies are my own. The main intention was to see whether any common interests would emerge, such as trying to obtain cost effective licensing deals on a departmental basis for Mathematica. You final comment pretty much sums up the intent of the first meeting...to decide what we are meant to be doing. Ray On Sat, 14 Nov 2009, Dave Clements wrote:
Quick question...
I was unable to attend this meeting as I was already committed to something else. I note that there are various reports from research groups, but not all groups are represented. Am I meant to report from astro as well as first year lab? If so, I can supply a report at some future date. But what about other groups not represented - SPAT, Theory etc.?
I guess I'm not yet sure what this committee is meant to be doing...
Cheers!
Dave
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