LAS IT Services Fall 2019

# Infrastructure and ResearchIT Services (IRIS)

Build & support infrastructure for the college & broader University
in support of research and academic needs.

* 8 full time team members
* We manage HPC clusters, VM clusters, large scale storage, computer labs, webservers, etc.
* We work closely with IT support people for your department, please initiate requests through [them](https://www.it.las.iastate.edu/support-contacts)
* We collaborate with researchers to solve complex technology problems, freeing them up to focus on their research
* [ResearchIT](http://rit.las.iastate.edu/people) is a collaboration with LAS, CALS, ITS
    * Lots of involvement from other IT people in college, departments, and ITS
    * researchit@iastate.edu

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# Available Services for Researchers:

https://researchit.las.iastate.edu/services

* Consultation
* Computation
* Software
* Storage
* Web Applications
* Developer Tools & Advice
* VMS for courses

Highlights:
* LSS Storage: https://rit.las.iastate.edu/large-scale-storage-lss
* Web pages: https://sites.iastate.edu

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# Data Storage

## On Premise
* [Large Scale Storage](https://researchit.las.iastate.edu/large-scale-storage-lss)
    * Stable, inexpensive storage for large research data
    * Located in Durham Data Center & backed up at UofI
    * File snapshots: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly
    * LAS & CALS provide each PI 2TB of storage at no charge
    * PI cost for additional storage is $40 / TB / Year (cheaper than Amazon Glacier)
* Please don't store your critical research data only on your laptop or on external USB disk drives

## Cloud
* CyBox (preferred option for most uses)
* Google Drive (if you need really large files, or files accessible to students or other google services)

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# Websites

* https://sites.iastate.edu/
* Lab Websites
* Custom web based research tools
* Code review
* Need to publish a new service, or tool on the web ?
    * [http://it.las.iastate.edu/public-ip-or-dns-request](http://it.las.iastate.edu/public-ip-or-dns-request)

---

# [Computational Resources](https://rit.las.iastate.edu/hardware)
## [Pronto Cluster](https://rit.las.iastate.edu/pronto)
* Several classes of computational services purpose built to solve a specific type of problem
    * Biocrunch (8)
    * BigRAM (2)
    * Speedy (6)
    * GPU (3)
    * Interactive (2)
* Job scheduler configured to meet the needs of our researchers

## University Clusters
* [Nova HPC Cluster](http://www.hpc.iastate.edu/guides/nova):
    * Approx 100 Nodes, primarly for MPI capable software
* [Condo 2017 HPC Cluster](http://www.hpc.iastate.edu/guides/condo):
    * Little over 200 Nodes, similar to Nova but older
* [hpc-class](http://www.hpc.iastate.edu/guides/classroom-hpc-cluster)
    * For classes, not research

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# Software

## Modules
* We use modules to allow multiple people to use the same software with consistent, reproducible results
* Modules keep your environment clean and free of conflicts (e.g. python2/3 or Java7/8)
* Think of modules as a software library. You need to check out the software before you can use it.
* We use [Spack](https://researchit.las.iastate.edu/research-it-software-archive) to build our software, and sync it to hpc-class, condo, and all of our custom machines
```
$ module avail
------- /opt/rit/spack-modules/lmod/linux-rhel7-x86_64/Core --------------------
   abyss/2.0.2-py2-cuda9-openmpi3-o6zuizq  netlib-scalapack/2.0.2-openmpi3-sakcd
   aegean/0.15.2-py2-dwjwigu               nettle/3.3-jcgc7wh                   
   albert/4.0a_opt4-dtcanam                nnvm/20170418-ojgzdup                
...
```
---
# Other Research Computing Resources

## [Xsede](https://www.xsede.org/)
* ISU researchers have access to the national supercompute centers (e.g. TACC, PSC) via Xsede
* For problems that need to scale larger than our on-campus resources
* Contact campus champions: Levi Baber, Jim Coyle, or Andrew Severin

## Cloud (AWS, Azure, etc.)
* Tempting introductory rates
* Be cautious of putting in a credit card (charges can accumulate quickly)
* Consider data transfer times and speed
* Consult with IT before purchasing - we have special negotiated rates

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# Consulting

* Our goal is to work on tasks that can benefit others through packaged software, documentation, collaboration, etc. and that help you overcome technical challenges that moves your science forward and enables faster iteration
* Can advise on computational performance of software
* Can help you identify optimal software for your pipeline
* Help identify ways to optimize pipeline
    * Hardware
    * Different software
    * Parallelization wrappers (e.g. gnu parallel)
---

# Tutorials

* Videos: [http://rit.las.iastate.edu/video](https://rit.las.iastate.edu/video)
* How To: [https://researchit.las.iastate.edu/category/how-to](https://researchit.las.iastate.edu/category/how-to)