Announcing XSEDE Campus Champion at Harvey Mudd College

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893,000 SUs (Service Units = wallclock runtime multiplied by the number of cores) on several supercomputer facilities are now available to our researchers, faculty and students free of charge. In our ongoing efforts to provide a spectrum of high-performance computing resources to our community, CIS has signed up to participate in the XSEDE Campus Champion program and received almost 900 thousand SUs from national supercomputing centers. The SUs can be used to test various scientific applications that our faculty and students run for their research projects or for their classes. The Campus Champion at HMC will help install, set up, and test research applications on different facilities and provide any necessary on-campus support for using the XSEDE resources. The Campus Champion at Harvey Mudd is the Scientific Computing Specialist, Dr. Jeho Park at CIS.

What is XSEDE?

The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) is the most advanced, powerful, and robust collection of integrated advanced digital resources and services in the world. It is a single virtual system that scientists can use to interactively share computing resources, data, and expertise. Scientists and engineers around the world use these resources and services—things like supercomputers, collections of data, and new tools—to make us all healthier, safer, and better off. XSEDE, and the experts who lead the program, will make these resources easier to use and help more people use them. Click here for more information.

What does the XSEDE Campus Champion Program do for Harvey Mudd?

The Campus Champion Program at HMC will serve as a:

  • Source of local, regional and national high-performance computing and cyberinfrastructure information on our campus
  • Source of information regarding XSEDE resources and services that will benefit research and education on our campus
  • Source of start-up accounts on your campus to quickly get researchers and educators using their allocations of time on XSEDE resources, and
  • Conduit for the campus high-performance computing needs, requirements and challenges, with direct access to XSEDE staff.

With the XSEDE Campus Champion allocations, HMC can now offer easy access to various supercomputers so that our researchers can test their applications and experience the benefits of using the supercomputers. Once the applications are tested, the Campus Champion will help the researchers get a “Startup” allocation (up to 200,000 SUs) which may be used up by the researchers (or the research team) for a year. If the research project needs more time and allocations, the PI(s) of the project will then be helped to apply for a “Research” allocation that is usually a multi-year allocation with a substantially larger amount of SUs than the Startup allocation. All these resources are provided to the researchers with free of charge by the NSF-funded XSEDE program. The Campus Champion at HMC is the local person who can help our researchers take the opportunity more easily. So please feel free to stop Jeho in a hallway and ask about the XSEDE Campus Champion Program. You are also welcome to contact our Helpdesk (helpdesk@hmc.edu) for any inquiries about the XSEDE resources.

Links:

Essential MATLAB Seminar for Beginners and Refreshers

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CIS will hold two MATLAB seminar sessions for MATLAB beginners and refreshers this week. Please come join us to learn something new and refresh your memory on your journey to mastering MATLAB.

When:

  • Session 1: 4:15 pm – 5:15 pm on Thursday, September 20, 2012
  • Session 2: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm on Friday, September 21, 2012

Where:

  • Session 1: Sprague Math Seminar Room (3rd floor)
  • Session 2: Sprague Learning Studio Classroom

Agenda:

  • The Basics of MATLAB Computing Environment — get to know about the MATLAB desktop environment.
  • M-files — learn the basics of MATLAB scripts and functions.
  • Data Import/Export — learn how to import external data and export MATLAB data.
  • Basic Plot — draw basic 2d plots and learn simple manipulation techniques.
  • The MATLAB Editor — know how to use the MATLAB editor for easier programming.
  • Publication — learn how to comment your MATLAB codes for publication.

 

September 2012 update from the CIO

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I know we’re two weeks in, but welcome back to all who have been away from Claremont over the summer. And welcome to the Class of 2016!

This is the first update from the CIO for the Fall 2012 Semester.

Here at CIS we had a very busy summer.  Most of this update will cover changes we have made or are in the process of making.  So please read on.

Email and Calendar
We closed down mailbox-01.hmc.edu and migrated all active accounts to either g.hmc.edu (Google Apps) or m.hmc.edu (Office365). We are now focusing on accounts that are still on the VMS system named “Thuban”. That work is a bit more complicated, although there are only a few accounts on the system. Once we have moved the accounts, and found a home for web content that still resides on Thuban, we will be able to close down the VMS systems. This is consistent with an approach we describe with the phrase “stabilize, standardize, simplify”.

Now that we have done the work of migrating accounts to the new systems, we are beginning to turn our attention to the fact that both Google Apps and Office365 are much more than email systems. For instance, we’ve been asking people how they make use of them.  For example, Eliot Bush told us how he uses Google apps, and Patricia Wang did the same for Office 365.  In CIS we’ve started using shared Google docs to capture the agendas and notes for our meetings. We like the fact that agenda items can be added at any time, and the notes are easily shared and searchable.  Senior My Ho has been helping us by building a Google Apps script application to help run meetings and automatically distribute notes and action items.  Meanwhile, some departments have started to explore the Google Apps marketplace and request the installation of apps in the g.hmc.edu domain. If you’ve found a good use for either Google Apps or Office365, do drop us a line to tell us about it.

Password Policy
In November 2011 the President’s Cabinet approved a password policy for HMC.  I ask that you read it carefully and follow the policy whenever possible.  During discussions of the policy last Fall, the Computing Committee advised that CIS should provide some information about password management tools, so Jeho Park and Calvin Tong wrote up a report which we hope you will find useful.

CINE wireless signal to be decommissioned
All of the Claremont Colleges broadcast the same wireless signals in an attempt to provide a consistent user experience. As part of a Claremont wide agreement,  the CINE wireless signal (SSID) is scheduled to be turned off.  The CINE network is insecure (no encryption), open (accessible by anyone) and the internet (IP) addresses) associated with it are needed by the other wireless networks.  The target date for shutting down the CINE signal is Fall Break 2012.   Some of the other Colleges and the Library have already stopped broadcasting the signal, so you may not see it if you roam off the HMC campus.  At HMC we will turn off the CINE signal only after we have established a system for guest access that is consistent with the College’s values and needs.

In the meantime, if you are not a guest, you should connect your wireless devices to either “Claremont” or “Claremont-WPA” and we recommend “Claremont-WPA” since it is the most secure. Our instructions for connecting to either of the two networks are on the College website.

The agreement between the Colleges means that your experience on either the “Claremont-WPA” or “Claremont” wireless networks should be the same, independent of which campus you happen to be on.

Computing Labs
Toward the end of the summer, the User Support and Systems teams upgraded the Windows operating systems on computers in Labs managed by CIS (LAC and Learning Studio). They are now running Windows 7 and OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).  If you run into any problems, make sure to send a message to helpdesk@hmc.edu

The User Support team has been attempting to learn more about Academic Department Labs, with special attention to the labs that are in Departments without a dedicated IT person. We are exploring options for better hardware and software support for those labs.

IAM@HMC next steps
In August, we sent people a link to our new password self service portal, which allows you to configure your password for our Single Sign On (SSO) environment. We are working with the vendor to make some improvements to the self-service portal, based on feedback we received from you (thanks!). Currently, only three applications are part of that SSO environment, Ultipro (Payroll/HR), Google Apps and Active Directory (Charlie, Alice, Claremont WPA, Cognos reports).  As the year moves forward, we will add more applications and begin working on account provisioning and deprovisioning (automatic creation of accounts when someone joins or leaves HMC).

Planning Activities
We spent a good deal of time over the summer on planning, as we need to develop tactical initiatives that will shape our work for the next two years. We will continue to use the framework established by our IT strategy document (online version at http://www5.hmc.edu/strategy10/ and pdf version at http://www5.hmc.edu/strategy10/ITStrategyDraft10.pdf).  That document outlines four strategic areas for IT at Harvey Mudd:

  • IT Decision Making (Governance)
  • IT Infrastructure
  • CIS, the central IT organization
  • Innovation

This summer, each unit within CIS developed draft goals for our new set of tactical initiatives. The goals currently number in the 40s.  We are working on refining them and have begun seeking feedback from key stakeholders. Expect more updates on this during the Fall, along with a report on progress on the 2010-12 tactical initiatives. If you find yourself wondering “why all this emphasis on planning?”, consider this: High performing IT organizations not only provided more consistent and predictable service levels, but they consistently spent less than 5% of their time on unplanned and urgent work (also known as “firefighting”) (Behr,Kim, Spafford The Visible Ops Handbook 2005)

On the News Site
Cindy Abercrombie and Elizabeth Hodas put together a helpful list of Fall semester reminders for faculty, which you can read at http://www5.hmc.edu/ITNews/?p=2116

You can also read about the exciting line up of Bite of Learning for the Fall semester http://www5.hmc.edu/ITNews/?p=2110

Soon to come on the news site are articles on Little FE, Data Management Plans, XSEDE and other good stuff.  I hope I’ve piqued your curiosity.

From everyone at CIS, best of luck for a great Fall 2012 semester.

 

Fall 2012 Bite of Learning Schedule

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The schedule for the Fall 2012 Bite of Learning series has been finalized. We’ve got an exciting series of presentations lined up this fall. You can see the entire schedule on the Bite of Learning web site at http://www.hmc.edu/bol, but here’s a sneak preview. You can look forward to sessions on the use of Piazza to answer student questions by Chris Stone in the CS department, an introduction to the field of Digital Humanities by Jacqueline Wernimont from Scripps, and exploring your musical creativity with software called Impro-Visor by Bob Keller in CS. The ETMS staff will also be presenting this Fall. Jeho Park will talk about the XSEDE high performance computing resource. James Sadler will talk about our experiments with lecture capture software and hardware this past year, and I’ll be demonstrating a Google Apps tool called Appointment Slots for making office hours appointments. However, I expect our most popular presentation this semester will be a presentation by Matt Construction on using computer modeling in building construction. I’ve been promised a 3-D fly-through of the new TLB building. So keep your eye out for our Bite of Learning announcements and hope to see you there!

We’ve also got a brand new Facebook page for the series at http://www.facebook.com/ABiteOfLearning/. We’ll be posting announcements there as well as photos and videos. We’re also hoping to be able to continue some of the great discussions that we have at the end of our presentations there. So please “Like” us on Facebook!

Fall Semester 2012 Reminders

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 Fall Semester 2012 Reminders

Dear faculty,

Here are a few reminders about IT services for the Fall Semester.

CIS Help Desk
The Help Desk is located in the Learning Studio on the ground floor of Sprague. The hours are 8am-5pm, including lunch hour. Please send a support request via our request form or send us email at helpdesk@hmc.edu or call us at (909) 607 7777.

 

Course Mailing Lists
You should have received an email message about the course mailing lists that you own. For any questions or help with mailing lists, please contact the Help Desk.

 

Sakai Updates
Fall 2012 courses have been created and populated with students and faculty. As a reminder, we are now running imports from the student information system three times per day (rather than once a night!) to add students as they add courses, and will also inactivate students who drop courses.

 

Learning Studio Classroom Reservation
You can view and request reservations for the Fletcher Jones Classroom in the Learning Studio in VEMS. The advantage to using VEMS is that you can see right away whether the classroom is available. You can find VEMS at http://emsweb.claremont.edu/HMC/. You can also contact the Help Desk or F&M for reservations.

 

Course Mudd Shots
Course Mudd Shots have been updated for the semester. They are available at http://www.internal.hmc.edu/dir/courses/. The pages are restricted to the HMC network only, so if you are off-campus, please connect to the VPN first.

 

VPN (Virtual Private Network)
We would like to remind you about the availability of the VPN. The VPN software allows you to connect to the HMC network to use HMC and Claremont-only resources when connecting to the Internet via an ISP. The VPN also encrypts network traffic, so if you are connecting to an unknown or potentially unsafe network, logging onto the VPN first will encrypt all traffic going through the potentially unsafe network.  Visit http://vpn.claremont.edu and select the GROUP as HMC-LDAP.  Log in with the same username and password you use to access Sakai (but without the @hmc at the end of your username).

 

AudioVisual Requests
To request an audiovisual setup for your class please use our AudioVisual Setup Request form at http://www.formstack.com/forms/hmc-avrequest. We appreciate at least 24 hours advance notice.

Have a good semester!

HMC Password Policy

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I wanted to draw your attention to the HMC password policy which was approved by Cabinet in November 2011.  It is designed to urge people to maintain strong passwords on HMC systems, which is one important part of protecting shared College resources.

If you are interested in learning more about tools that can help you manage your passwords, take a look at an excellent report that Jeho Park and Calvin Tong produced at http://goo.gl/Oew5k

I first started working on a password policy when urged to do so by the College’s financial auditors MossAdams.  I would like to thank the groups and individuals that helped craft the password policy:

  • 2010-11 and 2011-12 Computing Committee Members
  • HMC President’s Cabinet
  • Faculty Executive Committee
  • Department Chairs Committee
  • CIS staff
  • Timothy Buchheim (Computer Science)
  • Claire Connelly (Math)

We all need to maintain good passwords as part of our obligation to protect shared College resources.  Thanks for playing your part!

Time to change your password!

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As we move into Fall semester, some of the authentication systems managed by CIS will be configured to require password resets every 365 days.

This is a step in improving the overall security of HMC systems and bringing us into compliance with our password policy.

To reset your passwords please visit the HMC password and account management portal at:

https://iaas2idm.fischeridentity.com/identity/self-service/HMC/kiosk.jsf
(Nov 2012 edit: we have replaced this link with

https://iam.hmc.edu/identity/self-service/HMC/login.jsf

)
Using this portal, you will set up security questions and set the password for all of the following systems in one go:

Claremont WPA wireless (eg laptops, phones and other devices that connect to Claremont WPA wireless)
Alice and Charlie file servers
Cognos 10 reports
Google Apps for Education
Ultipro

If you have not reset your passwords in over 365 days, you should do so. We will be working with each department to ensure a smooth transition to this new system.  You can change your password any time you like using the password and account management portal.  Once we have worked directly with each department, we will turn on the feature that requires a password change every 365 days.

Thank you for your understanding and your efforts to increase the security of our systems.

Please don’t hesitate to send questions or concerns to us at helpdesk@hmc.edu

CIS awarded two high-end GPUs from NVIDIA

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(Disclaimer: Sorry gamers. These GPUs are not for 3D gaming, but for number crunching scientific calculations!)

CIS submitted a proposal to NVIDIA’s Academic Partnership Program on the last day of May. NVIDIA quickly approved the proposal on June 11 and decided to donate us two Tesla C2075 GPUs (MSRP $2,500 per piece). Although it took a month to process the shipment at NVIDIA’s distribution center due to their high demand, it was worth the wait!

Tesla C2075 from NVIDIA

As of this writing, Tesla C2075 is the top-notch GPU available on the market for GPU computing. It has 448 CUDA cores and 6GB GDDR5 memory, which allows to pull 515 Gflops in double precision calculations and 1030 Gflops in single precision. Yup, it’s a little monster and we’ve got two of them!

CIS (Andy Davenport and Jeho Park) has been collaboratively working with Prof. Vatche Sahakian at Physics on a pilot project to prepare a new high performance GPU system on our campus. Prof. Sahakian generously offered to purchase a high-end GPU host computer. CIS is providing the NVIDIA GPUs and technical support to build a new system. Once the setup is complete, the new system will be tested and later shared with faculty and student researchers at Harvey Mudd for high-performance GPU computing experiences and tests. If you are interested in GPU computing or wish to involve in the GPU computing pilot, please contact Jeho Park at CIS for more information (or leave your comment to this post).

Useful Links:

 

2012 Sakai Conference

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Sakai conference logoLast month I attended the 2012 annual Sakai conference in Atlanta, GA along with a cohort of my colleagues from Pomona College. This year the conference was a little different in that it was held jointly with the Jasig Community. Jasig is similar to the Sakai Foundation in that it sponsors a number of open-source projects for higher education. They include uPortal, an open-source web portal; CAS, an open-source authentication system; Bedework, an open-source enterprise calendar system; and uMobile, an initiative to bring campus content to mobile devices.

At last year’s conference it was announced that the Sakai Foundation and Jasig were proposing a merger between the two communities. The two communities will be voting on the proposal in the near future. Certainly, holding a joint conference was a great way to show how a merger could be mutually beneficial. I attended several Jasig sessions and could see many areas where collaboration would be very helpful, for example in the area of developing a mobile Sakai.

At this year’s conference, developers were showing off version 1.3 of Sakai OAE (Open Academic Environment). Sakai OAE is being developed in tandem with Sakai CLE (Collaborative Learning Environment) which is the version that we are currently using at The Claremont Colleges. Sakai OAE is focused more on content creation and sharing. The new version has impressive drag-and-drop features for content creation and was very well received by the conference attendees.

I attended many interesting sessions. Among the highlights: using the Evaluation System tool for online course evaluations, common pitfalls in the Gradebook tool, integrating Google calendars into Sakai, and using external tools and open content in Sakai. Please feel free to stop by and ask me for more details if any of these topics interest you.

 

How are you using Office365?

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A while back, I posted an article about how Prof Eliot Bush is making use of Google Apps for Education.   We recently completed the migration of accounts from mailbox-01 to Microsoft Office365 for Education.  I asked Patricia Wang how she liked it, and to tell me two things that she does with the Office365/Outlook combination.   Here’s what Patricia wrote:

Since I was really comfortable using Zimbra, I was a little apprehensive about migrating to Outlook 2010. I’ve only been using Outlook for a short time, but I’ve discovered a couple of features that I really like already.

One of the features that I find helpful in Outlook 2010 is the built-in task list. I use it to organize my tasks by assigning due dates, setting reminders, and marking tasks as complete when I finish them. It can also be used to delegate tasks to other people and manage task assignments. Tasks can be created from scratch by selecting the New Items > Tasks button on the Home tab. However, my favorite way to create a task is by by dragging an email to the task button on the bottom of the navigation pane. This transfers an existing email message to my task list without me having to create an individual task from scratch. I can also use this drag and drop method if I want to flag a contact record for follow-up.

Another feature that helps me keep organized is the Rules Wizard. Outlook lets me set up instructions, called rules, that determine how it should process messages upon receipt. I can set up rules to automatically move, copy, delete, forward, redirect, or reply to an incoming message. For the messages that are already in my inbox, I love the run-this-rule-now feature. It’s like waving a magic wand to reduce the clutter in my inbox!

I hope to discover other neat features as I explore Outlook 2010!

Thanks to Patricia for sending these comments. If you have other interesting ways that you make use of Google Apps or Office 365, don’t hestitate to share in the comments section below, or send me an email.