Systems-Facing Track

The Systems-Facing track of the People Network will focus on aspects relevant to the execution of research computing and data systems.

Topics include:

  • Architecture (hardware solutions, cloud integration, VMs, container integration, …)
  • Storage systems (file systems, SAN, NAS, NVMe, Burstbuffer, …)
  • Networking (data transfer solutions, Infiniband, campus-wide, …)
  • Cluster management and configuration (scheduling, accounting and reporting, …)
  • Accelerators (GPU, FPGA, …)
  • Security (auditing, compliance, policies, procedures, …)
  • User environment (Modules, CUDA, …)

We connect via monthly calls, on slack and an email list.

Join Us!

Join Us! Fill out our membership form to let us know who you are and what you’re interested in. We’ll add you to the email list. Visit the People Network page to join other tracks.

Monthly Calls

Monthly calls are on the third Thursday of the month, 1pm ET.  Connection information and links to any materials are distributed via email.

Upcoming Plans & Calls

April 18, 2024 @ 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT
Supply Chain Challenges & Strategy Discussion
Beginning in early 2020 the world faced supply and demand issues for every product across the vast worldwide supply chain. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt on every level but by the following year in the US, most consumer products were back on shelves and we no longer had to ration toilet paper. At this point four years later, auto manufacturers are mostly able to keep up with demand on new cars and we no longer find empty shelves at the grocery stores. However, many of us are still facing challenges with purchasing compute and related components as well as replacement parts for failing equipment. Some of these equipment delays are due to residual supply chain backlogs but others are due to larger demands in specific types of components like GPUs. Join us for a discussion on these challenges, hear what other centers are doing as workarounds for these problems, and work collectively to brainstorm possible alternative solutions to what may be our new normal.

Discussion facilitated by:
Dori Sajdak, Senior System Administrator, University at Buffalo Center for Computational Research
Brian Haymore, Sr IT Architect – HPC, Center for High Performance Computing, University of Utah

Previous Call Topics

CaRCC Systems-Facing YouTube playlist of past calls

Google Drive folder (includes a sub folder for each month’s call with call doc with notes and Q&A as well as the zoom recording files)

Track Coordinators

Systems-Facing Coordinators email contact link

Brian Haymore, Sr IT Architect – HPC, Center for High Performance Computing, University of Utah

Matthew Smith, Manager – Research Systems, Advanced Research Computing, University of British Columbia

Betsy Hillery, Director, Research Computing, Purdue University

Steering Committee

  • John Blaas, Senior HPC Operations Engineer at Lambda and Chair for ACM SIGHPC Syspros
  • Jim Leous, Research Computing Advisor, Advanced Research Computing, Division of Information Technology, Virginia Tech
  • Sai Pinnepalli, Chief Technologist, Center for Computation and Technology, Louisiana State University
  • Dori Sajdak, Senior Systems Administrator at University at Buffalo
  • Jason Wells, Founder, Builder, Admin, Research Computing Architect and Data Management Lead, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
  • <Open Spot Seeking Volunteer> – (Contact S-F Coordinators for more info)
  • <Open Spot Seeking Volunteer> – (Contact S-F Coordinators for more info)

Wall of Thanks – (Former Track Leadership)

Former Track Co-Coordinators:

  • Alan Silver, IT Professional, UW-Madison
  • Troy Baer, Senior HPC Systems Engineer, Ohio Supercomputer Center

Former Track Steering Committee Members:

  • Betsy Hillery, Director, Research Computing, Purdue University
  • Matthew Smith, Manager – Research Systems, Advanced Research Computing, University of British Columbia