ARCHER2 Weekly Newsletter


ARCHER2 Platinum Jubilee Holidays

The ARCHER2 Service Desk will be closed on Thursday 2nd June and Friday 3rd June for the Platinum Jublilee holidays. We will reopen on Monday 6th June at 0800.

ARCHER2 Reservations via SAFE

Users can now request node reservations via SAFE. These allow users to reserve a number of nodes for a specified length of time starting at a particular time on the system. Please note:

Reservations require justification - they will only be approved if the request could not be fulfilled with the standard queues. For instance, you require a job/jobs to run at a particular time e.g. for a demonstration or course. Reservations will be charged at 1.5 times the usual CU rate and they will be charged the full rate for the entire reservation at the time of booking.

For more information on reservations, including how to request them through SAFE, see the ARCHER2 User Guide:

Changes to default versions of CASTEP, ONETEP and VASP 6

On Wednesday 15th June, we will be updating the default versions of CASTEP, ONETEP and VASP 6 on ARCHER2 to more recent versions:

  • CASTEP: new default will be 21.1.1 (current default is 20.1.1)
  • ONETEP: new default will be 6.1.9.0-CCE-LibSci (current default is 6.1.3.7)
  • VASP 6: new default will be 6.3.1 (current default is 6.2.1)

This will only affect users if they do not explicitly set the version they are using when loading modules. For example, if you currently use “module load vasp/6” then you will get version 6.2.1 at the moment and 6.3.1 from 15 June onwards. If you wish to continue to use the older version beyond 15 June 2022, you will need to update your module load command to explicitly choose the older version, e.g. replace “module load vasp/6” with “module load vasp/6/6.2.1”.

If you have any questions or concerns about these changes, please contact the ARCHER2 Service Desk.

ARCHER2 Annual User Survey 2021-22

We are committed to continually improving the ARCHER2 Service and would like to request your input to help us understand what is important to you, where the Service is working well and where there is scope for improvement.

The ARCHER2 Annual User Survey consists of just a few questions and should take only a few minutes of your time to complete. There are opportunities to add more detailed comments if you wish.

For each survey response received, we will donate £1 to Save The Children.

We are also offering 5 prizes of 2000 CUs on ARCHER2 for users who complete the survey. Winners can choose to forgo the CU prize and for each winner that does this we will donate a further £20 to Save The Children. Winners will be drawn at random from all respondents who have left contact details after the closing date of Thursday 30th June 2022 and the winners notified by e-mail. The prizes are only available to people with existing ARCHER2 user accounts.

You can find the survey at:

https://bit.ly/ARCHER2-User-Survey-2021-2022

Thank you in advance for taking the time to complete this survey. The responses will be used to try and improve the service for you and to help identify key areas for service development.

ARCHER2 Embedded CSE (eCSE) call

The eCSE programme funds RSEs and PDRAs to develop software for the ARCHER2 service. Calls are issued regularly and information can be found in our recent webinars and tutorial.

More details of how to apply are available by following the link to the eCSE calls page from here

https://www.archer2.ac.uk/ecse/

together with details of the application and review process, assessment criteria eligibility, etc.

Recently added Known Issues

The “Known Issues” page of the ARCHER2 Documentation https://docs.archer2.ac.uk/known-issues/ lists all current open known issues including a description of the issue, its symptoms and any work-arounds.

  • No recent issues

Upcoming ARCHER2 Training

  • Message-passing Programming with MPI, Online, always-open self-service course
  • Shared Memory Programming with OpenMP, Online, always-open self-service course
  • QM/MM with GROMACS + CP2K, Online, Always open - self-service course

  • A CFD tool for the simulation of renewable energy devices using GPU accelerated hardware, Online webinar, Wednesday 25th May 2022 15:00 - 16:00
  • Reproducible computational environments using containers, Western General Campus, Edinburgh, 20 - 21 June 2022 10:00 - 16:00 BST
  • GPU Programming with CUDA, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 27 June 2022 10:00 - 17:00 BST
  • Advanced Message-Passing Programming, Online, 29 - 30 June 2022 09:30 - 17:00 GMT

Further details https://www.archer2.ac.uk/training/#upcoming-training

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARCHER2_HPC

Recordings of past courses and virtual tutorials can be found here: https://www.archer2.ac.uk/training/materials/