Research Computing and Data

We are excited to announce that the Spring 2025 maintenance work was completed successfully. 

All RCD services have been restored and are ready for users to access.

During the maintenance period, we completed the following:

• Critical updates to network and storage infrastructure were completed.
  • These improvements have improved performance and stability for all users of the cluster.
• Three large-memory nodes were added to the cluster. Two nodes have 3TB of memory and one node has 6TB of memory.
• More AMD Genoa nodes were added to the cluster.
• Slurm was updated to 24.11.5
• Installed AMD-optimized Compiler 5.0.0 and the following dependent modules:
  • amdblis/5.0
  • amdlibflame/5.0
  • amdlibm/5.0
  • openmpi/5.0.5
    • amdscalapack/5.0
    • lammps/20240829.1
    • osu-mircro-benchmarks/7.5
• Installed the following software:
  • gcc/14.2.0
  • intel-oneapi-compilers/2025.1.1
  • cmake/3.30.5
  • intel-oneapi-mkl/2025.1.0
  • perl/5.40.0
  • r/4.5.0
  • gromacs/gromacs-2025.1-cpu
  • gromacs/gromacs-2025.1-gpu
  • comsol/6.3
  • matlab/2025a
• Spack was upgraded to v0.23.1.
  • Users of spack will be able to install newer packages provided with this update.
  • After loading the spack module, make sure to run spack clean -a to remove old temporary build files.
• Open OnDemand was upgraded to 4.0.3
  • MATLAB application was added. This will launch a native web version of MATLAB.
  • PyMOL was added as a GUI application.
• GitLab was upgraded to v17.11.3
• ColdFront was updated to v1.15

This changelog may continue to be updated as our staff finishes their release notes.

We appreciate your patience during the maintenance period and hope that these changes will improve the user experience.

If you have any questions or have encountered post-maintenance issues, please let us know by submitting a support ticket.

The Research Computing and Data (RCD) team plans to host a Town Hall event on April 23rd, 2025 at 3 PM to share some imporant updates with the community.

Below is a summary of what we will cover:

• changes to RCD personnel
• plans for the Spring 2025 maintenance window
• new compute nodes added to Palmetto 2
• upcoming Granite environment for CUI, PHI, and NIST 800-171 (NIH) research
• updates to ReDCAT leadership
• updates to Indigo storage expiration notifications
• rollout of new Job Defense Shield tool

This event is open to all Clemson University students, faculty, and staff. Please register online if you plan to attend.

For those unable to join us, we will post the slide deck and recording here after the event. Come back for updates!

The Research Computing and Data (RCD) group in Clemson Computing and Information Technology (CCIT) is seeking interns to support Clemson’s goal to increase research capacity. Interns in this position will learn the basics of high-performance computing and will support researchers making use of advanced cyber infrastructure including the Palmetto 2 Cluster and Indigo Data Lake.

As an RCD intern, you will be responsible for supporting the RCD staff in several areas, including:

• User Support. You will provide the first line of support for researchers, triaging requests, answering the ones you are able to, and assigning others to the subject matter expert within the RCD staff.
• Documentation Updates. You will help review and test RCD user facing documentation and make updates as needed.
• Hardware Operations. When large cluster hardware changes are needed (installation or removal), you will assist the infrastructure team in the data center. This may involve lifting heavy equipment.

As interns gain more knowledge, in addition to the main support role, they will have the opportunity to work on advanced projects. The RCD staff will help match you with project topics areas such as AI/ML, software engineering, HPC software management, bioinformatics, or computational material science.

Ideal candidates should:

• have experience with Linux operating systems
• enjoy technical challenges
• have a strong work ethic
• be punctilious
• have an aptitude to learn

For more details on the position, please review our Position Description.

To apply, please use the CCIT Student Employment Application and select “RCD Intern” as the preferred position.

The RCDE team is excited to announce our Spring 2025 workshop series, available free to any Clemson University student, faculty, or staff member!

Our series will cover various high-performance computing, machine learning, and software development topics. Here’s a summary of what we’ll cover:

• Introduction to Linux
• Introduction to Research Computing on Palmetto
• Introduction to Nextflow
• Advanced Nextflow
• Running LLMs on Palmetto
• Fine-tuning LLMs on Palmetto
• Advanced Deep Learning in Pytorch
• Research Computing with Kubernetes

You can learn more about the details of each workshop, the schedule, and registration links on the upcoming live training sessions page of our documentation site. 

Use our online registration system to secure your spot!

We look forward to the workshops and hope to see you there. Please submit a support ticket if you have any questions or suggestions.