CSSI: Where's my server? What the hack is CONDOR?

Abstract 1: You needed those simulation results yesterday. But your workstation is still pegged, trying to clear out the thousands of Monte Carlo runs you've enqueued. You're going to get the results, eventually, but then your adviser will ask you why you didn't run some "other" simulation or why you have "these" results but not "those" results.

What do you do? Submit your jobs, in parallel, to a cluster! Best paper award, here we come.

But what happens when 20 students all try to run their massively parallel simulations at the same time? How do you specify that your simulations need 2GB of memory, which only some machines in the cluster offer? How do you stop all those jobs you started, because of the bug you just found?

This talk is an overview of Condor, a popular software tool for managing computing resources in a cluster. Condor solves these common management questions and much more. We'll cover the very basics and show demos of Condor as we've used it in the computer architecture lab (CALCM).

Abstract 2: Now that you have moved to the 2nd floor, so what's next? What's with the kitchen, TA office hours, getting in and out of the 2nd floor, those LCDs at the entry, and of course the restrooms? All these questions and more will be answered. And, it also will be your time to provide feedback about the 2nd floor. If you want to be anonymous, wear a mask.

Bio

Bio 1: Brian has finished five years of PhD studies in computer architecture. In the last two years at CMU, he's amassed nearly five years of simulation time using Condor, generating several terabytes of results, although his adviser has a habit of asking for the one piece of data he didn't collect.

Bio2: Shawn Blanton is the Director of CSSI. He is now getting so old he is forgetting what it is like being a graduate student. So please attend and remind him of those years now slipping away.