On Tuesday, October 22 2024, we held our first subMIT users meeting of the term. We gathered valuable feedback from users regarding their experiences and needs related to the system. Here’s a summary of the key points discussed and our proposed actions moving forward.

• OpenMPI: Users inquired about OpenMPI and its support for multi-node computations. We are studying how to best install globally, and will provide updates on the status in future communications, and include information in our user’s guide.
• Software usage: The use of Conda and Podman can be confusing at times and some users expressed an interest for more detailed documentation and tutorials. We currently document how to install Conda, with examples of commands, and have a few brief comments on Podman. We are also in the process of expanding on these to ensure our documentation is clear to all our users.
• Core Expansion: There were questions regarding the potential expansion of the number of available cores for computing tasks. subMIT relies on PIs purchasing machines, which are then added to the cluster. There will probably be some more CPU cores available in the future but no drasting expansion is envisaged because big computing tasks should be ‘subMITted’ to other resources, see also our next point on batch resources.
• Batch jobs: Some users would like additional guidance on how to choose the best resources for their specific tasks (slurm vs HTCondor), and how to set up their software. We are in the process of creating a tutorial on this topic.
• X-Win32 Setup: Users reported difficulties in setting up X-Win32. As it appears there is a wide interest for this application, we will add detailed setup instructions in our User’s guide.
• Mathematica Access: We discussed the possibility of installing Mathematica on more machines if there is demand. At the moment, Mathematica is available on submit00 through the terminal, as well as using slurm or jupyterhub. You can find more information in our Mathematica documentation. With the current setup, a user would need to generate an activation key and enter it on each machine with Mathematica.
• Slack: Users who wish to be added to the subMIT Slack workspace can email submit-help@mit.edu. There is a channel called #help-desk which you can use instead of sending us an email when you have a comment, suggestion, or trouble.
• Account creation: there is currently an issue in creating the personal directory space in /data. Users who notice that they do not have a personal space in /ceph/submit/data/user should reach out to submit-help@mit.edu so we can manually create it.

We appreciate your feedback and are striving to making improvements based on your needs to enhance the cluster experience for all users. Please stay tuned for updates on the items outlined above. If you have a comment, suggestion, or trouble with subMIT, consider sending us an email!

Thank you for your participation and engagement!
the subMIT project team