INSTAAR Computing

Overview :: Basic Support :: ECI Facility

The Environmental Computing and Imaging Facility (ECI homepage) offers all scientists at INSTAAR (including graduate students) inexpensive access to Solaris 8 (Unix) OS supercomputers. Accounts are also available to high-end users within the US and international science community. In addition to the supercomputers, the ECI Facility houses printers, scanners, and other equipment available to INSTAARs.

Supercomputer use
Physical access
Accounts and Rates
Applications
Color prints
Poster printing
Image scanning
Slides for presentations

Main contact: Chad Stoffel, Systems/Network Administrator; Phone: 5-5216; email: chad.stoffel@colorado.edu; Room 277, RL-3

Supercomputer use
The super computers have mostly been used as a tool to run large modeling routines (e.g. Millions of calculations). The two Sun servers (Mysticplum and DeepPurple) have more resources and space than every computer at INSTAAR combined.

Physical access
The ECI lab in the ARC building (a.k.a. RL-3) is located in room 208. Special access can be made via prior arrangements with Chad Stoffel. The lab facilities include many Solaris 8 “Sun Ray” Stations.

Accounts and Rates
Users must have their account setup (by Chad Stoffel) before they can access the computers. For INSTAAR personnel, all Chad needs is the person’s Social Security Number. More information is required for non-INSTAAR users. There are four account levels: Classic, Silver, Gold, and Plum.

A change of auditing rules has necessitated a review of arrangements for use of the ECI by INSTAARS. These changes are not large, and the ECI facility remains keen to serve INSTAARS in a way that increases their research output and quality.

ECI can no longer offer any services for free. In law now, that would allow all in the university to demand the same free services. Also, it would prevent requests for computing support in your federal research proposals.

NEW RATES

Service	Parameters	Cost
Level 1	50Mb disk space quota minimum (includes Web / FTP facilities and data spac-e); raisable in 50Mb lots; access to Unix utilities via MysticPlum (1 processor), including various software packages; use of ECI lab SunRay workstations and B/W printer.	SEE CHAD
Level 2	3Gb disk quota; 2 processors available simultaneously; 2 'Classic' UserNames and entitlements.	SEE CHAD
Level 3	15GB disk space quota; multiple (4 to 8) processor usage for parallel programming; 4 'Classic' UserNames and entitlements.	SEE CHAD
Level 4	Up to 300Gb disk capacity; multiple processor (16 to 32) use; 6 'Classic' UserNames and entitlements; virtually unlimited use of the machine.	SEE CHAD
Plotting/ Poster printing	HP 5000^PS Plotter color, large format, high quality papers; job checking and finishing by Chad Stoffel	$8.00 / sq ft or part thereof
Color printing	Tektronix Phaser 740 color laser; letter, transparency	$0.50 / page

Applications

ESRI suite ArcInfo, ArcIMS, ArcView, etc	Fledermaus* 3D fly-through visualization with 3D mouse.	Matlab with statistics, signal processing
Rivertools (topography and drainage)	SedFlux (continental margin simulations)	Hydrotrend (river simulations)
Mathematica	StarOffice	IDL (powerful high level C-like language)

Poster Printing
In order to print to the plotter, it is often easiest to get the file to Chad via INSTAAR’s FTP site, USB Flash ("Thumb") drive, CD-R/CD-RW, or transferred over the Network, and then print from his machine. He has both a Mac and a PC at his disposal, which cover most software packages to print from (but not always ALL of them…). Page setup can be a hassle, as well as other issues that arise from different software packages, so always allow a suitable amount of time BEFORE you need to print the poster. One hour is usually sufficient, 15 minutes before you have to leave for DIA is not. Curent rates given above.

Basically just let Chad know when you need to print a poster, please do not attempt to print to it on your own. Software has been a pretty big compatibility issue when printing posters. People generally use Adobe Illustrator, Canvas, PowerPoint, Claris Draw, and Photoshop, just to name a few. And with each program there are little changes that have to be made to make it print properly. So far, Adobe Illustrator has been the best overall and its' cross platform (Mac and PC) availability makes it easier than say Claris Draw.

Image Scanning
We currently have a flat bed scanner (HP ScanJet 4100C) as well as a Slide scanner (Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 ED). The flat bed scanner is hooked up to a Dell PC, and the Slide scanner to a Macintosh G4. Both are available for INSTAAR’s needs. NEW!! - There is now an updated flatbed scanner available for use in the Information Center, please contact Shelly Sommer to learn more.

Slides for a Presentation
Students who need to make actual slides for presentations should talk with their PI to see what machines are available to them. An older model slide maker has been obtained for the ECI lab, but it has not been tested or used recently as some of the literature is missing. This will hopefully also be a future resource available in the ECI lab.