SSCC Slurm Cluster Expansion
The new servers purchased through the SSCC’s Research Core Revitalization Program grant have been added to the Slurm cluster. The Slurm cluster now has:
- Over 5000 total cores
- Servers with 128 cores
- Servers with 1024GB of memory
- Servers with powerful A100 GPUs
Our Slurm cluster has become the place to run big research computing jobs. If you’re still running big jobs on Linstat, it’s time to start submitting them to Slurm instead (it’s easy to do). Linstat will focus on interactive work going forward. We are committed to making large-scale computing as accessible and easy to use as possible. Our Guide to Research Computing at the SSCC is a great tool to guide you in using Slurm. Our Statistical Consultants are also happy to answer questions and help you navigate using the new servers.
Winter Tech Update
The SSCC will be undergoing our annual winter tech update from 9am-5pm on Saturday January 7th. All SSCC services will be unavailable during that time. Any ongoing projects or work should be saved to prevent any data loss. Please contact the SSCC Help Desk with any questions or concerns.
Some of the new features included in the winter tech update are:
- Various SSCC software have been updated to their latest version including Stata, R, and Python.
- Genomics software is now available on Linstat.
- Chrome has been replaced with Microsoft Edge in Silo.
Spring 2023 Training
The SSCC’s spring training schedule starts next week with Introductions to R, Stata, and Python, then continues the following week with Data Wrangling workshops in the same languages. Note that these workshops are taught online so you can take them even if you won’t be back in Madison yet. Visit the training page for details and to register.
You may be asking: What is “data wrangling”? Do I need to learn it? Data wrangling transforms raw data into a form that can be analyzed. It’s an essential skill for data-driven research. Data wrangling is not often taught in formal classes, so we recommend most social science graduate students with an interest in data-driven research take a data wrangling workshop in their first year or before they start doing research. Take a look at the curricula online to see if you have the skills you’ll need to wrangle data.
LastPass Password Manager Security Breach
LastPass password manager recently disclosed that a copy of customer password vaults was taken. Because of the strong encryption on the vaults, the primary concern is if you have a weak master password. If you use your NetID to login to LastPass or your master password is 12-characters or longer (the LastPass default), your password data is at very-low risk. If you have a shorter than 12-character master password, you should change it and consider changing all the passwords in your vault.
Data Science Research Bazaar
UW-Madison’s Data Science Hub is hosting the fourth annual Research Bazaar on Feb. 22-23 at the Discovery Building on the UW-Madison campus. The Research Bazaar is an inclusive, community-building event at UW-Madison for researchers, data scientists, entrepreneurs, and community members, including students. It is modeled off the international Research Bazaar, a worldwide festival that promotes digital literacy in research. While there is no cost to attend, pre-registration is required by Feb. 8. View the full schedule and register here.