News

System Status

All HPCC systems are monitored using a variety of infrastructure tools. Many of these metrics are of interest to users and are made available on various websites.

National Science Foundation Grant Awarded for the MSU Data Hub

Michigan State University (MSU) researchers will have a new option to store, share, and archive research data thanks to a nearly $630,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant, which is a collaboration between the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research (ICER), IT Services, MSU’s Research Technology Support Facility (RTSF), the MSU Commons, and the MSU Libraries, establishes the MSU Data Hub...

Jumping Genes: Quantifying the Hidden World of Transposable Elements

Scott Teresi is a few days away from graduating with his Ph.D., but he has already left his mark on the field of bioinformatics with a novel tool that helps researchers understand a feature of DNA colloquially known as “jumping genes.” His tool has the potential to improve our understanding of everything that contains DNA, from the domestication of plants to diseases like cancer...

How your mental timeline guides memory formation and recall

Young, healthy adults who are good at remembering things are good at gluing events together in their memory based on how close they happen in time. When they search their memory, they can efficiently associate memories nearby in their mental timeline to improve their recall. This type of memory, known as episodic memory, is the research focus of Dr. Karl Healey...

PEARC24 ACCESS Support Hackathon Winner: Maryam Berijanian

ICER is excited to announce that Maryam Berijanian, Michigan State University doctoral student in Computational Math, Science, and Engineering and ICER user, was among the PEARC24 Intro to AI and Mini-Hack participants and won Best Originality/Creativity in the advanced category as well as a $3,000 travel award.

NVIDIA’s Grace Hopper Nodes Arrive at MSU’s Data Center to Push Boundaries of Computational Research

On the cutting edge of computer chip technology, the NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip promises to advance computational research beyond what was possible with previous hardware. The Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research (ICER) has installed four Grace Hopper nodes and one Grace CPU node for MSU’s high...

Renaissance Scientists in the Mendoza Lab Tackle Climate Change

José Luis Mendoza Cortés is working to solve some of the most important questions facing our planet. As a professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Michigan State University, Mendoza uses the laws of nature to develop computational algorithms with...

Los científicos renacentistas del Laboratorio Mendoza abordan el cambio climático

José Luis Mendoza Cortés trabaja para resolver una de las cuestiones más importantes a la que se enfrenta nuestro planeta. Mendoza, profesor de Ingeniería Química y Ciencia de Materiales en Michigan State University, usa las leyes de la naturaleza para desarrollar...

From Zero to One Billion: ICER Reaches High-Performance Computing Milestone

ICER's roots date back to 2005, although the name "Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research" had not been coined yet. The first system had 64 cores and 256 GB of RAM. Now, ICER has hundreds of nodes with twice as many cores, each over ten times faster than that first system. The storage has increased...

Tips for GPU Computing on HPCC

Know whether your software has GPU support and how to run it. Check with the software release notes to find out if the software ...

Reminder for Users Transferring Data from Google Drive to the HPCC

For ICER users impacted by the upcoming Google Drive storage limits announced by MSU IT, please be mindful if you choose to move data from Google Drive to the HPCC. Your scratch space can be used to stage data you want to move, but remember that scratch space has a purge policy. Files that have not...

ICER Courses in Fall 2024 - HPC with Python and Reproducible Computational Workflows

The Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research, in partnership with the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering, will teach two graduate courses in fall 2024: "High-Performance Computing with Python" and "Reproducible Computational Workflows." The overarching goal of these...

A Day in the Life of a System Administrator

True or false: system administrators are introverts who love caffeince and Szechuan food. Find out from Kelly Climer, an ICER sysadmin, who took us behind the scenes to learn about his profession.

2023 Cloud Fellows Embark on Journey of Innovation

ICER is excited to introduce the members of the 2023 Cloud Computing Fellowship! The program is dedicated to equipping academic researchers with the knowledge and experience required to harness the power of Cloud Computing.

4th Annual Cloud Computing Fellows Symposium

Join us on May 5 for this year's Cloud Computing Fellows Annual Symposium! We are excited to celebrate the accomplishments of this year's cohort while learning more about the incredible work they've done.

ICER's Supercomputer and Super Staff Contribute to XPRIZE Competition

Experts from MSU were part of an xprize Rainforest team that surveyed biodiversity in a dense jungle. Data analysis required extensive computational capacity, so the scientists turned to ICER's supercomputer resources and human expertise. 

ICER Research Highlight Video Receives Best in Show w3 Award

We are proud to announce that the ICER research highlight "The Puzzle of Topological Data Analysis," featuring Dr. Liz Munch and created by Michelle David, won the w3 awards for Best in Show - Science and Technology Video.

ICER Research Consultants Teach CMSE 890 Courses

ICER Research Consultants Dr. Claire Kopenhafer and Dr. Andrew Fullard will teach CMSE 890 in the Fall 2023 semester.

Undergrads Experience Computational Research in Summer Program

As summer draws to a close, ICER reflects on the fantastic cohort of undergrads in the 2023 ACRES REU program! Read about their successful summer filled with research and development and hear from students about the impact of their time in the program.

Addressing Security Vulnerabilties in Smart Homes

Internet of Things provides users with great convenience in smart homes but have potential vulnerabilities that can compromise security and privacy. ICER user and former Cloud Computing Fellow Guangjing Wang has proposed a solution.

ICER at the MSU Science Festival

Stop by ICER's booth at the MSU Science Festival expo zone! While supplies last, pick up a free pair of VR glasses to take the 360-degree virtual tour of MSU's supercomputer and grab a copy of our beautifully illustrated graphic novel about supercomputing. We also have a "silicon petting zoo" for a hands-on experience with supercomputer parts, and a simulation designed to introduce the concept of parallel computing.

Biologically Inspired Artificial Immune Systems for Computers

When her biological immune system failed her, Katherine Skocelas became fascinated with natural and digital immunity. Now a Ph.D. student, she develops biologically inspired artificial immune system algorithms.

New AMD22 Cluster CPU Nodes Ready for Use

The new "AMD22" CPU cluster nodes are ready for use ahead of schedule! The cluster contains buy-in and non-buy-in nodes connected with a high-speed 100-gigabit network.

Introducing the 2022 MSU Cloud Computing Fellows

We are proud to introduce the latest cohort of the MSU Cloud Computing Fellowship. The fellows have begun phase one: a series of educational group sessions and workshops about cloud computing.

ICER Welcomes New Director of User Support: Dr. Dirk Colbry

ICER communications recently stopped by Dr. Dirk Colbry's office to chat about his new role as the Director of User Support at ICER. 

Ripples in Space Reveal Information about Distant Explosions

Much like the ripples in a pond, ripples in space provide information to an observer about the source of the ripple. Check out our research highlight to see how Dr. Mike Pajkos studies gravitational waves to gain new information about our cosmos.

Learning to Think in Parallel: From Fieldwork to High-Performance Computing

For Dr. Rachel Toczydlowski, the title Computational Biologist still seems strange. Having started her career with fieldwork, adding the descriptor "computational" did not feel natural. Incorporating high-performance computing into her repertoire has opened new avenues and changed aspects of how...

Letter From the Director: Survey Results Inform Future Directions

Dear colleagues, I'm writing to you regarding the survey that ICER recently administered to our allocation Pls and users, as well as to potential users of research computing. I would like to express my thanks to the 462 people who took the time to complete the survey. It is clear that ICER's...

Tracking the Progress of Your Submitted Ticket

Each ticket submitted to ICER has a corresponding webpage that hosts all the correspondence between ICER staff and the user who filed the ticket. Along with the emails written back and forth, a web view can greatly enhance readability and, more importantly, help you keep track of the progress of...

Introducing the 2021 MSU Cloud Computing Fellows

MSU's Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research (ICER) and the ITS Analytics and Data Solutions (ADS) group are proud to announce the next cohort of MSU Cloud Computing Fellows! Congratulations to: Ann Alex, Ph.D./ Institute for Quantitative Health Science & Engineering Giovan Cholico, Ph.D /...

MSU Cloud Computing Fellowship - Application Deadline Friday, July 30, 2021

Dear colleagues, MSU's Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research and MSU IT Services are accepting applications from MSU doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers to join the third cohort of MSU Cloud Computing Fellows. We particularly encourage applicants from areas that do not typically use...

Cloud Computing Fellowship Culminates in Impressive Symposium

What do movie trailers, rib fractures, and mummified corn have in common? Admittedly, not a lot. One similarity is that these topics, and many more, were explored by the MSU 2020 Cloud Computing Fellowship cohort. 

Prevent File Loss on the HPCC

From time to time, we receive requests from users to restore their deleted files. In this article, we would like to share with our users some tips and tricks for preventing file loss. First, users will need to understand the file system on HPCC so that they can store their files in the right...

Using Powertools With the HPCC

Powertools is a collection of software tools and examples that allows researchers to better utilize High Performance Computing (HPC) systems. Powertools was created to help advanced users use the High Performance Computer Center (HPCC) more effectively. By default, powertools is loaded when users...

Using OnDemand for Python Programming on the MSU HPCC

Click the link below to learn more about using OnDemand for Python programming on MSU's HPCC. This instructional document contains a step-by-step explanation with screenshots that will guide users through the start-up process. Instructional Document: Using OnDemand for Python Programming Laura...

Checklist to Improve Your Job's Scheduling Time

Here is a checklist to help improve your job's scheduling time: 1. Run command "sq <NetID>" or "squeue -u <NetID>" to show the jobs in the queue. If a job is Pending, the last column will show the reason provided by SLURM. Here are common reasons with their meaning: a. Priority: Job...

Letter From the Director: Support for Instructors

Dear Colleagues, now that the spring semester is over and you have submitted your grades, I am writing to let you know about some FREE tools and services that the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research (CER) provides for MSU instructors who are interested in increasing the amount of computation or...

MATLAB 2021a Is Installed and Ready For Use

As many users may have noticed, the MATLAB/2021a module has been installed on HPCC and is ready for use. Users can check the release note for details of changes at this link. Among the changes and updates in the new version, there is one thing I would like to bring to the attention of Matlab users...

Supercomputing Resources for Social Scientists at MSU

ICER's Director of Training, Dr. Laura Harris, will present Supercomputing Resources for Social Scientists at MSU on Friday, May 14, at noon. This presentation will be part of MSU's Social Science Data Analytics (SSDA) initiative. "At the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research (ICER), we provide....

SLURM Job Failure Due to the "oom" Error

Many users have asked us how to deal with error messages such as: slurmstepd: error: Detected 2 oom-kill event(s) in StepId=xxxxx.batch cgroup. In the above message, oom stands for "out of memory." It means that your process needs more memory than what is available. Therefore, you need to request...

Faster Distributed Machine Learning for Free

If one computer can process a set of data in 10 hours, it would be reasonable to assume that 10 computers could process that data in one hour. The research of Xiaorui Liu, an MSU graduate student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, reveals that this is not the case. The...

Announcing the 2021 HPC-AI Challenge

The International Society for Computational Biology is pleased to announce the HPC-AI Advisory Council (HPCAIAC) and National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore 2021 APAC HPC-AI Competition. High-performance computing and artifical intelligence are the most essential tools fueling the...

Combining Artificial Intelligence and Chemistry to Identify Molecules

At the intersection of artificial intelligence and chemisty, Kiyoto Tanemura is working to develop a method for identifying molecules based on information about the nature of their collisions. Tanemura, an MSU graduate student studying computational chemistry in the lab of Dr. Kenneth Merz, Jr.,...

Using Deep Learning to Enhance Fingerprint Biometrics

Joshua Engelsma is a graduate student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at MSU. Advised by Dr. Anil Jain, he works on pattern recognition and image processing with multiple applications in biometrics. Joshua's interest in this field came from undergrad, when he was exploring...

ICER Student Highlights: Zhuowen Zhao

Understanding Plastic Deformation in Polycrystalline Metallic Materials using Solid Mechanics Simulation and Machine Learning. Zhuowen Zhao is a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (CHEMS) at Michigan State University. His research under...

2019 MSU HPC Buy-in Survey

Dear MSU researcher, ICER is planning to make a purchase of computational hardware in the next several months, to be deployed in summer 2020. We are attempting to gauge interest in participation in this HPC buy-in, as well as the tpyes of hardware that we will offer for purchase. Broadly speaking...

2020 MSU Cloud Computing Fellows

MSU's Institute of Cyber-Enabled Research (ICER) and the ITS Analytics and Data Solutions (ADS) group are proud to announce the second cohort of MSU Cloud Computing Fellows! Congratulations to: Meng Cai (Urban & Regional Planning) Dr. Dae Kwan Ko (Biological Netwoks) Dr. David Luecke (Electric...

Announcing the MSU Research Services Catalog and Research Consulting Service

Two new resources offered by the MSU Research Facilitation Networks are now available for all MSU researchers: the Research Technology and Support Service Catalog, and a related Research Consulting service. The Research Technology and Support Service Catalog can be found at this link, and is a...

Student Teams Develop Software for MSU Research Projects

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering offers its senior design course in which teams of senior computer science majors design, develop, debug, document, and deliver significant software systems for a variety of project sponsors.

Unveiling ICER’s 2024 Strategic Plan

As the home of Michigan State University’s high-performance computing center, ICER supports computational and data science research and instructional activities. Extensive feedback was gathered from ICER’s staff and User Advisory Board, the Office of Research and Innovation, and partner units to craft a new strategic plan that serves varied purposes.

Arrival of the New 2020 Cluster

We are pleased to announce that the parts of the new 2020 cluster have arrived. We are currently in the process of putting it together and doing all the necessary testing. We anticipate the new cluster will be available in mid-September. Please let us know if you have any questions. Photo credit...

Bioinformatics Consulting Service Survey 

Dear Colleagues,

MSU’s Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research and Research Technology Support Facility are exploring needs relating to a potential bioinformatics consulting program.  Our goal is to gain a better understanding of the populations of MSU researchers...

Bioinformatics Consulting Service Survey (deadline: 8/19)

Dear Colleagues, MSU's Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research and Research Technology Support Facility are exploring needs related to a potential bioinformatics consulting program. Our goal is to gain a better understanding of the populations of MSU researchers that may require a bioinformatics...

The Cloud Computing Fellowhship Enters Second Phase 

The 2021 Cloud Computing Fellows have been hard at work completing the first phase of the fellowship. "The MSU ICER Cloud Computing Fellowship began with a series of group session that introduced the fellows to the concept of cloud computing using commercial cloud resources made available through...

Cloud Computing for Research Roundtable - RSVP Requested

When: Thursday March 18, 2021, 3-4:30 p.m. Where: Via Zoom (register here) - please RSVP via this link by 3/11/2021. MSU's Research Facilitation Network is delighted to announce its next event: a roundtable discussion about cloud computing and its potential to enhance research at MSU. The event...

Computational and Data Science Fellowships

Dear users of the MSU HPCC, We will be dedicating a significant fraction of ICER’s general-access nodes to a computational research program that has direct relevance to the current COVID-19 pandemic.  As jobs complete over the next week, we will be transferring nodes over to this project, which...

COVID-19 Research and ICER Queue Times

Dear users of the MSU HPCC, we will be dedicating a significant fraction of ICER's general-access nodes to a computational research program that has direct relevance to the current COVID-19 pandemic. As jobs complete over the next week, we will be transferring nodes over to this project, which...

CPU and GPU Hour Credits for Node Failures

ICER has identified an issue with the way CPU usage is recorded on our system, and we have implemented a fix to address it. To ensure fair access to computing resources, researchers using the HPCC who have not bought cluster hardware have an annual usage limit of 500,000 CPU Hours and 10,000 GPU...

Culmination of the 2022 Cloud Computing Fellowship

The Michigan State University Cloud Computing Fellowship has completed another exciting and engaging year that highlighted the significance of using computational methods among many fields of research. The Cloud Computing Fellowship introduces its cohorts to new opportunities to further their...

Decoding Disinformation: Agent-Based Modeling with David Butts

Chronic wasting disease in deer and disinformation on social media have something in common: they spread. David Butts has explored both research areas in graduate school by creating computer simulations to model their spreading properties. He used the models to test mitigation strategies and...

Delving Deep into Elementary Particles with HPCC

Huey-Wen Lin is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Computational Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (CMSE) at Michigan State. Here, she studies the properties of the fundamental subatomic building blocks of matter. She takes particular interest in using HPCC...

Diversifying Data Science 

R-Ladies East Lansing - a local chapter of R-Ladies, a global organization - is a vibrant community focused on providing a safe environment for women and gender minorities in-and-around MSU to discuss, learn, and teach anything pertaining to R (a popular statistical programming language) and data...

Easier Way to Launch Interactive Jobs on the HPCC

We have a new, easier way to launch interactive jobs on the HPCC! The “interact” script wraps around “salloc” to provide sensible defaults for interactive jobs of 1 core on 1 node for 1 hour. You can request a specific time with the “-t” option, e.g. “interact -t 4:00:00” for 4 hours. It also has…

Facts About SLURM Usage

Recently, we received a ticket from a buy-in account user asking a question about SLURM usage quota. The following list contains useful information about SLURM CPU/GPU usage quota shown in the output of the command "SLURMUsage" for general and buy-in users. The "SLURMUsage" command only takes the...

First Cohort of MSU Cloud Computing Fellows

In November 2019, MSU's Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research and the IT Services Analytics and Data Solutions group hosted the first cohort of MSU Cloud Computing Fellows. Last year, seventeen doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from different disciplines were selected to participate and...

Frontera Computational Science Fellowship

THURSDAY, January 9, 2020 - The year-long Frontera Fellowship Program provides an opportunity for graduate students to compute on the most powerful academic supercomputer in the world, and collaborate with experts at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. 50,000 node-hours on Frontera Paid summer..

Go Above and Beyond Using the HPCC's New Scavenger Queue

On May 11th, 2022, ICER will deploy a new 'scavenger' queue that will allows users to run preemptable jobs on idle cores. They will not be limited by the regular queues' limits on running jobs and do not count against yearly usage totals, but they may be canceled at any time to allow general or buy-....

GPU and CPU Usage Limitation Imposed on General Accounts

As many of our users have noticed, the HPCC job policy was updated recently. SLURM now enforces the CPU and GPU hour limit on general accounts. The command "SLURMUsage" now includes the report of both CPU and GPU usage. For general account users, the limit of CPU usage is reduced from 1,000,000 to...

Grant Awarded for Accessible Supercomputer: MSU Data Machine

Although the phrase "high-performance computing" traditionally conjures images of a computer scientist more so than a social scientist, the reality is that many diverse areas of research benefit from access to the advanced computational capacity offered by a high-performance computing center (HPCC...

Grant support for computational & data science REU supplements

Researchers with existing NSF grants or applying for new or continuing grants may apply for a NSF Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) supplement to support up to two undergraduate research assistants. If your grant has a computational or data science research focus and you wish to...

Help with SSH Key-Based Authentication

We have had a high volume of tickets requesting help with SSH key-based authentication in the past week after we switched to this requirement for the rsync.hpcc.msu.edu file transfer gateway. This particularly affects users who use the software FileZilla for their file transfer needs. We have....

HPCC FAQ

We have been working on putting together frequently asked questions from HPCC users and created a FAQ at FAQ - MSU HPCC User Documentation. If you are a new user or don't use HPCC servers very frequently, this might be a good place to start when you have questions. We will update this list as we...

HPCC System Info

ICER’s public documentation is one of the best sources of immediate information for new and experienced High-Performance Computing Center (HPCC) users searching for technical information. Search ICER’s public documentation or check out the links below to go directly to the page you need. Hardware:...

ICER Business Continuity during COVID-19

Dear HPCC users, as part of MSU's response to COVID-19, ICER is transitioning to an online-only support model. All HPCC services will continue as normal. The contact form is the preferred way to contact us: https://contact.icer.msu.edu Monday and Thursday regularly scheduled open office hours.

ICER Future Directions

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Brian O'Shea as the new director of the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research as of July 1st, 2019. Dr. O'Shea is a computational and theoretical astrophysicist who studies cosmological structure formation, including galaxy formation and the...

ICER Research Highlight Video Receives Telly Award

We are proud to announce that an ICER Research Highlight documentary short has won a Telly Award for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the record-breaking 45th Annual Telly Awards. The video, titled “Renaissance Scientist Tackles Climate Change,” or in Spanish, “El Científico Renacentista

ICER Research Highlights Receives Two Silver Telly Awards

We are proud to announce that two ICER Research Highlights documentary shorts have won Silver Awards at the 41st Telly Awards this part May. The videos, produced and edited by Ms. Xiaoxing (Adele) Han, were selected from 13,000+ entries from all 50 states and 5 continents. The awards honor...

ICER Student Highlights: Erik Amezquita

Using Topology & Morphology to Quantify & Contextualize 3D Plant Structures Erik Amezquita is a second year Ph.D. student in the department of Computational Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (CMSE) at MSU. There, he works under the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth Munch and Dr. Dan Chitwood...

ICER Student Highlights: Tyler Derr

Preducting Friends and Foes Online with Deep Learning Models. Tyler Derr is a graduate student in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at MSU. He works in the Data Science and Engineering (DSE) Lab under Dr. Jiliang Tang and his research centers around network analysis with a...

ICER Student Highlights: Alex Wright

Managing Natural Resources to Facilitate Biodiversity Alex Wright is a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Integrative Biology at Michigan State University. There, he works under Dr. Elise Zipkin as part of the Zipkin Quantitative Ecology Lab. The primary focus of his research is to "solve...

ICER Supercomputer Buy-In (TIME-SENSITIVE - Deadline Tues. 4/7/2020)

Dear Colleagues, The Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research is preparing to purchase a new supercomputer. As a consequence, I am writing to you regarding the opportunity to buy into this machine, with a request for an answer with a very short turnaround time - no later than the end of the day next...


 

ICER Support for Computationally-Focused Workshops

ICER is happy to support computationally focused workshops in a variety of ways. Workshop organizers can request ICER assistance with the following: Have an ICER Research Consultant (RC) meet with the workshop organizers to discuss options to make the workshop as user-friendly as possible from a...

ICER Welcomes New Business Staff

Jamie is excited to join the ICER business team and looking forward to getting to know everyone in the computational computing field. Jamie is new to campus. She has been in the financial services industry for the past 20 years, where she handled customer service, compliance, and everything in...

ICER Welcomes New HPC Administrator

We are pleased to announce the recent hiring of Adam Pitcher to the position of HPC Administrator. Adam is a lifelong Spartan. Having graduated from Michigan State University in 1999 with a BS in Computer Science and Engineering, he came back a year later as a system administrator for Computer...

ICER Welcomes New HPC Administrator

We are pleased to announce the recent hiring of Joel Parks to the position of HPC Administrator. Joel has over ten years experience in the IT field, a degree in Computer Networking and RHCSA certification (Red Hat Certified System Administrator). Prior to transitioning to ICER, he worked with...

ICER Welcomes New Research Consultant

Dr. Mahmoud Parvizi is the newest ICER Research Consultant. Before joining ICER, Dr. Parvizi was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University with a focus on machine learning applications of cloud-computing workflows. He earned his PhD in...

ICER's Research Story Contest

Calling all ICER users! At the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research (ICER), we know our users are doing incredible work across all fields, and we want to share your work with the public. If you are interested in having your research featured on ICER’s website, newsletter, and social media and...