Last updated: 22-01-2018
In Q4 2017 the ELvis cluster has reached the end of its life. This means that as of November 2017 the ELvis cluster has been discontinued and the Remote Visualization service has been migrated to other infrastructures at SURFsara, most notably Cartesius. Please see here for more information on remote visualization on Cartesius.
One of the main reasons for this decision is that GPU's have become more common in compute infrastructure. There are now other options for visualization and rendering available at SURFsara, and therefore the existence of ELvis as separate cluster is not required any more. Both Cartesius and the HPC Cloud now have GPU nodes available and are capable of the same tasks as ELvis. By phasing out ELvis and migrating visualization services to Cartesius and the HPC Cloud, we hope to provide better integration of Visualization services in our computer infrastructure.
In order to continue providing the Remote visualization existing users were migrated to Cartesius, since Cartesius as a system is very similar to ELvis. The HPC Cloud will be available as an alternative, but since setting up a rendering capable VM is a bit more complicated, this will not be the default. Since the ELvis home filesystem was a separate filesystem, data of active users and users with a valid resource allocation was copied to Cartesius. Data of other users will be left behind and deleted after a period. All users have been contacted about this migration of their data.
Enabling user-friendly remote visualization on the HPC Cloud involves more work than preparing Cartesius. Effort to provide remote visualization on the HPC Cloud will be spent in 2018.
Q: Will I be able to continue using Remote Visualization similar to how I am using it now?
A: Yes, our goal is to have similar functionality available on Cartesius and possibly the HPC Cloud. The workflow on Cartesius for remote visualization will be very similar to what is currently available on ELvis
Q: What happens with the data I have on ELvis?
A: We have contacted users about the contents of their home directories on ELvis, and have provided options for migration and/or keeping the data accessible. Nothing will be deleted without express consent of the user, expect when we can't establish contact after repeated attempts. All ELvis users have been contacted by e-mail at this point about this procedure. If you haven't received this e-mail and are a current ELvis user please contact helpdesk@surfsara.nl
Q: What is the difference between Cartesius and the HPC Cloud?
A: Both come equipped with GPU's, but Cartesius comes with a working OS and batch system, and will therefore be easier to use. The HPC Cloud involves more setup for the user to use.
Q: Will I have to use Cartesius or the HPC cloud
A: Initially we will migrate all users to Cartesius. We will work on setting up the HPC Cloud as a workable alternative for those users that prefer a cloud node.
Q: Will <Software package> be available on Cartesius?
A: We will migrate most of the software packages to Cartesius. If you are missing a package, you can always mail helpdesk@surfsara.nl to get it installed.
Q: Will <Software package> be available on the HPC cloud?
A: On the HPC Cloud providing remote visualization software is more complicated and we are still working on a good solution. You can install your own OS of choice, and therefore you often need to compile software yourself. However we will look into making pre-compiled software available for some of the standard images.
Any addition questions can be sent to helpdesk@surfsara.nl
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