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Home > Research Support Group > AccessGrid > Monthly Status Report

The UofA AccessGrid Monthly Site Specific Status Report

January, 2011:

December, 2010:

November, 2010:

October, 2010:

September, 2010:

August, 2010:

July, 2010:

June, 2010:

May, 2010:

April, 2010:

March, 2010:

February, 2010:

January, 2010:

December, 2009:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • Use of our new AG computers continues without issues
    • The H.323 continues to be tweaked. The LifeSize Room 200 camera works perfectly, while the Sony HD camera seems to have a problem with image quality - we have ordered a new cable, which may fix this.
    • December 1: Coast to Coast Seminar
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2009.monthly.html

November, 2009:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • The old AG machines have been replaced with new systems, 2 running 64-bit Windows 7 Enterprise, and 2 running 64-bit Kubuntu Linux. These have been used in meetings without any problems.
    • Cart for the H.323 system has arrived. This has been assembled and the bulk of the equipment has been installed. We need some cables and small items to complete the installation - these items have been ordered.
    • November 3: Coast to Coast Seminar
    • November 4: WestGrid Seminars
    • November 17: Coast to Coast Seminar
    • November 18: WestGrid Seminars
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2009.monthly.html

October, 2009:

September, 2009:

August, 2009:

July, 2009:

June, 2009:

May, 2009:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • OS and software updates.
    • Power supply in audio machine replaced - the machine is working fine now.
    • The audio machine failed again. All the machines are off warranty - time to start shopping for new hardware.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2009.monthly.html

April, 2009:

March, 2009:

February, 2009:

January, 2009:

December, 2008:

November, 2008:

October, 2008:

September, 2008:

August, 2008:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • OS and software updates.
    • Testing H264 video. There are some rainbows around reflections from the chairs in the room. I suspect that these are encoding artifacts. The video size isn't 640x480 and apparently this is due to using an older vic, but I don't see where to get a newer one - the machines are as up to date as I can make them without building the packages myself.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2008.monthly.html

July, 2008:

June, 2008:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • June 20:
      • Installed Kubuntu 8.04 on the audio and video capture machines
      • Windows machines updated to Windows XP Service Pack 3
      • All machines updated to AG 3.1 software - it seems to be working
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2008.monthly.html

May, 2008:

April, 2008:

March, 2008:

February, 2008:

January, 2008:

December, 2007:

November, 2007:

October, 2007:

September, 2007:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • OS and software updates.
    • Sep. 5: Installed the new University of Alberta venueserver in the computing center:
      • https://venues.srv.ualberta.ca:8000/Venues/default.
    • Video connector fixed for camera 2, the center one at the front of GSB 315.
    • Sep. 14: Venueserver and bridge moved to a different switch because they lose network connectivity intermittently. The machines behave well on the new switch.
    • Sep. 25: Coast to Coast Seminar
    • Sep. 26: WestGrid Training Seminar
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2007.monthly.html

August, 2007:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • OS and software updates.
    • Aug. 25 - 27: Access Grid console moved from the Southeast to the Northwest corner of GSB 315 in order to reduce congestion at that end of the room.
    • Aug. 28 - 31: Console tests to verify its function.
    • Aug. 31: Installed a multicast bridge in the computing center: bridge.srv.ualberta.ca. This a Pentium 4 machine (3.8 GHz) with 2 GB of RAM.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2007.monthly.html

July, 2007:

June, 2007:

May, 2007:

April, 2007:

March, 2007:

February, 2007:

January, 2007:

December, 2006:

November, 2006:

October, 2006:

September, 2006:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • OS and software updates.
    • Geowall software installed on the display machine. Passive stereo is working very well - we are using linear polarizing filters and there is only a bit of ghosting.
  • Coast to Coast Seminar series hosted by Simon Fraser University IRMACS Center and Dalhousie University DDrive
    • Tuesday, September 26, 2006 seminar: Sampling in Networks by Dr. Steve Thompson from Simon Fraser University
  • WestGrid Training Seminar:
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2006.monthly.html

August, 2006:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • The new control machine was returned with a new motherboard. I updated the bios and the machine became unusable again. The machine was returned to the supplier who obtained a new bios chip and brought the machine back with the latest bios installed. I tried to install WinXP on the machine: no matter what I did the install wouldn't complete - the machine went back to the supplier. The machine was returned and the OS installation now succeeds - the problem was that the 2 memory sticks needed to be installed together on the primary cpu rather than separated between the cpus.
    • Moved venueserver2.westgrid.ca into the center and out of my office. Sharad multicast enabled on the new network, and Todd and I had a successful test meeting.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2006.monthly.html

July, 2006:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • Waiting for the return of our new control machine with its new motherboard.
    • Using AG 3 and it seems to work well - haven't run into any big problems.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2006.monthly.html
June, 2006:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • 3 of the new machines for our node were configured and installed, display, video and audio capture. One machine seems to have a corrupted bios and has been taken away for a motherboard replacement.
    • A note on our new machines (see May for a description of the display machine):
      • the new capture machines have Tyan Tiger K8WE motherboards
      • 1 GB of ram
      • 2 x Opteron 246 (2.0 GHz) processors
      • 1 x nVidia Quadro FX 1300 PCIe graphics card
    • We have 2 video capture cards, a FALCONquatto from IDS Imaging and an iTuner Spectra8. Both of these cards show a hardware conflict when installed in the Intel SE7505VB2 motherboards that we used previously. The conflict results in only 3 video streams being available. Moving the boards to a different PCI slot changes which streams are available, but we still get only 3 video streams (this is true under both Windows and Linux). A way around this conflict was never found. When these capture boards are installed in the Tyan Tiger K8WE motherboards there are no hardware conflicts and we get 4 video streams from either card.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2006.monthly.html

May, 2006:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • Regular updates for OSes and software
    • 4 new machines were delivered for our node - one was loaned to our cluster administrator to allow him to develop an installation cd for the new cluster.
    • Installed OSs and software on the new machines in preparation for installing them in GSB 315
    • The new display machine stats (it's really snappy):
      • Tyan Thunder K8WE motherboard
      • 2 GB of ram
      • 2 x Opteron 246 (2.0 GHz) processors
      • 2 x nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX PCIe graphics cards
    • One note of weirdness with the Tyan Thunder K8WE motherboard: I disabled the onboard audio and installed a SoundBlaster Live card (32 bit PCI slot), which has always worked well with RAT. This disabled both onboard network ports. I then tried an Audigy card (64 bit PCI slot). This also disabled the network ports. I tried the Audigy card in 2 of the available PCI slots without any luck. The network is disabled even without installing any drivers for the sound card. I have the latest drivers for everything installed and a call to Tyan support got no more information. The display machine doesn't need a sound card when operating as a room node, but there are times when I want to use it as a PIG so I'd like to see this resolved.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2006.monthly.html

April, 2006:

March, 2006:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • Our center camera was lowered by 20 inches. The view of participants is now much more natural.
    • Reconfiguration of the audio to allow more flexibility with better sound quality. One audio cable generates a buzzing sound for the remote sites - this is unresolved.
    • Regular updates for OSes and software
  • Obtained a new machine for the WestGrid backup venueserver: venueserver2.westgrid.ca. The machine is now a Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz with 2 GB of ram. Installed Fedora Core 5 on the machine so it could be configured with the beta version of AGtk3.
  • Taking part in the Coast to Coast Seminar series hosted by Simon Fraser University and DDrive at Dalhousie University
  • WestGrid Training Seminar:
    • March 8, 2006 seminar: Introduction to SciViz by Jon Johansson from the University of Alberta
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2006.monthly.html

February, 2006:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • Installed 2 rack-mount shelfs in the AG cart to try to organize some of the cable mess on the floor of the cart - a big improvement.
    • Regular updates for OSes and software
  • Taking part in the Coast to Coast Seminar series hosted by Simon Fraser University and DDrive at Dalhousie University
  • WestGrid Training Seminar:
    • February 2, 2006 seminar: Parallel Programming with OpenMP by Edmund Sumbar from the University of Alberta
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2006.monthly.html

January, 2006:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • Regular updates for OSes and software
  • Taking part in the Coast to Coast Seminar series hosted by Simon Fraser University and DDrive at Dalhousie University
    • January 17, 2006 seminar: Solving Checkers by Jonathan Schaeffer from the University of Alberta
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2006.monthly.html

December, 2005:

November, 2005:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • Regular updates for OSes and software
  • Attended the SC Global and Desktop version of SuperComputing 2005
    • Notes: I really enjoyed the ability to attend the technical talks via Access Grid. We attended as a room node (paid a room node sized fee). A couple of technical glitches led to some frustration:
      • 1) I chose to attend more general talks as they tend to be fun and accessible to a wide audience. These talks seemed to be in the one room that was unequipped to properly deliver the speaker's PowerPoints via IGPix. The workaround was to turn a video camera on the PPT and send the slides in a vic stream - the resulting quality was really not acceptable, unfortunately. It could have been better if the bitrate of the video stream had simply been turned up. The vic stream for PPT did have the advantage of showing animations well, which is something lacking in IGPix. A proper IGPix delivery of PPT, coupled with a video stream to deliver animations would have worked well.
      • 2) Some talks in AG Desktop were made unavailable at the last minute because the speakers refused to be broadcast over AG, even though they had apparently previously signed the release forms for video/audio. This was something the organizers couldn't control, but it was very disappointing, nonetheless.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2005.monthly.html

October, 2005:

September, 2005:

August, 2005:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • Updates for operating systems, Windows XP and Linux
    • Updates for firewall and antivirus software
    • Ceiling mount for polarizing filters installed (passive stereo)
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2005.monthly.html

July, 2005:

June, 2005:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details for Room GSB 315:
    • No scheduled (or unscheduled) maintenance took place in June.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2005.monthly.html
  • Documentation/Web:
    • Reformatting and updating of the local web pages; changed CNS to AICT.

May, 2005:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Room GSB 315:
      • InFocus LP530 projectors removed and NEC LT245 projectors installed.
      • AG hardware configured and Geowall software installed to provide passive stereo projection capability.
      • Added streaming Digital Video capability and tested by sending to Calgary.
  • Access Grid Room Usage Report available:
    http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/Usage/2005.monthly.html
  • Documentation/Web:
    • Reformatting and updating of the local web pages; intermittent but ongoing.

April, 2005:

March, 2005:

February, 2005:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Room GSB 315:
      • Warranty work on the projectors for room 315; ongoing.
    • Venue server:
      • down on Feb 10th; eventually restart/reboot machine.
      • Plans for moving machine to SFU; ongoing.
  • Access Grid Room Node Events for February:
  • Documentation/Web:
    • Reformatting and updating of the local web pages; intermittent but ongoing.

January, 2005:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Room GSB 315:
      • Warranty work on the projectors for room 315; ongoing.
  • Access Grid Room Node Events for January:
  • Documentation/Web:
    • Reformatting and updating of the local web pages; intermittent but ongoing.

December, 2004:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Room GSB 315:
      • Warranty work on the projectors for room 315; ongoing.
      • Node machines configured for dual boot.
  • Access Grid Room Node Events for December:
  • Documentation/Web:
    • Reformatting and updating of the local web pages; intermittent but ongoing.

November, 2004:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Power interruption, due to construction in near by rooms, caused venueserver.westgrid.ca (and other machines not connected to a UPS) to go down intermittently through out the month.
    • Room GSB 315:
      • Warranty work on the projectors for room 315; ongoing.
    • New nodes on Campus:
      • TRLabs: The computer system, and various audio and video equipment, was moved to TRLabs.
  • Access Grid Room Node Events:
  • Documentation/Web:
    • Reformatting and updating of the local web pages; intermittent but ongoing.

October, 2004:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Room GSB 315:
      • Replaced fans and heatsinks on all 4 computers to reduce the noise level.
      • Warranty work on the projectors for room 315; ongoing.
    • New nodes on Campus:
      • AMMI Lab: Swapped sound card.
      • TRLabs: The new computer system is functional and remains in temporary room location (i.e., 323C GSB) until the space in TRLabs is equipped with projectors, cameras, etc.
  • Access Grid Room Node Events:
  • Documentation/Web:

September, 2004:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Room 315; Sep 13 - Sep 30:
      Scheduled maintenance and upgrade on machines and software:
      • Installed additional disks in all four computers.
      • Upgraded AG software.
  • Access Grid Room Node Events for September:
  • Documentation/Web:
    • Reformatting and updating of the local Access Grid web pages; intermittent but ongoing.

August, 2004:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Warranty work on the projectors for room 315; ongoing.
    • New nodes on Campus:
      • Aug 03: New AG equipment for the AMMI Lab arrived, and initial local setup and testing was completed. On Aug 25 we moved equipment to AMMI Lab (i.e., Room 363 Computing Science Building).
      • New AG equipment for TRLabs arrived. Setup in temporary room location (i.e., 323C GSB) until space is available in TRLabs.
  • Access Grid Room Node Events for August:
  • Documentation/Web:

July, 2004:

  • Hardware, Software and/or Operational Details:
    • Backup venue server, venues.AICT.ualberta.ca; upgraded to Fedora Core 2 / AG2.2 .
    • Annual Grid Certificate expired; requested new one.
    • Warranty work on projectors; ongoing.
  • Access Grid Room Node Events:
    • July 05: Test/demo 1 of the solution server; with AG connection with SFU.
    • July 08: Joined the regularly scheduled WG Access Grid technical meeting.
    • July 12: Test/demo 2 of the solution server; with AG connection with SFU.
    • July 15:
      • Re-test/demo of solution server.
      • Test of connection to Daresbury UK for upcoming AuP meeting.
      • Joined the regularly scheduled WG Access Grid technical meeting.
    • July 19: Test/demo 3 of the solution server; with AG connection with SFU.
    • July 20: Daresbury UK - UofA; AuP meeting.
    • July 22: Joined the regularly scheduled WG Access Grid technical meeting.
    • July 29: Joined the regularly scheduled WG Access Grid technical meeting via a personal node; certificate problems with room node; new certificate requested.
  • Documentation/Web:

June, 2004:

  • Room Renovation Status; completed.
    • Final details:
      • Enhanced screen frame construction; completed.
      • One additional light fixture ordered, received and installed.
      • Installation of security system for the door; completed.
  • Hardware/Software and Operational:
    • June 04: Backup venue server down for the day; moved to new location.
    • Warranty work on projectors; ongoing.
  • Access Grid Events:
    • June 03: Joined the regularly scheduled WG Access Grid technical meeting.
    • June 07: Access Grid Test 1: Daresbury UK - SFU - UofA - Dal Halifax.
    • June 09: Access Grid Test 2: Daresbury UK - SFU - UofA - Dal Halifax.
    • June 14: Access Grid Test 3: Daresbury UK - SFU - UofA - Dal Halifax.
    • June 15: Support for Access Grid meeting: PI's in Daresbury UK and UofA; (note that SFU colab joined the session - remote technology monitoring)
    • June 17: Joined the regularly scheduled WG Access Grid technical meeting.
    • June 18: SFU - UofA meeting; future test/demo's of the solution server.
    • June 24: For AICT staff "renovations completed" session; note that various members of the WG AG technical group joined in.
    • June 25: Joined a re-scheduled WG Access Grid technical meeting.
  • Documentation/Web:

May, 2004:

  • Room Renovation Status:
    • Ceiling work completed.
    • Lighting installation completed. However, one addition light fixture has been requested.
    • Screen frame construction completed. However, an enhanced design of the frame is being implemented.
    • Camera installation completed.
    • Projectors are installed and semi-operational. However, two projectors need warranty work; this will be scheduled as soon as possible.
    • Installation of security system for the door has started.
  • Site Specific Hardware/Software Installation Status:
    • The installation of the multi-node equipment into the cart is completed.
    • May 25-26: Backup venue server was relocated; and consequently unavailable for those days.
  • AccessGrid Events:
    • May 03: AG meeting with NRC Ottawa (Attendees were; Charles Bradbrooke, Ken Emig, Andrew Patrick and Siraj Sabihuddin). The purpose was to allow Charles to discuss with Ottawa AG users the design and usability of their AG node.
    • May 06: Joined the regularly scheduled WG AccessGrid technical meeting.
      Archive copy of Todd's summary notes are available locally at:
      http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/
      MeetingNotes/WestgridAG-04May06.pdf
    • May 13: Unable to join the regularly scheduled WG AccessGrid technical meeting;
      summary notes are not currently available.
    • May 20: Regularly scheduled WG AccessGrid technical meeting was canceled.
    • May 25: Access Grid Introduction and Demo in the newly renovated room 315.
      A one hour demo was held as part of "Parallel Computing and Visualization" workshop.
      The demo highlighting the capabilities of the Access Grid facilities. Approximately 25-30 people attended.
    • May 27: Joined the regularly scheduled WG AccessGrid technical meeting.
      Archive copy of Todd's summary notes are available locally at:
      http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/
      MeetingNotes/WestgridAG-04May27.pdf
  • Documentation/Web:
    • Made a few minor updates to our local AccessGrid web site.

April, 2004:

March, 2004:

February, 2004:

January, 2004:

December, 2003:

November, 2003:

  • Equipment Hardware/Software Installation Status:
    • Early Nov: DNS issues on local main node; reported the problem to the main AG-Tech mailing list.
    • Nov 13: Local host file problem solved. Triumf beacon now showing that the UofA node is both sending and receiving.
    • Nov 14: Multi machine node up and running.
    • Nov 25: Moved all the equipment to emulate the cart configuration. Also, started to set up the Gentner, and related audio equipment, to work with the sound machine node.
    • Here is a photo of the setup as of November 27th:
      http://www.ualberta.ca/AICT/RESEARCH/AG/
      Photos/wp03Nov27.agmeet2.640x480.jpg
  • Room Renovation Status:
    • Meetings with UofA Project Planning Office (PPO) November 24:
      • PPO will arrange for the design to move to the Capital Programs and the Project Management Office PMO; the PMO arrange for the drawings and specifications to go to tender.
      • AG team will prioritized their list of infrastructure upgrades.
    • Nov 27: Finalizing the design of the Cart; ongoing.
    • Nov 27: Room Renovation are now with the Project Management Office (PMO).
  • AccessGrid Events:
  • Other related events:
    • NewMIC unavailable as of Nov 20th.

October, 2003:

September, 2003:

Contacting Us

Please feel free to contact us at: access.grid@ualberta.ca

 

 
 
 

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