Cloud partner update: Ohio Supercomputer Center switches to Slurm

One of UMaine Advanced Research Computing group’s partners, the Ohio Supercomputing Center (OSC) will switch to Slurm for job scheduling and resource management on the Owens cluster during the December 15 downtime. OSC highly recommends that all members of the client community test their workflow in the Slurm environment before the migration to avoid any interruptions to their work.

Slurm has a completely different command line interface from Torque/Moab, which is the current job scheduler and resource manager used on the Owens cluster. OSC has been working on compatibility scripts to ensure that the transition goes as smoothly as possible, but users should expect that some things may not work exactly the same.

In addition, there will be some unavailable modules after the migration. Check this environment changes page for more information.

It is highly recommended that all OSC users test their jobs in the Slurm environment before the migration, in order to avoid any interruption to their production work. Before the official Slurm migration on Owens, users can test jobs in Slurm by participating in Owens Slurm Migration Early User Program. No registration is required for the Program, and all OSC users are eligible. All jobs submitted during the Early User Program will not be charged.

Users who submit jobs through the terminal can log into Owens in the Slurm environment via SSH to one of the following hostnames: owens-slurm.osc.edu or owens-login03.hpc.osc.edu. Users can also select ‘>_Owens SLURM Shell Access’ under ‘Clusters’ with the OSC OnDemand tool.

After logging in, users should submit their jobs as they currently do on Owens. If it does not work, the workflow will likely fail after the official Slurm migration. Please check OSC’s Slurm documentation page or contact OSC Help for assistance as soon as possible.

Users who use OnDemand apps can submit jobs by selecting the ‘Owens SLURM’ option in any of the applicable forms through OnDemand.

Useful information regarding the transition can be found:
Owens Slurm Migration Early User Program page

Slurm migration documentation page

To stay up to date on system notices, users can follow @HPCNotices on Twitter or visit www.osc.edu/events. For help, users can contact UMaine ARC at um.arc@maine.edu or contact OSC Help.