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(More Introductory Information)
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== What is Beocat? ==
== What is Beocat? ==
Beocat is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_computing HPC] cluster at [http://www.ksu.edu Kansas State University]. It is run by the [http://www.cis.ksu.edu/ Computing and Information Science] department. Beocat is available to any educational researcher in the state of Kansas without cost. Priority access is given to those researchers who have contributed resources.
Beocat is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_computing HPC] cluster at [http://www.ksu.edu Kansas State University]. It is run by the [http://www.cis.ksu.edu/ Computing and Information Science] department. Beocat is available to any educational researcher in the state of Kansas without cost. Priority access is given to those researchers who have contributed resources.
Beocat is actually comprised of several different cluster computing systems
* "Beocat", as used by most people is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_cluster Beowulf cluster] of Linux servers coordinated by the [https://arc.liv.ac.uk/trac/SGE SGE] job submission and scheduling system. Our [[Compute Nodes]] (hardware) and [[installed software]] have separate pages on this wiki. The current status of this cluster can be monitored by visiting [[http://ganglia.beocat.cis.ksu.edu/ http://ganglia.beocat.cis.ksu.edu/]].
* A comparatively small [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Hadoop Hadoop] cluster
* A small [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openstack OpenStack] cloud-computing infrastructure


== How Do I Use Beocat? ==
== How Do I Use Beocat? ==
First, you need to get an account by visiting [https://account.beocat.cis.ksu.edu/ https://account.beocat.cis.ksu.edu/] and filling out the form. In most cases approval for the account will be granted in less than one business day, and sometimes much sooner. When your account has been approved, you will be added to our [[LISTSERV]], where we announce any changes, maintenance periods, or other issues.
Once you have an account, you can access Beocat via SSH and can transfer files in or out via SCP or SFTP. If you don't know what those are, please see our [[LinuxBasics]] page.
As mentioned above, we use SGE for job submission and scheduling. If you've never worked with a batch-queueing system before, submitting a job is different than running on a standalone Linux machine. Please see our [[SGEBasics]] page for an introduction on how to submit your first job. If you are already familiar with SGE, we also have an [[AdvancedSGE]] page where we can adjust the fine-tuning.
==  How do I get help? ==
You're in our support Wiki now, and that's a great place to start! We highly suggest that before you send us email, you visit our [[FAQ]].


If your answer isn't there, you can email us at [mailto:beocat@cis.ksu.edu beocat@cis.ksu.edu]. ''Please'' send all email to this address and not to any of our staff directly. This will ensure your support request gets entered into our tracker, and will get your questions answered as quickly as possible. Please keep the subject line as descriptive as possible and include any pertinent details to your problem (i.e. job ids, commands run, working directory, program versions,.. etc).


== So What's Under the Hood? ==
== How do I get priority access ==
We're glad you asked! Contact [mailto:dan@ksu.edu Dr. Dan Andresen] to find out how contributions to Beocat will prioritize your access to Beocat.

Revision as of 14:10, 14 April 2014

What is Beocat?

Beocat is the HPC cluster at Kansas State University. It is run by the Computing and Information Science department. Beocat is available to any educational researcher in the state of Kansas without cost. Priority access is given to those researchers who have contributed resources.

Beocat is actually comprised of several different cluster computing systems

How Do I Use Beocat?

First, you need to get an account by visiting https://account.beocat.cis.ksu.edu/ and filling out the form. In most cases approval for the account will be granted in less than one business day, and sometimes much sooner. When your account has been approved, you will be added to our LISTSERV, where we announce any changes, maintenance periods, or other issues.

Once you have an account, you can access Beocat via SSH and can transfer files in or out via SCP or SFTP. If you don't know what those are, please see our LinuxBasics page.

As mentioned above, we use SGE for job submission and scheduling. If you've never worked with a batch-queueing system before, submitting a job is different than running on a standalone Linux machine. Please see our SGEBasics page for an introduction on how to submit your first job. If you are already familiar with SGE, we also have an AdvancedSGE page where we can adjust the fine-tuning.

How do I get help?

You're in our support Wiki now, and that's a great place to start! We highly suggest that before you send us email, you visit our FAQ.

If your answer isn't there, you can email us at beocat@cis.ksu.edu. Please send all email to this address and not to any of our staff directly. This will ensure your support request gets entered into our tracker, and will get your questions answered as quickly as possible. Please keep the subject line as descriptive as possible and include any pertinent details to your problem (i.e. job ids, commands run, working directory, program versions,.. etc).

How do I get priority access

We're glad you asked! Contact Dr. Dan Andresen to find out how contributions to Beocat will prioritize your access to Beocat.