From CRMDA

Welcome to the Technology Focal Point of the Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis

Perhaps a picture really is worth a thousand words:

Level 1. EduStat Remote Windows Workstations

EduStat users need not register with CRMDA.

The EduStat Remotely Accessible Workstations are available to all people who have valid login usernames in the KU HOME domain. More information is available about those systems on our WinStat pages. The easiest way to get onto an EduStat system is to go to this page [[1]], where you will find a list of the available systems and their current usage rates. If your Web browser and your systems remote desktop client are not "broken" or "misconfigured" in some way, clicking on one of the EduStat systems should open up a remote desktop session. Use the login HOME\your-ku-login-name.

If you have difficulty connecting through the Web address mentioned above, it will be necessary for you to do a little "bug fixing" to make things work. In the The WinStat Homepage, there is additional detailed information that can be used to manually start a remote desktop session. Basically, the only difficult part is selecting which of the systems you will be using.

A principal goal of this approach is that students will have access to specialized software without having to pay for it. We have obtained licenses for the software that is appropriate to the research and teaching needs of our affiliates. Users on these systems will find a fairly broad collection of programs for analytical usage (SAS, SPSS, Stata, R, Mplus, Lisrel, AtlasTI, and so forth) as well as is a collection of programs for editing documents and preparing programs.

'CAUTION: There is no Lifeguard on Duty'

Your access is offered as a courtesy of the Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis. We offer access, and making sure that you can connect to these systems is as far as we can go in supporting your usage of them. We (the Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis) DO NOT provide software consulting on the EduStat systems. If you believe there is a hardware malfunction, please send an email message to clusterhelp@ittc.ku.edu.

Please remember that access to these systems in not supported through the central KU Information Technology system. Consultants at KU's help line, 864-8080, do not know anything about our systems and they will not be able to help you.

Level 2. Registered CRMDA member Account Access

Registration is Required

Registration with CRMDA is required for people who seek access to the HPC cluster or to use the ResStat remote desktop workstations. People who want to have write permission on the CRMDA file shares (see "shared storage" below). To sign up, please browse this page:

http://hpc.quant.ku.edu/account

For Security Reasons, Login will be allowed only from within the KU network domain (ku.edu) or on systems that are in the VPN system known as [[2]]. The install of the VPN client on user workstations has been a troublesome process, it may be wise to seek professional assistance. We have some advice

After your account is created, the system will notify you by email.

Please note that accounts on our system are intended for research and educational purposes of KU and the Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis. It is not appropriate to use these services for other purposes, whether they are commercial or not.

High Performance Computing on hpc.quant.ku.edu

To log into the cluster, use an SSH terminal program to open hpc.quant.ku.edu. Use your KU login ID, without HOME or any other domain. That is, say your username is "your-ku-login-id".

Think of the HPC cluster as a system in 3 parts.

First, these are Linux operating systems. Users need familiarity with Linux OS--logging in, editing files, running scripts, and so forth. For help on Linux, consult the Linux Main Page.

Second, Clusters require some specialized skills, especially where the submission and management of big jobs is concerned. Help documents are located at the Cluster Main Page.

About the Environment: The Cluster homepage explains that this is a cluster of Dell PowerEdge 2950 and 1950 systems that is supervised by CRMDA and administered by the KU ITTC.

Third, the cluster systems use a shared file structure, so that all systems in the cluster see the same user files under /home and /tools. There is more information about the shared file storage below.

ResStat: Remote Windows Workstations Primarily for Research

These systems have the software that is installed in the EduStat systems, and they also have more permanent storage and possibly some specialized software.

Level 3. File Storage!

Each system has its own disk space (more on ResStat than EduStat), but they are also linked together with a web of Networked File Storage systems. Those storage systems provide the storage that appears as the HOME folder for users on hpc.quant.ku.edu (which appears as H:\ on Edu or ResStat) as well as the CRMDA shared folder, which appears as /crmda to hpc.quant.ku.edu or as the "crmda" share on Edu and ResStat (usually drive R:\).

Those storage systems are also available to systems outside the Cluster framework. Information about how that can be done, along with information about controlling permissions and so forth, is available on Our page on External Storage.

Software Help Pages

In the Software Pages, we offer collection of tips and links about programming and software usage that should help researchers on all operating systems.

--Pauljohn32 15:24, 14 March 2011 (CDT)