Computing at the Physics Division is performed on four computer clusters. One of these clusters is dedicated to data acquisition and is discussed in the following section. The three remaining clusters are the Vax/VMS cluster, the Alpha AXP/OpenVMS cluster, and a heterogenous Unix cluster. Of these, general computing is done primarily on the Vax cluster which consists of a pair of Vax 3300 servers supporting a cluster of five satellite Vax 3000 class machines. This cluster provides such services as mail, printing, and general support for PCs and Macintoshes that are used throughout the division. Most of the data reduction activity has been migrated off to the other two clusters.
A major effort was undertaken to provide greater CPU resources for data reduction and analysis. One such resource was the acquisition of a Digital Alpha AXP 4/233 server machine running OpenVMS. Existing Digital Alpha workstations were reconfigured to form an Alpha AXP/OpenVMS cluster devoted primarily to data reduction and analysis. This cluster consists of the aforementioned server and three satellite workstations.
The Unix cluster has also been upgraded. File serving was migrated off a Sparc IPC to a newly acquired Sparc 10 and fourteen PCs were acquired running the public domain Linux Operating System. The present Unix cluster consists of a Sparc 10, two Sparc IPCs, four Digital Alphas running Unix, and fourteen Pentium-based PCs. In addition, four Sparcstations belonging to the BGO group were added to the cluster to share resources. The acquisition of the Linux Pentium PCs was motivated by the need to provide inexpensive graphics seats for the Postdoctoral appointees and to this end, this effort has succeeded. Nonetheless, because the Pentiums themselves form a significant CPU resource, efforts are currently being undertaken to provide the capability of data reduction and analysis locally on these machines.
The Daphne data acquisition system has been terminated. Although the hardware is still available and is still functional, no support is being provided. Data acquisition is now done with the hybrid MSU/Daphne system which consists of the MSU VME front-end with back-end online monitoring done with the Daphne Analysis software on a OpenVMS host computer. The division has three equivalent front-ends and they are hosted by two Digital Alpha AXP/OpenVMS workstations clustered together to form the Data Acquisition cluster. User specific readout is prepared by the user in the form of a C program which is compiled and linked into a readout code. Code templates are available for study and modification. This hybrid system is explained definitively by two reference manuals. However, a 'cookbook recipe' for getting started and running the system is available at the following web page:
A copy of the MSU reference manual can be obtained via anonymous ftp at anlphy.phy.anl.gov:nsclenet.psgz. The file is a compressed Postscript file and must be decompressed with the public domain utility gzip. Hard copies of the Daphne manual can be obtained by contacting the User Liaison Physicist.
Return to User Handbook Table of Contents