Research Support

Update from Windows Services Group

April 3, 2014 by Jeffry Martin

OIT’s Windows Services Group (WSG) provides Windows Server system administration and related application support. Here are some of WSG’s efforts over the last year.

Windows 7 Migration

As OIT’s Desktop Support has been guiding departments through the transition from Windows XP to Windows 7, WSG has been working behind the scenes to create a productive environment for users, including server support for user profiles (i.e., seeing the desktop and preferences you expect when you log in – at any supported machine), departmental shares (network disk drives), and group policies (such as security features.)

Remote Administration

Remote administration refers to systems that allow for efficient distribution of standardized software and desktop configuration from a centralized location. WSG has worked with Desktop Support to transition remote administration from LANDesk to BigFix and Microsoft System Center resulting not only in flexible and efficient support for user desktops, but saving UCI tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Lync

WSG has pioneered deployment of Microsoft Lync services for UCI. Lync is a hosted service that lets you connect with others through instant messaging (IM), video calls, and online meetings. Lync is integrated with Exchange so that (for example) free/busy information from your colleagues’ calendars is visible allowing you to see who among your collaborators is available through the work day or to schedule conferences.

Kuali Coeus: Proposal Development and Routing

May 16, 2013 by Eric Taggart

The new Kuali Coeus Proposal Development module is now available to faculty, staff and Contract & Grant Administrators across UCI for developing and routing proposals to Sponsored Projects for review and submission.

With the successful completion of the pilot program launched on August 6th of last year, the Office of Research has been rolling out Kuali Coeus to the rest of the campus. Complete implementation is expected by the end of this month, at which point Kuali Coeus Proposal Development will replace the existing Administrative Approval (AA) form, which will no longer be accepted. Department Managers have been contacted individually to schedule training and to setup workflow parameters for their specific areas.

Questions about Kuali Coeus may be directed to Kuali Coeus Administrator Barbara Inderwiesche at barbara.i@uci.edu or by calling (949) 824-4789.

To stay informed about further development and implementation of Kuali Coeus at UCI, please sign up for the KC-project listserv by sending a blank email to kc-project-join@uci.edu. You can also follow developments in Kuali Coeus at UCI’s Kuali web site: http://www.kuali.uci.edu

GIS Geodatabase Covers UCI Campus

May 16, 2013 by Tony Soeller

For several years OIT staff have been collaborating with staff in Environmental Planning and Sustainability, Space Management, Facilities Management, Environmental Health & Safety, and the UCI Police Department to develop detailed Geographic Information System (GIS) data that represent the campus in its entirety. The data can be used to develop custom GIS maps of the campus as a whole or for specific areas, to identify campus features (meaning things on the ground) and their associated attributes, and to extract information associated with individual features or groups of features. Collectively these data products constitute a digital map base, specifically a geodatabase, for the campus. OIT and other campus departments have been using the geodatabase for mapping purposes and for analyzing details of features.

Initial efforts focused on developing data for the greater campus infrastructure including campus buildings, streets, parking, fire lanes and walkways. Subsequently, GIS data representing nearly every square foot of the entire campus have been acquired and added to the campus GIS. Many new data themes now exist such as lawn, shrubbery, mixed landscape, open areas (native plants, water and exposed ground), athletic areas, points of interest, etc. Within each data theme individual features are distinguished by their type and that information is stored in the geodatabase. For example, for the buildings theme there are seven unique types and each type is identifiable on the map by its type color. The detailed map below, covering a portion of Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences Quads, shows several of these data themes that are contained in the campus geodatabase.

Several projects are currently employing the campus geodatabase. In one project, 71 detailed maps covering the campus as a map grid have been made. These maps were developed in conjunction with auxiliary emergency-related data, to support the UCI Police Department and Orange County Fire Authority for emergency response.

You can view the campus GIS map online using the following link:

http://gis.oit.uci.edu/uci/campus/

Campus employees who are interest in using the UCI geodatabase or who are interested in developing their own geodatabase for their research should contact Tony Soeller (tsoeller@uci.edu).

High Performance Computing Cluster

December 7, 2012 by Allen Schiano

OIT has been providing cooperative cluster computing services to UCI researchers for many years. Comprising at various times MPC (“Medium Performance Computing”), BDUC (“Broadcom Distributed and Unified Cluster”), and even Green Planet (a cluster hosted for the School of Physical Sciences), the service continues to evolve as technology changes.

With the support of Southern California Edison’s Strategic Energy Program (SEP) which offers grants to replace older computers with new, energy-efficient systems (something of a “cash for clunkers” for computers), along with contributions from the Office of Research, OIT has been able to upgrade some of the components of the shared-use computing cluster and has rechristened it HPC (“High Performance Computing.”) Further upgrades will take place over the coming year.

With MPC, individual researchers could add computing nodes to the cluster with the understanding that, in exchange for OIT providing environment and security, 25% of the computing capacity would be made available to the UCI research community. In contrast, HPC uses advanced queuing and scheduling techniques developed by HPC system administrator Joseph Farran. These techniques dynamically allow unused capacity in a given researcher’s segment of the cluster to be made available to others. This results in a sustained use of over 90% of the massive computational capacity of the cluster. Researchers interested in participating in HPC should contact Joseph Farran at x4-5551.

Technical specifications of the upgraded nodes include:

64-core AMD CPUs providing an aggregate of over 2000 cores
8 Nvidia GPUs (4 Tesla, 4 Fermi)
8.8TB RAM
QDR Infiniband inter-node communication channel
500TB storage in a Gluster distributed filesystem
GridEngine scheduler via 18 private/group queues and 9 free queues
CUDA development tools
licensed software including SAS, STATA, CLCBio, MATLAB, Mathematica
GNU, Intel and PGC compilers and Eclipse and Totalview debuggers

Kuali Coeus: The Future of Proposal Development at UCI

October 4, 2012 by Eric Taggart

On August 6, 2012, the Office of Research (OR) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) implemented the Proposal Development component of the Kuali Coeus (KC) system. KC includes systems for the electronic review, routing, approval and submission of proposals to Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA).

Presently being used by a pilot group, including representatives from The Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, TEC Business Center, Biological Chemistry, UCI MIND, Advanced Power and Energy Program, Social Ecology, SPA and OIT, KC will be made available to the rest of the UCI research community this quarter. Additional information about the roll out and training will be available in the near future.

KC is a comprehensive system to manage the complexities of research administration. It assimilates the functions of multiple existing systems into a single integrated system to better support an institution’s research enterprise. The Proposal Development component of KC, when fully implemented, will enable electronic proposal development (including budget development), proposal routing, review and institutional approval, as well as system-to-system submission of proposals to Grants.gov.

To learn more about KC and to stay connected with the latest developments, please sign up for the KC-project listserv by sending a blank email to kc-project-join@uci.edu.