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The 1997 San Jose CUG was set in sunny southern California, and in spite of the theme--"Seismic Supercomputing"--there was no noticeable seismic activity during the week.
The Winchester Mystery House was a wonder to behold, with doors and staircases that led nowhere. Can you imagine living in a house that had six kitchens, tens of bedrooms, and only one shower? What if that shower was placed such that a person 4'3" tall would get wet only from the shoulders down? That's what we discovered as we followed a guide through the house, which had been under construction 24 hours per day, seven days per week, for more than 35 years.
Open meeting
Approximately 25 people attended the User Services Special Interest Group open meeting on Monday afternoon. The agenda included introductions of SIG officers and Cray representatives to the committee, a reminder sessions of special interest to User Support staff, old and new business, and round-the-room introductions. The User Services SIG deputy chair is Leslie Southern of the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Gary Sparks served as the Cray Research liaison to User Services SIG for the San Joe CUG, but has turned over that responsibility to Mike Sand (mas@cray.com).
I gave a brief report on the Future of CUG (FOC) Committee and asked for feedback. The three issues presented were 1) the CUG Proceedings; 2) the SIG/MIG committee structure; and 3) maintaining continuity in a "one CUG a year" atmosphere. The CUG Proceedings are shifting from paper to CD-ROM. This year, both media are offered and the CD-ROM (the default media) contains additional information, previous CUG Proceedings, selected SGI/Cray Research materials, etc. If you prefer hard copy and get CD-ROM, return the CD-ROM for a hard copy.
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Two potential changes to the Special Interest Committee/Mutual Interest Group structure were approved: merging SIGs and MIGs into a single entity (a Special Interest Group, or SIG), and removing requirements for SIG open meetings. SIGs will have the autonomy of SIGs but the less permanent nature of MIGs. Should each SIG be required to have a open meeting every CUG? Attendees at our open meeting felt this meeting was a valuable tool for meeting others with similar interests/problems and was as important an element of CUG as the parallel sessions.
Once-a-year CUGs pose problems for many attendees. Just as many Americans cannot travel outside the U.S. for meetings, many Europeans and Asians cannot travel to meetings outside their continents. (Europeans and Asians developed regional meetings to update colleagues on foreign CUGs.) With the advent of once-a-year CUGs, the problem of foreign travel becomes more serious; it will now be two years between CUGs for some people. Maintaining continuity across this time span will be difficult at best. For the U.S., interim meetings based on geographical region, technical area of interest and/or type of industry, or meetings held in conjunction with the annual Supercomputing Conference have been proposed to fill the gap between CUGs. All ideas for maintaining continuity are welcome.
During CUG, Leslie and I finalized a Web page that she created for the User Services SIG. It is available from the CUG home page (http://www.cug.org). Suggestions concerning the User Services SIG Web page should be addressed to Leslie (leslie@osc.edu).
Parallel sessions
The San Jose CUG was the best attended CUG in years, with more than 300 attendees. The two parallel sessions sponsored by the User Services SIG were heavily attended.
The first session was on Web-related services:
- "Integration of User Services using WWW" -- by M. K. Boparai, SERC
- "A User-Friendly HTML-Based Interface to Access NQE/NQS Facilities" -- Sergio Bernardi, CINECA
- "Integrating LLNL Locally Created SGML into Dynaweb" -- Jean Shuler, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The second session included two talks:
- "Software Tools Used in a World-Class Call Center" -- Ken Meier, Cray Research
- "Migrating Users to the Cray T3E from the Cray T3D and Intel Paragon" -- Jay Boisseau, San Diego Supercomputing Center
This session concluded with a panel discussion titled "Call Center Metrics: What Justifies a Call Center." Official panel members were Jay Boisseau, SDSC; Jean Shuler, LLNL; Ken Meier, SGI/Cray Research; and Jeff Kuehn, National Center for Atmospheric Research--however, audience participation was lively. Papers for each presentation (except for the panel discussion) will be included in the CUG Proceedings.
Next meeting: Stuttgart, Germany
The next CUG, the first once-a-year CUG, will be in Stuttgart, Germany, June 14-19, 1998. One presentation topic suggested for that meeting was "distance learning." The call for papers deadline is November 3, 1997. Papers on any topic in the user services area are welcome. I also welcome suggestions of topics that you would like to hear covered but for which you are not the appropriate speaker; knowing what people want to hear is very helpful in trying to put together a useful program.
An election for a new User Services SIG chair will be held in Stuttgart. To run for election, secure your company's permission before going to Stuttgart, then find someone to nominate you and to second the nomination. I would be glad help with this task if you ask. If you have question about the duties of the chair, please feel free contact me (horner@galaxy.jpl.nasa.gov). The election will be held during the User Services SIG open meeting at the beginning of the week.
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