The Improv cluster has been in production since late October. The Bebop cluster is 7 years old and will eventually be phased out. We will begin the phase out process by turning off the KNL nodes on Bebop during the next LCRC maintenance in February (February 12th, 2024). The broadwell partition will be available on Bebop after Feb 12th, 2024, and we have no timetable for their retirement. Please let us know if you have a specific need for a KNL node that can’t be accomplished with Improv or the Broadwell partitions on Bebop. Also, no new software will be built on Bebop going forward, although Bebop will have to undergo an OS replacement later this year and will require a new software stack. Bebop users should plan on transitioning their workloads to Improv as soon as is reasonable.

Improv uses PBS as the job scheduler rather than Slurm as on Bebop. This move was made to better align LCRC with ALCF policies/practices where possible – a standard scheduler was one such area. PBS also has several features that streamline the allocations/accounting procedure, significantly reducing the effort and time in the quarterly allocation process. Swing and Bebop will be transitioned to PBS in the coming quarters to ensure uniformity in the schedulers in LCRC and to exploit the superior features of PBS. We will send notice when we are ready to make the transition.

Lastly, LCRC will send out a survey next week seeking to understand our users’ future needs. We look forward to your response to the survey.

If you have any questions, please contact support@lcrc.anl.gov.