Dear PACE Users,
Maintenance on the Phoenix, ICE, Firebird, Buzzard, and Hive clusters is complete. All clusters are back in production. As a reminder, Hive is only available for data retrieval until November 1st.
A message to Phoenix users:
Phoenix login nodes were upgraded from Intel Cascade Lake to Granite Rapids as a part of PACE’s ongoing efforts to provide cutting-edge research infrastructure – in addition, FIVE new H200 GPU nodes have been added to the system.
Researchers can leverage Granite Rapids’ Advanced Matrix Extension (AMX) instructions to improve performance of linear algebra operations. AMX optimization requires intentional code changes importantly, AMX-enabled code is likely not backwards compatible with older hardware (e.g., Cascade Lake). Instructions for compiling software for different CPU architectures is available here.
Researchers not utilizing AMX should not be impacted by the login node upgrade; however, some code/software may be sensitive to an underlying change in compute architecture. Prior to the upgrade, both login and default compute nodes were Cascade Lake architecture. Post-upgrade, login nodes are Granite Rapids, while the default compute nodes remain Cascade Lake. If your jobs encounter errors such as “Illegal instruction” errors, researchers should compile their code on the architecture that they want to run on.
Best,
The PACE Team