The AOK Library has just recently added three new, timely research guides into the library’s webpage, hot off the press: 

• Artificial Intelligence & AI Literacy

• Government Information and Data Rescue

• News Sources

These research guides cover artificial intelligence, AI literacy, and AI ethics; government information and data rescue for the preservation of accurate, trusted online sources; and newspaper databases and popular news sources compiled into one location for convenient, easy access.

The 3 new research guides (and many others) can be found on our webpage at library.umbc.edu under “Research Guides” in the “Research Help” tab. Ask a Librarian through chat for any questions related to the research guides, orschedule an appointmentfor assistance getting started on your own research - no matter where you are in the process!

The HPC team, down two staff, performed a large upgrade of the High Performance Computing (HPC) environment. Over $1.7 million in new hardware was purchased, including new HPC CPU nodes, new GPU nodes, and over 2.5 Petabytes of storage. The project has significantly enhanced UMBC’s capacity to support high-performance computing (HPC), providing a more secure and robust environment for interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations.

Outstanding Contributions

This project would not have been possible without the DoIT Research Computing and Unix teams! Thank you to the following folks for their contributions:

Roy Prouty, Assistant Director for Research Computing. Provided background support for all installation, configuration, and support tasks.

Greg Ballantine, Research Computing Systems Administrator. Greg was hired a few months into the project, but quickly got up-to-speed on HPC administration and development. Greg also took over the storage cluster deployment and has worked to integrate the storage cluster with the computing cluster.

Andy Leeds, Coordinator of Research Computing. Helped to layout the computing cluster internal networks and deploy the first layer of the storage cluster.

A special, wonderful thank you to the DoIT Student Employees from the Unix Group, who did much of the heavy (server) lifting and spent many shifts learning the ins and outs of HPC system administration.

Unix Students, left to right: Danielle Esposito, Max Breitmeyer, Phil Henry, Beamlak Bekele

Danielle Esposito, Information Systems. DoIT Student Staff. Helped with physical and software installation and worked to establish baseline usage statistics.

Max Breitmeyer, Computer Science. DoIT GA. Helped with physical and software installation, worked to configure the computing cluster management systems, and developed tutorials and documentation for new users.

Phil Henry, Computer Science. DoIT Student Staff. Helped with physical installation and worked to field tickets relating to the new cluster.

Beamlak Bekele, Computer Science. DoIT Student Staff. Helped with physical and software installation as well as serving as the lead user support student staff member.

Deployment

DoIT’s Research Computing team has successfully deployed over 60 new CPU and GPU nodes, along with integrating the high-performance computing environment with the Retriever Research Storage system (RRStor). The infrastructure enhancements support research activities ranging from artificial intelligence development to atmospheric science analysis. 

This investment, totaling over $2 million, modernizes our research computing infrastructure by replacing aging hardware and introducing major updates to the management and security to the cluster. These updates will aid researchers in meeting security requirements in research grants and improve the capabilities and access to high-performance computing needs. 

Key Achievements

• 51 new CPU nodes on chip: 13 high-memory and 38 regular-memory nodes, providing a total of 3264 CPU cores and 32TB of RAM. 

• 12 new GPU nodes on chip: 10 LS40S nodes and two H100 nodes, adding 320 CPU cores and 44 GPU Cards.

• Retriever Research Storage System (RRStor): Added 2.5 PetaBytes of storage, leveraging the Ceph distributed file system to enhance data mobility for research workflows, as part of the NSF Grant awarded to DoIT last year.

• Modernized software environment: Transition to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL9), improving system reliability, security, and compatibility with modern software stacks.

• Redundant head nodes: Implemented across clusters to eliminate single points of failure, ensuring a more reliable and secure system.

• First HPC Bootcamp: Delivered on November 12, 2024, as part of the NSF SCIPE grant, providing hands-on GPU training for over 20 participants from iHARP, IMET, and UMCES.

The project has significantly enhanced UMBC’s capacity to support high-performance computing (HPC), providing a more secure and robust environment for interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations.

Future Plans

• The DoIT Research Computing team will continue to monitor and support the new systems post-deployment.

• Address optimization needs as researchers test and rebuild software stacks for the new hardware environment.

• Expand programming opportunities with additional HPC Bootcamps to train new and experienced users in maximizing the HPC environment.

A special thanks to Vandana Janeja, iHARP Project Lead, and Sai Vikas Amaraneni, iHARP Graduate Student, for their support throughout the process. UMBC Faculty Contributors have played a significant role in the initial specifications, testing, and providing insight along the way, as did the NSF SCIPE Grant Team and the entire UMBC Research Community, including iHARP, IMET, andUMCES.

We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who contributed to this project's success!

For all of your exceptional efforts and commitment to excellence, we are proud to present you all with the May DoIT Gritty Award. Congratulations! 

Thank you, Roy, Greg, and Andy, for your dedication to research computing!

The DoIT Community & The DoIT Gritty Committee

Erica D’Eramo

Ally Hepp

Carlos McKinney

David Toothe

Dondre Hatef

Kashka Donaldson

Mariann Hawken 

Nick Beech

Tony Finneran

Roy Prouty (recused himself from the meeting and voting) 

We are excited to announce that DoIT’s Research Computing team has successfully deployed over 60 new CPU and GPU nodes along with integrating the high-performance computing environment with the Retriever Research Storage system (R-RStor). The infrastructure enhancements support research activities ranging from artificial intelligence development to atmospheric science analysis. 

This investment, totaling over $2 million, modernizes our research computing infrastructure by replacing aging hardware and introducing major updates to the management and security to the cluster. These updates will aid researchers in meeting security requirements in research grants and improve the capabilities and access to high-performance computing needs. 

Key achievements:

• 51 new CPU nodes on chip: 13 high-memory and 38 regular-memory nodes, providing a total of 3264 CPU cores and 32TB of RAM. 

• 10 new GPU nodes on chip: Eight LS40S nodes and two H100 nodes, adding 320 CPU cores and 36 GPUs.

• Retriever Research Storage System (R-RStor): Added 2.5 PetaBytes of storage, leveraging the Ceph distributed file system to enhance data mobility for research workflows, as part of the NSF Grant awarded to DoIT last year.

• Modernized software environment: Transition to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL9), improving system reliability, security, and compatibility with modern software stacks.

• Redundant head nodes: Implemented across clusters to eliminate single points of failure, ensuring a more reliable and secure system.

• First HPC Bootcamp: Delivered on November 12, 2024, as part of the NSF SCIPE grant, providing hands-on GPU training for over 20 participants from iHARP, IMET, and UMCES.

The project has significantly enhanced UMBC’s capacity to support high-performance computing (HPC), providing a more secure and robust environment for interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations.

Team:
This project would not have been possible without the DoIT Research Computing and Unix teams, particularly Roy Prouty, HPC Specialist, Greg Ballantine, Research Computing Systems Administrator and Andy Leeds, Coordinator of Research Computing. Staff in Unix, Network Engineering, and many DoIT Student Employees, including Max Breitmeyer, Ryan Cather, Phil Henry, Danielle Esposito, and Beamlak Bekele, played a huge role. A special thanks to Vandana Janeja, iHARP Project Lead, and Sai Vikas Amaraneni, iHARP Graduate Student, for their support throughout the process.

UMBC Faculty Contributors have played a significant role in the initial specifications, testing, and providing insight along the way, as did the NSF SCIPE Grant Team and the entire UMBC Research Community, including iHARP, IMET, and UMCES.

We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who contributed to this project's success!

Looking Ahead:

• The DoIT Research Computing team will continue to monitor and support the new systems post-deployment.

• Address optimization needs as researchers test and rebuild software stacks for the new hardware environment.

• Expand programming opportunities with additional HPC Bootcamps to train new and experienced users in maximizing the HPC environment.

• Support hiring efforts for the Assistant Director of Research Computing and remaining system administration positions.

If you have any questions, need support, or encounter any issues with the new compute nodes or R-RStor system, please submit a ticket so they can assist you.

Unix Students, left to right: Danielle Esposito, Max Breitmeyer, Phil Henry, Beamlak Bekele

Installing 51 new CPU nodes in the bwtech Research Park Data Center

All UMBC Library users have access to the online SAGE Campus database in the month of February. Sage Campus is a suite of online learning materials for social science research methods. It has 37 self-paced online courses on quantitative and qualitative research topics such as data literacy, data science, research skills, and getting published. 

You can use this link to register for an account to Sage Campus (click Register in the top right of the page): http://proxy-bc.researchport.umd.edu/login?url=https://classroom.sagepub.com/ 

Once you have registered for an account you can use your username and password to log on.

You can see a list of courses here: https://classroom-sagepub-com.proxy-bc.researchport.umd.edu/course/

Please consider exploring the database and giving feedback to the library on the Trial Evaluation form. This feedback helps in the decision making process as to whether the library is able to commit funds to subscribe to the collection. 

Please see the attached document for more information. Sage Campus also has user guides for faculty and students that you can refer to.

This post is written by Special Collections Graduate Assistant Nikki Vietz, who recently finished processing the papers of prolific sci fi/fantasy author Lawrence Watt-Evans. Nikki, along with previous interns and student assistants, did a great job with this large collection of manuscripts, convention materials, correspondence, and more!

Do you believe that anyone can write a book? The highly acclaimed science fiction and fantasy writer, Lawrence Watt-Evans believes that all you need is a good idea, a keyboard, and some writing skills. According to him “there is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can’t get a good story out of it.” Whether you believe this or not, Lawrence Watt-Evans has recently donated a large amount of his manuscripts, proofs, science-fiction convention memorabilia, and other miscellaneous materials to UMBC’s Special Collections.

Born and raised in Arlington, Massachusetts, Lawrence Watt-Evans has been a full-time writer and editor for more than twenty years. His first attempt at writing science-fiction occurred at the young age of eight and after surviving twelve years of school, he followed in the footsteps of father and grandfather and attended Princeton University. Watt-Evans never finished his degree and in 1980, he published his first novel The Lure of the Basilisk with Del Rey Books. He went on to write three sequels and the highly popular Ethshar fantasy series, which was initially created for role-playing games. 

A prolific author with an immense imagination, Watt-Evans’s other fantasy work includes the short novel The Rebirth of Wonder and the collaboration with Esther Friesner, another acclaimed fantasy writer, entitled Split Heirs. Along with fantasy, Watt-Evans has written one horror novel, The Nightmare People, and several science fiction novels, including two Star Trek novels, The Cyborg and the Sorcerers, and his Three World Trilogy: Out of This World, In the Empire of Shadow, and The Reign of the Brown Magician. He also edited and compiled an anthology about contemporary and futuristic New York called Newer York, which includes twenty-four stories from various authors including Susan Shwartz, Mike Resnick, and Esther Friesner. 

However, Watt-Evans’s imagination and talents extend beyond the genres of fantasy, science-fiction, and horror. His personal favorite is his story Nightside City about a 24th century detective. Alongside more than a dozen novels and over one hundred short stories written under the name Lawrence Watt-Evans and his pseudonym Nathan Archer, Watt-Evans's work also ventures into the realm of DC and Marvel graphic novels and comics.

His novels have been translated into seven languages and have been enjoyed worldwide. In 1987, he was nominated for a Nebula award and one year later, in 1988, he received the Hugo award for best short story from the World Science Fiction Society for “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers” which was first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. The story is about a young man, who works at a greasy spoon diner near Sutton, West Virginia that acts as a popular hang-out for travelers from alternate Earths. After hearing about these far-off wonders, the young man decides to travel through the multiverse himself.

Watt-Evans also served as the president of the Horror Writers Association for two years from 1994-1996 and was the co-owner of the horror magazine Deathrealm with Terry Rossiobefore it ceased publication in 1997. The magazine won the International Horror Critics Guild Award in 1995 for best horror magazine, which was awarded at the 1996 World Horror Convention. And, according to Lawrence Watt-Evans, Deathrealm #27 was banned in Canada for “disturbing” cover art. 

His donation and gift will contribute significantly to UMBC’s growing collection of science fiction and fantasy literature. For more information, see the Lawrence Watt-Evans papers collection finding aid or contact Special Collections.

Thanks, Nikki!