Change Log¶

Updates to ScienceCloud and ScienceCluster are available on this page. For the Supercomputer service, please see the Alps (Eiger) User Guide.

2025¶

ScienceCluster:
- scrontab has been enabled for scheduling Slurm jobs, and regular crontab for users has been deactivated. See, for example, this external guide for documentation on how to use scrontab.

ScienceCluster:
- Users can get the updated list of modules and avoid module load errors by removing the lmod cache. We therefore suggest to run the following command:
```
rm .cache/lmod/*
```
- New released modules: VS Code 1.93 (code-server 4.93.1), jupyter 2024-10-22, RStudio Server with R 4.4.2, mamba 24.9.0-0, rclone 1.68.1, singularityce 4.2.1, boost 1.86.0, perl 5.40.0, cmake 3.30.5, gsl 2.8, python 3.13.0, nvhpc 24.9, cuda 12.6.2, nccl 2.22.3-1, cudnn 9.5.1.17-12, gcc 14.2.0, openmpi 5.0.5, hdf5 1.14.5, intel-oneapi-compilers 2025.0.0, intel-oneapi-mkl 2025.0.0, intel-oneapi-tbb 2022.0.0, intel-oneapi-mpi 2021.14
- Removed unused and old modules: Matlab 2021b, VS Code Server 3.10.2, anaconda3 2022.05, 2022.10, mamba 23.3.1-1, perl 5.34.1, rclone 1.59.1, singularity 3.10.2, 3.11.3, 4.0.2, 4.1.0, cmake 3.26.3
- Upgrade: nvidia driver

ScienceCluster:
- (ScienceApps) Upgraded VSCode. Added support for interactive GPU sessions.

ScienceCluster:
- Upgraded Slurm to version 24.05
- New released modules: cmake 3.29.6, cudnn 9.2.0.82-12 (with cuda 12.4.1), gcc 14.1.0 (with cuda 12.4.1), openmpi 5.0.3, fftw 3.3.10 and hdf5 1.14.3, both recompiled with openmpi 5.0.3

ScienceCluster:
- The default value of 1MB is now set for the SLURM memory parameters. This will prevent the whole node allocation when no memory parameters is specified while running sbatch/srun commands.
  
  Important: adjust your SLURM submission scripts so that one of the memory parameters is specified (--mem, --mem-per-cpu, --mem-per-gpu), otherwise the default value of 1MB will be used.
- New released modules: python 3.12.3, anaconda3 2024.02-1, mamba 24.3.0-0, cuda 12.4.1, cudnn 8.9.7.29-12, jupyter 2024.06 (4.2.1), RStudio Server 2024.06 (R 4.4)
- Removed unused and old modules: boost 1.78.0, boost 1.83.0, python 3.11.0, mamba 4.14.0-0, mamba 22.9.0-2, mamba 23.1.0-1, nvhpc 22.7, rclone 1.62.2
- Hardware changes: replacement of the large memory nodes and several CPU nodes of medium memory added.

ScienceCluster:
- System upgrades for improved stability and security
- singularityce 4.1.0 is now the default version

ScienceCloud:
- Access to the the cloud console (cloud.s3it.uzh.ch) has been restricted to UZH-only networks (wired, wifi, and VPN). The cloud console is now dropping external non-UZH connection attempts.

ScienceCluster:
- Users can now use the command "ls -lh" to print the content size for each folder/file: this allows to quickly find large folders in case of over-quota issues, including hidden ones (e.g. ".local").
- Upgrade: nvidia driver
- New released modules: cuda 12.3.0, openmpi 5.0.1, boost 1.84.0, mamba 23.11.0-0, rclone 1.65.1, singularityce 4.1.0

ScienceCluster:
- Updates to modules: python 3.12, anaconda3 2023.09-0, mamba 23.3.1-1, nvhpc 23.9, singularityce 4.0.2, cuda 12.2.1, nccl 2.19.3-1, cudnn 8.9.5.30-12.2, cudnn 8.9.5.30-11.8, gcc 13.2.0, openmpi 4.1.6

ScienceCluster:
- Matlab R2023b module released
ScienceCloud:
- Images updated; see here for the list of active images
  - MatLab and Gaussian users should use a "***Singularity..." image then follow these MatLab and/or Gaussian instructions

ScienceCluster:
- OnDemand (for ScienceApps) upgraded for improved stability and security
- Upgraded kernel version and firmware on compute nodes for improved stability and security
- Users can now take advantage of all GPU nodes via the lowprio partition
- To fix long-standing issues, some changes will be made to the user environments. Because of that, we recommend performing the following actions.
  
  Important: this should be done when no jobs are running; pending jobs are fine.
  - 1 - Move $HOME/.local to your data directory and symlink it. But first, check if the destination already exists:
```
stat /data/$USER/.local
```
  - 2 - If it shows "stat: cannot stat ..." then run:
```
mv $HOME/.local /data/$USER
ln -s /data/$USER/.local $HOME/.local
```
  - 3 - Otherwise, you'll need to merge these two directories. Since each user case would be unique, we are unable to provide specific instructions. Please contact Science IT if you have any specific questions.