DEPARTMENT UNIX / LINUX STRATEGY

INTRODUCTION

The Unix-Linux workgroup at Dept. of Earth Science (IFG) was established in January 2006.

It was tasked with:

Surveying current Unix and Linux usage at IFG.
Consider migration of current Unix system to Linux, and estimate migration costs.
Consider continued use of current Unix system, and recommend upgrades with cost estimates.

The workgroup consists of scientific and technical personnel from IFG and Center for Integrated Petroleum Research (CIPR). Six meetings have been held; some of them including members from central IT department to ensure plans conform to University of Bergen IT policy.

All work is documented through web pages on http://www.geo.uib.no/eworkshop/index.php?n=Main.UnixLinuxStrategy

O. Meyer, IFG Workgroup leader 9 Feb 2007

You will no doubt notice that much of the workgroup's "proceedings" are in Norwegian!

UTVALG TIL Å VURDERE IFGs IT-SYSTEM FOR TYNGRE BRUKERE

MANDATTEKST:

Bakgrunn

IFG brukere har i dag tilgang til to plattformer: 1) PC basert system som i løpet av kort tid vil driftes av IT-avdelingen, og 2) UNIX basert system som driftes lokalt
IT-avdelingen vil tilby drift av en LINUX basert plattform
Størsteparten av programvaren som tidligere kun var tilgjengelig for UNIX brukere tilbys nå i PC- og/eller LINUX versjoner

Mandat

Kartlegge dagens UNIX-brukere, spesielt større aktive brukere.
* Gi en oversikt over dagens LINUX brukere
Med bakgrunn i faglige betraktninger, vurdere en overgang fra UNIX til LINUX
Hvilke investeringer i hard- og software medfører en eventuell overgang
Hvilke ny investeringer i hard- og software medfører en fortsatt bruk av UNIX
Anbefaling

Sammenseting

Teknisk/IKT: Natvik, Meyer, Utheim
Større vitenskapelige brukere: Johansen, Havskov, Ruud
Irene (CIPR)
Kontorsjef deltar på møtene etter behov.
Leder: Meyer

Sluttprodukt

Kortfattet rapport, gjerne i utvidet stikkordsform
Muntlig presentasjon for instituttledelsen

Tidsfrist

Innen 1 mai 2006

RECOMMENDATION

Unix/Linux arbeidsgruppe: Innstilling

MINUTES OF MEETINGS

Agenda	Date	Minutes	Bent	Heidi	Irene	Karl Magnus	Jens	Ole	Terje	Tor Arne	Øyvind
Kick-off	23 Mar 2006	Link	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	-	OK
~~No 2~~¹⁾	5 Apr 2006	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
~~No 2~~²⁾	26 Apr 2006	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
How central UIB/IT policies will influence IFG IT planning³⁾	10 May 2006	Link	-	-	-	OK	-	OK	-	-	OK
No. 3⁴⁾	23 May 2006	Link	OK	-	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	-	OK
No. 4	21 Sep 2006	Link	OK	-	-	*⁷⁾	OK	OK	OK	-	OK
No. 5⁵⁾	4 Jan 2007	Link	OK	-	-	*⁷⁾	OK	OK	OK	-	OK
No. 6: UIB/IT policy⁶⁾	29 Jan 2007	Link	-	-	-	*⁷⁾	OK	OK	-	-	OK

¹⁾ Cancelled due to survey preparation scheduling conflict.
²⁾ Cancelled: All scientific members absent, representative from central IT-dept could not attend.
³⁾ Bjørn Tore Sund, Egil Pedersen (both central IT dept.) present.
⁴⁾ Bjørn Tore Sund (central IT dept.) present.
⁵⁾ Jose Ojeda (IFG) present.
⁶⁾ Jan Johnsen, Egil Pedersen, Bjørn Tore Sund (all central IT dept.) present.
⁷⁾ Karl Magnus started working in other UiB department and thus resigned as group member in July 2006.

WORKGROUP PARTICIPANTS

IFG = Dept. of Earth Science
CIPR = Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research

Name	Position	Email	Tel.
Jens Havskov	Prof., IFG	jens.havskov@geo.uib.no	83414
Irene Husa	IT support, CIPR	irene.husa@cipr.uib.no	83699
Tor Arne Johansen	Prof., CIPR	torarne.johansen@geo.uib.no	83415
Karl Magnus Kolstø	Engineer, IT, IFG	karl.kolsto@geo.uib.no	83415
Ole Meyer	Sen. engineer instrumentation, IFG	ole.meyer@geo.uib.no	83421
Øyvind Natvik	Sen. engineer IT, IFG	oyvind.natvik@geo.uib.no	82796
Bent Ole Ruud	Senior researcher, CIPR	bent@geo.uib.no	83686
Terje Utheim	Engineer, seismology instrumentation, IFG	terje.utheim@geo.uib.no	83408

Karl Magnus Kolstø started working in central IT dept June 2006, and was not member of the workgroup after that.

WORK SCHEDULE

30 March 2006

Thanks for all content that has been added so far! I hope the simplicity and ease of use of the Wiki appeals to you.

May I suggest these changes/additions. Please comment if anything has been forgotten, is unnecessary or can be done better. Thanks, Ole.

BENT:
- Chapter III.B.3 Promax: Need revision - a Linux version is available, right? Frequency of use? Future activity - in light of possible CGG cooperation?
- On the left, there's a section called Background: "Seismic processing". We should have an idea of what other camparable academic institutions are doing. Can you suggest a couple of universities that match our size (and aspirations?) in this field, and provide a brief overview of their seismic processing hard/software, provided the information is available on the internet?
KARL MAGNUS and/or ØYVIND:
- Chapter III.A.1 Servers: Instead of separate page for each server - collect all information on one page, in a table? Will provide better overview, also the Table of Content will not be burdened by so much detail.
- Chapter III.B Software: Same as previous remark; too much detail in Table of Content. Can we have one page, using a table?
- Program descriptions: You will also include frequency of use, and principal users or groups of users?
- Seisan, Seisnet, SAC, HERMANN: Forget about these ...
TOR ARNE: Please draft the FORWORD section.
IRENE: No problems obtaining information on CIPR use of IFG IT system?
JENS:
- The Seismology section is running a Data Center. The IT infrastructure needed, in terms of both hardware and support personell, must be clarified. We might envision a more divided structure in the future, with all seismology activities on separate hardware. Please provide any ideas, comments or suggestions you have in this regard, here: Seismology data center ?
- Need some details about HERRMANN ?. Just one of many programs, not a problem.
TERJE:
- Please provide overview of Seisan ? and Seisnet ?. Consult Jens if needed. http://www.geo.uib.no/seismo/software/software.html
- Can you dig up information on this SAC ? stuff? DONE by 129.177.55.80, thank you very much ....
- Please give overview of SEISLOG here: Seismology data acquisition ?
OLE:
- Invite Ritske Huismans to sketch out numerical basin modelling processing needs that are not covered by the BCCS facilities.
- Ask Jan Johnsen, central UIB It-dept, to participate.

DOCUMENTS

"Linux klientplattform - prinsipper og basis", v/IT-avd., UiB, 12.des. 2005: Linux_klientplattform_betenkning.pdf

COMPARISON WITH OTHERS

Seismic processing - what others are doing

Academia - Norway
1. University of Oslo, Department of Geosciences: Has a couple of pages with references to seismic processing software: http://www.geo.uio.no/it/unix/ and http://www.geo.uio.no/laboratorier/facilities.html
2. NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Petroleum Engineering and Applied geophysics: (IPT) Has no web pages with information about computers and software. However, they have a University Grant Agreement with Landmark Graphics Corporation about free use of software. We also know that they have ProMAX, nucleus and Stratimagic (Seismic Facies Classification and Analysis, from Paradigm) installed on the NTNU supercomputers. The RAVE at the Virtual Reality Lab is used for visualization of reservoir models, including seismic data.
3. University of Tromsø, marine geology and geophysics group: Uses ProMAX for processing and GeoQuest Charisma for interpretation.
Academia - Europe
1. International University Bremen: Software Grants Worth 1 Million Euro for GeoAstro Group at IUB
  Geoframe4 from Schlumberger, KINGDOM Suite+ from Seismic Micro-Technology (SMT).
  See their Computational Laboratory for Analysis, Modeling, and Visualization
Industry
1. PGS
  - Vessel on-board processing
  The fact that our complete processing and visualisation software runs in the Linux environment has provided a new degree of flexibility, providing the current array of opportunities. (quote from this web page)
  Hardware: Blade-centre style’ computers allow enhanced processing solutions such as SRME and pre-stack migration within the timeframe of the acquisition project (link)
  - Data processing services: Our comprehensive proprietary Cube ManagerTM processing system runs on Linux platforms, taking advantage of massively parallel processing (MPP) software & PC cluster technology.
2. CGG
  - On-board processing
  13 vessels, furnished with LINUX-based PC clusters (mostly) or IBM SP3, running GeoCluster
  - Data processing centres
3. Western Geco
  - On-board processing

Seismology Data Center

Comments from Prof. Jens Havskov:

The Norwegian National Seismic Network (NNSN) is centered around Sun hardware and Solaris operating system. We would like to continue to use the Sun system because:

* It is the most stable system available.

* All major institutions in seismology use Sun/Solaris, so it is easy to exchange software and data.

Running a data center means being able to integrate directly with hardware and software, having root system privilidges. I do not know of any larger data center which do not have these privilidges. So running the system using a remotely operated Linux system is not a desirable option.

The network has been built and operated based on local computer management skills. If we do not operate anything ourselves and loose these skills, it will be complicated and costly to modify and operate the NNSN.

Most of the software now used can or will be able to operate on Linux, at most 100 kNOK is needed for modification. However, how it is all going to work together is another matter.

Basin Modeling

Some comments by Prof. Ritske Huismans regarding basin modeling, hardware, software, and tech support.

Programming and software

Most of the (basin) modeling software I use is written by me or by co-researchers as part of respective research projects. I am in general not using commercial software. However, as code writing is a major investment of time, I am interested in potential for programming support. This programming support would require some degree of specialisation but could well be performed under supervision.

Hardware

I am at present using the computational facilities of BCCS. For my current 2D applications these are sufficient. However, in the near future I will be using 3D modeling tools. These are very computationally intensive, involve solution of large non-linear systems and require large scale parallel computation and therefore a large part of the resources on a relatively regular basis.

The BCCS systems are quite intensively used and may not provide sufficient resources for the 3D calculations. I have been considering alternative solutions such trying to fund an extension to the BCCS Linux cluster. A local intermediate size (128/256) Linux cluster could help alleviate these near future computational needs. If neccessary I am prepared to assist in joint funding proposals for such a cluster.

Computational Geodynamics

EXAMPLE: NGU Geodynamics group (T. Torsvik) are running a 16 CPU Linux cluster ( described here).

This group applied for CoE-status from 2007; they are now in final round.

Ref.: http://www.geodynamics.no/

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