====== HPC News & Changes ====== This page is intended to act as a timeline of events for the Comet HPC project, as well as major changes in functionality or policies relating to the system. ===== Newsletters ===== Starting March 2026, we also publish a monthly summary newsletter to the HPC-Users email distribution list (to which all users of Comet are subscribed): * [[:status:newsletters|Newsletters]] ---- ===== (12th) May 2026 - Convert3D added to Bioapps container ===== The open source tool [[http://www.itksnap.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Convert3D.Convert3D|Convert3D]] has been added to the the [[:advanced:software:bioapps|Bioapps container]] and will be available for use from the morning of 13th of May. This release of the Bioapps container also updates the bundled **R** to version 4.6.x, in place of 4.5.x in earlier (<= 2026.04) versions. Version 2026.04 of the Bioapps container //remains available// for any users with a hard dependency on R 4.5.x * For more information see our [[:advanced:software:bioapps|Bioapps container guide]] for Comet ---- ===== (12th) May 2026 - GipsyX available ===== [[https://gipsyx.jpl.nasa.gov/index.php?page=software|GipsyX]] is now available to members of selected Comet HPC project groups. This software is licensed restricted and is only available to groups who have a license to use it. Consequently, the software is installed within a private container within specific project folders. **It is not available system-wide**. * For more information about the software, and how to use and update it yourself, please see our [[advanced:software:gipsyx|GipsyX guide for Comet]] ---- ===== (8th) May 2026 - Upcoming Comet Maintenance (22nd May) ===== A change request to have Comet taken down for maintenance has now been approved by NUIT. This work will take place on **Friday the 22nd of May** and will mean Comet will be out of action for a **full working day** (9:00am - 5:00pm). A maintenance reservation is being added which will mean __any jobs you submit now which would overlap this date will not be accepted__. Jobs which run up to this date __will be scheduled and run as normal__. The work being undertaken includes: * **Fitting additional RAM** (+128GB) in each of the four Lustre servers to improve high IO load performance and reduce the possibility of system failure in extreme IO load situations. * **Shutdown, update and restart** of the faulty Infiniband backplane network controller, allowing us to reintroduce the isolated GPU nodes (hgpu001 and gpu004). * **Replacing a faulty network uplink** cable optic from Comet to the Campus network which is causing intermittent network dropouts between Comet login nodes and Campus. * **Downgrade of the Linux kernel drivers and Lustre client software** on the two login nodes to match the versions used on all other nodes (our vendor believes that because they are out-of-sync, this is the source of the poor performance of copying data from external - eg RDW - to /nobackup) * **Increase size of Linux kernel network buffer** on the NFS (home & software) storage server to cope with increased user load and reduce packet drop/retransmit figures This work will involve our support vendor performing the fixes both on-site and remotely. ---- ===== (6th) May 2026 - Matlab 2026 ===== Matlab 2026a is now available on Comet as a module. It is the //default// when using ''module load MATLAB'', though the previous version (2024a) can still be selected if you supply the full version. Open OnDemand has also been updated to use 2026a as the default version, again the previous version can be selected for new OOD sessions, if you wish. * See: [[advanced:matlab|Matlab guide for Comet]] ---- ==== Previous Updates ==== * [[:status:index_2026_04|2026 - April]] * [[:status:index_2026_03|2026 - March]] * [[:status:index_2026_02|2026 - February]] * [[:status:index_2026_01|2026 - January]] * [[:status:index_2025|2025]] ---- [[:wiki:index|Back to HPC Documentation Home]]