The CELS General Compute Environment (GCE) is live

I’ve made references to this in the past and invited users to come test it out, but now it’s time to pull back the curtain, open the doors, and invite everyone in for real.

GCE is the new Unix environment the team has been building from the ground up to better serve the needs of CELS researchers. This was built with an eye towards allowing collaboration with other divisions and Argonne resources, streamlining into a single account system and securely sharing access to data wherever we can.

I’ll say up front that we’re not finished yet – there are still integrations and services we’re working on, but the framework is there to allow for it easily, and we’ve now got a new shiny system to manage access to computers, groups, and projects. From this point forward, it’s just going to get better and better.

I’ve included some links at the end of this announcement so I don’t completely spam you with information that’s available online, and instead I’ll give you a brief rundown of what you should do.

First, glance over the docs at https://virtualhelpdesk.cels.anl.gov/docs/linux/ to get a quick overview. This document collection will be growing, but it’s pretty succinct at the moment.

Next, login to https://accounts.cels.anl.gov using your Argonne account. After login, request the GCE project. Get your SSH keys uploaded (directions in the above docs) and start trying out the environment. Tell us what software you need that you can’t find there.

Do you want your linux desktop converted over? We can do that. If our stock/standard machine (see the docs) is better than what you’ve got on your desk, we’ll swap it out and help you migrate any data. If what you’ve got is better, we’ll do a rebuild (and help you migrate your data).

The team’s been working very hard on this, and I’m terribly proud of them and the result of their work. We all look forward to making it even better with your input.

At this point, the clock is now ticking even louder on the legacy environment. Many of the systems are at End of Life and will need to be retired as soon as we can. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sending out instructions on how to migrate your data, hosting tutorials on how to use some of the new systems and services, and working with you and your groups to get to where we can turn off the older systems.

There are no hard deadlines yet on when things will go away, but we’re in full-on feature freeze mode on the legacy environment. All new websites and wordpress sites are being created in GCE, all new workstations are GCE, and all incoming students will be directed to a GCE account.

Some links:

* CELS Computing Coffee Hour presentation from 11/13/2019: https://anl.box.com/s/yhmkyehrp1vrp9j0runx9gzhbqomfgl3

* CELS GCE Documentation: https://virtualhelpdesk.cels.anl.gov/docs/linux/

* CELS Account Management: https://accounts.cels.anl.gov

* CELS Project Request form: https://virtualhelpdesk.cels.anl.gov/request-a-gce-project/

COMPLETED: GitLab maintenance window

Maintenance of our GitLab services has been completed. Please let us know if you encounter any issues by emailing help@cels.anl.gov

– CELS Systems

STARTING: GitLab maintenance window

Beginning work to update our GitLab services at https://gitlab.cels.anl.gov and https://xgitlab.cels.anl.gov

Services will be disrupted during this maintenance window.

Service is expected to be restored by 18:00 CT and may be available sooner than that.

We will send a followup email upon completion of the work.

– CELS Systems

GitLab maintenance window 2020-01-30 from 17:00 to 18:00 CT

A maintenance window of our GitLab services has been planned for 2020-01-30 at 17:00 CT in order to update the software.

GitLab services provided by gitlab.cels.anl.gov and xgitlab.cels.anl.gov will be unavailable during maintenance.

Service is expected to be restored by 18:00 CT, and may be available sooner than that.

If this window poses undue inconvenience please let us know, we can reschedule if needed.

– CELS Systems

COMPLETED: Confluence maintenance window

Maintenance of our Confluence service has been completed. Please let us know if you encounter any issues by emailing help@cels.anl.gov

– CELS Systems

STARTING: Confluence maintenance window

Beginning work to update our Confluence services at
https://collab.cels.anl.gov

Services will be disrupted during this maintenance window.

Service is expected to be restored by 18:00 CT and may be available sooner than that.

We will send a followup email upon completion of the work.

– CELS Systems

Confluence maintenance window 2020-01-14 from 17:00 to 18:00 CT

A maintenance window of our Confluence services ( collab.cels.anl.gov ) has been planned for 2020-01-14 at 17:00 CT in order to update the software.

Services will be unavailable during maintenance.

Service is expected to be restored by 18:00 CT, and may be available sooner than that.

If this window poses undue inconvenience please let us know, we can reschedule if needed.

– CELS Systems

COMPLETED: GitLab maintenance window

Maintenance of our GitLab services has been completed. Please let us know if you encounter any issues by emailing help@cels.anl.gov

– CELS Systems

STARTING: GitLab maintenance window

Beginning work to update our GitLab services at
https://gitlab.cels.anl.gov and https://xgitlab.cels.anl.gov

Services will be disrupted during this maintenance window.

Service is expected to be restored by 18:00 CT and may be available sooner than that.

We will send a followup email upon completion of the work.

– CELS Systems

Semimonthly/Biweekly Tips and Tricks Brownbag, Wed Dec 11 11:30am Room #240-2178 – Using Slack

Starting this week, CELS Systems starts hosting a tips and trick brownbag focused on helping you leverage the services we provide. These will normally be held in 4178, but due to a conflict this week it will be in 2178.
Wednesday’s session will highlight ways you can leverage Slack for your team/project/etc. If you’ve got questions, feel free to shoot them to me beforehand and I’ll use that to craft the session accordingly, but even with nothing I’ve got more than enough to demonstrate for you to walk away learning something useful.
A good primer of what this first session will cover can be found here: https://anl.box.com/s/sandh727uwheq1yw79mydl9wilribhwo As a side note, I’m also putting any publicly available talks I give at https://anl.box.com/v/cstaceytalks and you can also find these slides in the 2019 folder. This is a set of slides that was going to be part of the CELS Computing Coffee Hour talk I gave a few weeks back, but the first section of the talk took up all the time, so these are new to you!
If you can’t make it in person, I’m going to broadcast these on Bluejeans as well and record them so you can watch them later. The link for this session is https://bluejeans.com/537250742 and I’ll post a link to the recording on the blog when it’s done.
This session will be hosted in #240-2178 at 11:30. We should be able to host about 10 people comfortably, 15 if we really like each other and want to learn more than we expect. Bring your laptop, bring your lunch, bring your llama if you can manage to get it through the gate. If you don’t want to bring anything, that’s okay as well.
Going forward, I’ll send out a notice the week before each one to go over the topic for each one, and some of these will be repeated for those who can’t make it.
Also, I’m sending this to seminars@cels.anl.gov as well as dispatches@cels.anl.gov. If you’re not already subscribed to dispatches@cels, it’s a good place to get announcements of things related to the CELS Computing infrastructure that’s more informative than critical. I try to keep it low traffic. You can also see these mailings at https://mcssys.wordpress.com (yeah, I know, soon to change to a new URL) and at https://www.twitter.com/celssys if you prefer to follow things that way.
Hope to see you there!

—
Craig