11-Nov-2024

Compute Farm Upgrade to AlmaLinux 9

This week, we are upgrading the following CLASSE Compute Farm nodes to AlmaLinux 9: lnx307, lnx321, lnx325, lnx327, and lnx331 through lnx334. Also, lnx323 and lnx326 nodes are not supported by AlmaLinux 9 and will be decommissioned. The queues on these nodes are currently paused to allow existing jobs to finish, and they will be re-enabled by the end of the week. If you wish to submit jobs to these AlmaLinux 9 nodes after the upgrade, please use the "-l os_name=el9" SGE GridEngine flag. Otherwise, any submitted jobs will default to running on Scientific Linux 7 nodes, for legacy compatibility with some executables.

Last week, we completed the AlmaLinux 9 upgrade of ilc326, lnx1622, lnx1624 and lnx4428. To see a complete list of Alma9 nodes (and the queues on those nodes), please type "qhost -q -l os_name=el9". In the future, we will change the default operating system from SL7 to AlmaLinux 9. If you have any questions or concerns, please submit a ServiceRequest.

PTR Network Maintenance Alert: Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 @ 5:00 AM

On Thursday, 21-Nov-2024, at 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM, CIT will be upgrading the fiber connection between the CIT network and 391 Pine Tree Rd. building to 10 Gb. Some network devices within the PTR building will not be able to communicate over the network during this brief outage. In addition, some devices may need to be restarted afterwards to restore network connectivity.

Teams on CLASSE-Managed Windows Computers

As previously announced, Microsoft has retired the Classic Teams app, and users are expected to switch to New Teams. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not built the New Teams app for the Enterprise LTSC version of Windows 10 that is currently deployed on CLASSE-managed Windows computers. Therefore, for now, Windows users will need to use Teams on the web to access New Teams (and enable desktop notifications if desired). Microsoft will disable Classic Teams entirely in the middle of January 2025. We hope deploy the New Teams app on CLASSE-managed Windows computers if and when it becomes available from Microsoft, either for our current release or our next supported version of Windows.

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General network and server maintenance will occur every Tuesday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM. The CLASSE-IT group will always announce any expected disruptions in our NewsLetter and via CLASSE-IT-NEWS-L, but with the size and complexity of our network there is always the potential for something to go wrong. We will do our best to contain all network maintenance and planned outages to Tuesdays from 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM.

Unless other arrangements have been made, CLASSE-managed Windows systems may be updated and rebooted on Tuesday morning at 2:00 AM, so please avoid critical or lengthy operations at that time. For more details, please see SystemExpectations.

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Questions or problems? Submit a service request.

Other resources:

• CLASSE-IT Home Page
• Previous newsletters

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