ExCL July Meeting 2026

2 minute read

July 2026 ExCL meeting slides.

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Below is a LLM-generated summary from the meeting slides.

🚀 ExCL Monthly Update — July 2026

This month’s meeting covered Claude Code usage on ExCL systems, the completed integration of the Maxwell system, an in-progress OpenMPI deployment, an operations update, and an open discussion on access and tooling.

🤖 Claude Code in ExCL

  • See the Claude Code Quick-Start Guide in the ExCL User Docs
  • A dedicated VM for running Claude is coming soon; in the meantime, launch Claude sessions on Explorer and use Slurm to reach specific accelerators
  • Claude tends to launch sub-agents and other long-running jobs that can persist after exiting the TUI, so keep that in mind when closing claude

🖥️ Maxwell

  • Maxwell (formerly ORC HYP100/HYP65) has completed its move into ExCL
    • 4x Nvidia A100, 4x AMD MI100
    • 255 HT cores (one core failure), 1TB memory, 3TB /scratch storage
    • Fully integrated into ExCL authentication, file services, and Slurm
    • Standard access applies — free for all unless someone requires solo access for performance measurement

🛠️ OpenMPI Deployment

  • Generic build is complete and being deployed
    • The IRIS project is the initial driver for this deployment
  • Hardware-specific (accelerator) builds are next; each hardware/software combination requires a separate build — expected to take time but not be problematic
  • The module system will handle placing the correct build in your path
  • UCX deployment is under way; RoCE is generally supported on ExCL hardware, though some network provisioning work remains

⚙️ Operations

  • With few exceptions, all research systems have been updated to Ubuntu 24.04, simplifying Slurm deployment
  • All host operating systems are up to date
  • Migration to new hypervisors will happen over the next few weeks; minimal user impact expected outside of migration windows, and this will also offer an alternative to home Claude VMs
  • DR tape backups of home directories are currently not working (an ITSD issue under investigation); backup to HA disk storage continues to work as expected, with no change to snapshot operations
    • As always, keep code in version control and pushed to a remote repository
  • Outages will continue on the first Tuesday of each month as needed

💬 Questions / Projects / Comments / Discussions

  • Recordings are available via the link in the newsletter
  • Is there interest in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS support?
  • Questions on license use.
  • Request for a quick load/user-count command (pdsh-like tool)
  • Interest in Parsec access in ExCL — individual user vs. team access, and cost

📌 Summary

July’s meeting introduced Claude Code usage guidance on ExCL, confirmed Maxwell’s full integration into the lab, previewed the in-progress OpenMPI/UCX deployment, gave an operations update (Ubuntu 24.04, hypervisor migration, a DR tape backup issue), and closed with user questions on LTS support, licensing, tooling, and Parsec access.

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