04Feb2004 - Availability of Compute Server Paradigm

This is to announce the general availability of a new departmental compute server called paradigm.soc.duke.edu. Server paradigm is available via ssh login to all persons with Sociology UNIX accounts. Although charisma will continue to be available, paradigm is intended to replace charisma as the lead compute server.

Paradigm is a Red Hat 9 Linux system with dual Xeon processors and 4GB of memory. It is intended to handle the most compute intensive projects of faculty and graduate students. Anyone logging into paradigm will be in the same home directory as when logging into charisma or angst.

At present, three key applications are available:

Stata 8 -- a 14 concurrent user, server bound license for Stata SE (Special Edition). Stata 7 system files are upwardly compatible. A complete documentation set is found in the rack in the Room 135 cluster. See additional details.

SAS 8.2 -- an unlimited server bound license. Version 8.x SAS files created on charisma are portable into SAS on paradigm or vice versa. Legacy version 6.x SAS files created on charisma are NOT portable into SAS on paradigm. They will need to be upgraded to version 8 system files through version 8 SAS on charisma or via conversion with DBMS/Copy. See additional details:

DBMS/Copy 8 -- an unlimited server bound license. This version of DBMS/Copy is the most current release and supercedes version 7 on charisma, for which no upgrade is available. It is strongly recommended that all UNIX-based use of DBMS/Copy be transitioned to paradigm to have available the most current conversion options. See additional details:

As additional statistical applications are made available, notification will be provided.

For editing purposes, the standard GNU emacs editor is available in a current release. Also available is the xemacs editor, another strain of emacs editor with somewhat different features. For those preferring pico or vi, these editors are available. Adobe Acrobat is available for viewing PDF files by using the acroread command.

Because of its dedicated function as a compute server, mail clients (such as pine or mutt) are not available. Mail activities should be performed on angst or a new login server that will be announced shortly.