User Support During the Pandemic

Overview

During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the GridUnesp team kept supporting users while working remotely, ensuring continuity of support for the university’s scientific research.

Note

The period analyzed spans March 2020 to March 2022.

Support Volume

Over the course of the pandemic, the GridUnesp team exchanged more than 4,100 messages with the user community, including:

  • Unesp professors and researchers

  • Graduate and undergraduate students

  • Associated researchers from other institutions

Support during the pandemic

Period

Messages exchanged

Mar/2020 to Mar/2022

4,100+

Monthly average

~170

Types of Requests

The messages covered a wide variety of topics, reflecting the diversity of user needs:

Request categories

Type of request

Description

Registration

New projects and users

Access

Remote connection to the server, authentication problems

Instruction

Basic cluster use, SLURM commands

Installation

Requests for new scientific applications

Job preparation

Creating submission scripts

Debugging

Analysis of errors and failures in jobs

Performance

Job optimization and efficient use of resources

New Applications Installed

Based on user requests, the GridUnesp team installed 34 new scientific applications during the pandemic period.

New applications installed during the pandemic

Application

Version

Application

Version

Amber

20

MATLAB

R2019b

Beagle

4.0.0

Miniconda

3

Beast

1.8.4

NetCDF

4.6.3

Beast

1.10.4

OpenFOAM

7

Boost

1.70.0

OpenFOAM

8

CMake

3.20.0-rc3

OpenFOAM

1912

DFTB+

20.2.1

OpenFOAM

2012

Foam-extend

4.1

OpenFOAM

2112

GAMESS

2020

OpenMPI

4.0.1

GCC

9.3.0

ORCA

5.0.3

GCC

10.2.0

PLUMED

2.7.1

GDAL

2.4.1

Quantum ESPRESSO

6.6

Grace

5.1.25

QUEST-QMC

1.4.9

GROMACS

5.1

R

4.0.2

GSL

2.6

RAxML-NG

1.0.3

LAMMPS

20200303

SIESTA

4.1.5

Mathematica

10.4

SWAN

41.31

Note

The complete list of available applications can be checked with the module avail command or in the Installed Scientific Applications and More Complete Examples section.

Impact of Support During the Pandemic

The work of the support team during the pandemic was essential to:

  1. Enable research that depended on the cluster

  2. Reduce the adaptation time of new users

  3. Solve problems remotely and efficiently

  4. Maintain the university’s scientific productivity

User Testimonials

Researcher in Biophysics

“GridUnesp support was essential so that we could continue our molecular dynamics simulations during the lockdown. Even remotely, the team responded quickly and helped us optimize our jobs.”

Graduate student in Computer Science

“At the start of the pandemic, I had trouble accessing the cluster remotely. The team not only solved the problem but also guided me on best practices for submitting jobs.”

Team Adaptation

To maintain the quality of support during the pandemic, the GridUnesp team:

  • Adopted full remote work

  • Intensified online meetings for coordination

  • Kept communication channels always active

  • Documented solutions for recurring problems

See also