Cluster Q&A

Dear Diary,

Just recently, the resident computer cluster ran out of memory and quotas were reduced.  I recently sat down with one of the users who had an enormous amount of data sitting on the computer at the time.


DrWho: So, what did it feel like to have your name on the list of people who would be over the new, reduced quota?
V: Uh, well, nothing much really.
DrWho: You must have been impressed with yourself.
V: I guess...really it's my fault for keeping so much data on the login computers.  We have a whole separate server for things like that.
DrWho: Did you lose any data?
V: No. In truth, I hadn't run anything for a month or so.  Did you?
DrWho: Yes, I was running some things the night before, so I must have put the server over on it's gross quota before they reduced everything.
V: Oh, oops. Bummer. Hopefully it wasn't important...
DrWho: No, of course not.  I do have to somewhat annoyingly truncate my enormous calculations with the reduced quota...What advice would you have for incoming graduate students so they don't overuse their resources?
V: Why not just ask for a bit more quota space?  Wait, this isn't going on your dumb bl-
DrWho: -and we'll have to keep it there for now.  Thanks for the interview and tuning in!