The National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Center, funded by DOE’s Office of Science, put its 10 teraflop/s (10 trillion calculations per second) IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer into service last week, providing more than 2,000 researchers across the country with the most powerful computer for unclassified research in the United States. The IBM SP supercomputer, which comprises 6,656 processors, entered production a month ahead of schedule, meaning that the system will provide up to 4 million more processor hours of computing time in the current fiscal year. Read the full story here.

Guy Bear Is New Deputy In Facilities

Facilities Division Director George Reyes has announced the appointment of Guy Bear as Deputy Director of the Facilities Division. Guy has served as interim deputy director since last September, supporting the transition of Facilities from departmental to divisional status and managing the Projects group. His new management duties will focus on budget, human resources and other administrative areas, as well as addressing issues on a division-wide basis.

A much-improved central calendaring program with several attractive new user features is now available for download from the Information Technologies and Services Division. The new Oracle Calendar for the Lab’s scheduling system is an upgrade from the Netscape Calendar program and is compatible with it. Enhancements include e-mail meeting reminders, custom color schemes, and multi-window switching. More information can be found here.