NERSC User Survey 2000

The 2000 NERSC User Survey is closed.

Welcome to our third user survey. Please take a few minutes to fill out this year's survey. Your responses will provide us user feedback about NERSC's operation. It will allow us to judge the quality of our services, give DOE information on how NERSC is doing, point us to areas we can improve, and show how we compare to similar facilities. We will not use your name or login in our tally of the final results.

Based in part on last year's survey results, we instituted a number of changes. Among them:

Please respond by Sunday, Nov. 5, 2000.

If you do not wish to complete the entire survey, please fill out sections 1 (User Info), 2 (Overall Satisfaction), and 8 (Comments). Thank you.

The default value for most questions is No Answer. No Answer is not equivalent to any other response. (In particular No Answer is not Neutral and No Answer is not Not Important.) No Answer responses to any question will be ignored in post-survey analyses.

Survey Sections

  1. User Information
  2. Overall Satisfaction
  3. Consulting / Account Support
  4. Information Technology and Communication
  5. Hardware
  6. Software
  7. Training
  8. Your Comments

Section 1: User Information

The information in this section will be used to (1) identify respondents so that we tally only one response per user and (2) allow us to address your individual concerns on a one-to-one basis. Your responses will not be attributed to you in any public document without your permission.

  1. Your name:

  2. Required: Your user login (enter the login you use most often if you have more than one):

  3. What NERSC resources do you use? Check all that apply:
    Cray T3E Cray J90/SV1 Cluster IBM SP
    Visualization server (escher) Math server (newton) HPSS
    Consulting services Account support services Computer Operations and Network Support
    HPCF website (hpcf.nersc.gov) PDSF  
    Other   specify:

  4. How long have you used NERSC?
    6 months or less 6 months - 3 years More than 3 years

  5. What desktop systems do you use to access NERSC? Check all that apply:
    UNIX Systems
    Linux
    Solaris (Sun)
    AIX (IBM)
    OSF (DEC)
    HPUX (HP)
    IRIX (SGI)
    Other:     		PC Systems
    Windows 2000
    Windows 98
    Windows 95
    Windows NT
    Windows 3.x
    DOS
    Other:     		MacIntosh
    MacOS
    Other:     		Other
    Specify:

  6. Which type of connection do you often use to connect to NERSC? Check all that apply:
    Ethernet Cable Modem DSL ISDN Modem Other

    [ Next Section:Overall Satisfaction ] [ Beginning of Survey ] [ End of Survey ]

Section 2: Your Overall Satisfaction with NERSC

  How satisfied are you? How important is this to you?
Overall satisfaction with NERSC
Consulting services
Account support services
NERSC's HPCF website (hpcf.nersc.gov)
Web-based training
Training classes
Allocations process
Available Computing Hardware
Hardware management and configuration
Available software
Software Maintenance and Configuration
Software documentation
Mass Storage Facilities
Visualization Services
Network connectivity
[ Next Section:Consulting ] [ Beginning of Survey ] [ End of Survey ]

Section 3: Consulting Services / Account Support

 How satisfied are you?
Quality of technical advice from consultants
Timely response to consulting questions
Response to special requests (e.g. file restores, quota changes, etc.)
Followup to initial consulting questions
Ease of obtaining account information (e.g., time remaining in repo)
Ease of modifying account information (e.g. adding users, resetting passwords)

Comments and suggestions regarding NERSC Consulting Services:

Comments and suggestions regarding NERSC Account Support Services:
[ Next Section:Information and Communication ] [ Beginning of Survey ] [ End of Survey ]

Section 4: Information Technology and Communication

These questions pertain to the NERSC HPC web site: hpcf.nersc.gov How satisfied are you?
Ease of finding information on the web site
Search facilities
Timeliness of information
Accuracy of information
General programming information
Info on using NERSC-specific resources
IBM SP section
Cray T3E section
Cray PVP cluster section
File Storage section
NERSC Getting Started Guide
Comments and suggestions concerning the HPCF web site.
The following questions relate to how you keep informed of NERSC changes and current issues.
 How useful are these for keeping you informed of issues at NERSC?
Announcements web archives
MOTD on computers (Message Of The Day)
NERSC Announcement email lists
Phone calls from NERSC
Do you feel you are adequately informed about NERSC changes? Yes No   N/A
Are you aware of major changes at least 1 month in advance? Yes No   N/A
Are you aware of software changes at least 7 days in advance? Yes No   N/A
Are you aware of planned outages 24 hours in advance ? Yes No   N/A
Please tell us how would like to keep informed of changes and issues at NERSC.
[ Next Section:Hardware ] [ Beginning of Survey ] [ End of Survey ]

Section 5: Hardware Resources

Rate your satisfaction with the following: IBM SP Cray T3E Cray PVP Cluster
Overall satisfaction
Up time (percentage of time machine is available for you to use)
Batch job wait time (time from job submission until execution begins)
Batch queue structure
Ability to run interactively
Disk configuration and I/O performance
Max. number of processors used
Max. number of processors your code can effectively use
Comments on NERSC's IBM SP:

Suggestions for NERSC's IBM SP Phase II system:

Comments on NERSC's Cray T3E:

Comments on NERSC's Cray PVP Cluster:

HPSS Storage System How satisfied are you?
Overall satisfaction
Up time (percentage of time system is available for you to use)
Reliability (percentage of time transfer is successful)
Performance (transfer rate)
System response time
User interface (hsi, pftp, ftp)

Comments on NERSC's HPSS Storage System:

Auxiliary Servers How satisfied are you?
Newton (Symbolic math server)
Escher (Visualization server)
Comments about NERSC's auxiliary servers:

[ Next Section:Software ] [ Beginning of Survey ] [ End of Survey ]

Section 6: Software Resources

  How satisfied are you?
 IBM SPCray T3ECray PVP Cluster
User environment
FORTRAN compilers
C/C++ compilers
Application software
Programming libraries
Vendor documentation
Local (NERSC) documentation (on web site)
Performance and debugging tools
General tools and utilities
Accounting tools
Software bug resolution
The following ACTS tools are currently installed at NERSC. Select all the ones that you currently use here. None Aztec PETSc TAU SuperLU ScaLAPACK
These ACTS tools are not currently installed at NERSC. Check all that you would like to use at NERSC? None Hypre Opt ++ PVODE Global Arrays Overture POET POOMA CUMULVS Globus PAWS SILOON Tulip Atlas & PHiPAC Nexus PADRE PETE
Comments about NERSC's software resources, suggested improvements, future needs:

Comments about the ACTS toolkit software:

[ Next Section:Training ] [ Beginning of Survey ] [ End of Survey ]

Section 7: Training

  Check if you've used NERSC's How satisfied are you with these resources at NERSC? How useful are these resources for training in high performance computing in general (not at NERSC specifically)?
Online web tutorials
Classes (Live, in-person presentations)
Slides from classes (on web)
Teleconference Lectures
Comments about training. In what area should we focus our attention?

[ Next Section:Your Comments ] [ Beginning of Survey ] [ End of Survey ]

Section 8: Your Comments

What does NERSC do well?

What should NERSC do differently?

How does NERSC compare to other centers you have used? List the center(s) you are comparing us to.

Go to: [ Beginning of Survey ]