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What is the default queue?
If you do not specify a queue by name in your bsub arguments, your job goes to the default queue, which is normal_publicpublic6.
Where do I find basic unix/linux resources?
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-bash-3.2$ bsub -R Mem24 -queue normal_public6 ./myprogram
I sometime notice that my job duration can vary when I rerun a program with exactly the same inputs, condition, etc... Why?
The cluster has a mix of several different Intel Cpus and motherboard combinations. The absolute performance potential is different among them but with the choice of LSF queue and mix of running jobs your job competes with, your results will vary. This is not something that is predictable when the cluster is well loaded.
I see that there are some nodes with more than 32gig ram, such as 48 and 96 gig. How do I access them in exclusive mode since I need almost all the ram and my expected job duration is just minutes?
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This will migrate your job with <job_number> to the express_public public6 queue or some other queue.
The contributed nodes often seem idle. How do I use them if I am not in a particular contributed node queue user group?
There are three queues that will make use of all compute nodes. The Public Shared queues allow job placement to all nodes via LSF. When contributed nodes are idle and there are many jobs already in the normal_public public6 or long_public public6 queue, use of the Public Shared queues will likely land your jobs on idle contributed nodes. See above table for corresponding Public Shared queue names and properties. For more detail on a particular queue:
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