Breadcrumbs

A record of the big and small things happening at WATcloud

Image generated using ChatGPT 4o using the content of this blog post as a prompt.

Running Open Source LLMs on WATcloud

Set up and interact with leading open-source language models—including Qwen, Gemma, and Llama—directly on the WATcloud compute cluster. This guide walks you through reserving a GPU and launching a vLLM inference server, all tailored for the job-queued environment. Ideal for students and researchers who want hands-on experience with LLMs without cloud costs or long-term hosting.

May 29, 2025

Image generated using DALL-E with ChatGPT-assisted prompt: "A comic-style illustration of a futuristic data center where GitHub Actions workflows are transformed into Slurm-powered jobs. Rows of towering server racks with glowing cables and cooling fans line both sides of the scene. In the center, a conveyor belt moves GitHub Actions runner capsules toward a massive Slurm control server, which processes them with robotic arms, spinning gears, and streams of digital energy. On the other side, the capsules emerge as fully optimized compute nodes, ready for execution. A small Octocat in a lab coat and safety goggles stands nearby, observing the process with curiosity. The scene is illuminated by a cool blue and purple glow, emphasizing the high-tech and automated nature of the system."

Using Slurm to Run GitHub Actions

How we transitioned our provisioning pipeline to run in our Slurm Cluster. Includes the architecture, challenges, and performance improvements achieved.

April 6, 2025

Image generated using DALL-E with ChatGPT-assisted prompt: "A comic-style drawing of a person standing in front of a larger car with a red hood, looking under the hood and finding it filled with computer parts instead of an engine. The car should have no engine visible; instead, the hood reveals computer parts like circuit boards, CPUs, cooling fans, and cables. The person is smaller in size compared to the car, standing on the ground, and looks surprised, with wide eyes and a raised eyebrow. The scene is light-hearted and humorous, with vibrant colors and exaggerated expressions, capturing the surprise and confusion of the person."

Under the Hood: What is WATcloud?

Curious about how WATcloud makes computing resources easily and fairly accessible to everyone? Join us as we kick off a blog series exploring our four-year journey of refining our compute cluster's hardware and software—from servers and networking to user provisioning and observability systems.

September 22, 2024

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