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2006 User Survey Results

Many thanks to the 256 users who responded to this year's User Survey. This represents a response rate of about 13 percent of the active NERSC users. The respondents represent all six DOE Science Offices and a variety of home institutions: see Respondent Demographics.

The survey responses provide feedback about every aspect of NERSC's operation, help us judge the quality of our services, give DOE information on how well NERSC is doing, and point us to areas we can improve. The survey results are listed below.

You can see the 2006 User Survey text, in which users rated us on a 7-point satisfaction scale. Some areas were also rated on a 3-point importance scale or a 3-point usefulness scale.

Satisfaction Score Meaning Number of Times Selected 7 Very Satisfied 4,985 6 Mostly Satisfied 3,748 5 Somewhat Satisfied 832 4 Neutral 584 3 Somewhat Dissatisfied 251 2 Mostly Dissatisfied 75 1 Very Dissatisfied 51	Importance Score Meaning 3 Very Important 2 Somewhat Important 1 Not Important
	Usefulness Score Meaning 3 Very Useful 2 Somewhat Useful 1 Not at All Useful

The average satisfaction scores from this year's survey ranged from a high of 6.7 (very satisfied) to a low of 4.9 (somewhat satisfied). Across 111 questions, users chose the Very Satisfied rating 4,985 times, and the Very Dissatisfied rating only 51 times. The scores for all questions averaged 6.1, and the average score for overall satisfaction with NERSC was 6.3. See All Satisfaction Ratings.

For questions that spanned the 2006 through 2003 surveys, the change in rating was tested for significance (using the t test at the 90% confidence level). Significant increases in satisfaction are shown in blue; significant decreases in satisfaction are shown in red.

Significance of Change significant increase (change from 2005) significant decrease (changefrom 2005) not significant

Areas with the highest user satisfaction include the HPSS mass storage system, account and consulting services, DaVinci C/C++ compilers, Jacquard uptime, network performance within the NERSC center, and Bassi Fortran compilers.

7=Very satisfied, 6=Mostly satisfied, 5=Somewhat satisfied, 4=Neutral, 3=Somewhat dissatisfied, 2=Mostly dissatisfied, 1=Very dissatisfied

Item	Num who rated this item as:							Total Responses	Average Score	Std. Dev.	Change from 2005
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
HPSS: Reliability (data integrity)				2		22	69	93	6.70	0.59	-0.03
Account support services	1		1	4	2	47	147	202	6.64	0.76	-0.09
HPSS: Uptime (Availability)				1	2	29	62	94	6.62	0.59	-0.06
DaVinci SW: C/C++ compilers					1	3	9	13	6.62	0.65
Jacquard: Uptime (Availability)				2	2	26	55	85	6.58	0.66	0.73
CONSULT: Timely initial response to consulting questions		1	3	2	6	50	136	198	6.57	0.81	-0.08
Network performance within NERSC (e.g. Seaborg to HPSS)			2	1	3	38	72	116	6.53	0.75	-0.08
OVERALL: Consulting and Support Services			4	8	7	58	159	236	6.53	0.85	-0.20
Bassi SW: Fortran compilers	1	1			3	18	50	73	6.52	1.02

Areas with the lowest user satisfaction include Seaborg batch wait times; PDSF disk storage, interactive services and performance tools; Bassi and Seaborg visualization software; and analytics facilities.

7=Very satisfied, 6=Mostly satisfied, 5=Somewhat satisfied, 4=Neutral, 3=Somewhat dissatisfied, 2=Mostly dissatisfied, 1=Very dissatisfied

Item	Num who rated this item as:							Total Responses	Average Score	Std. Dev.	Change from 2005
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
PDSF SW: Performance and debugging tools	1		3	3	5	10	9	31	5.48	1.52	-0.52
Seaborg SW: Visualization software			1	12	5	15	9	42	5.45	1.19	-0.08
PDSF: Ability to run interactively	1	1	1	4	11	17	6	41	5.39	1.30	-0.40
OVERALL: Data analysis and visualization facilities		2	4	32	20	47	23	128	5.37	1.22	-0.28
Bassi SW: Visualization software	1	1		4	2	9	5	22	5.36	1.62
PDSF: Disk configuration and I/O performance	1		7	5	6	13	7	39	5.10	1.54	-0.04
Seaborg: Batch wait time	6	5	27	11	35	56	19	159	4.94	1.57	0.99

The largest increases in satisfaction over last year's survey are for the Jacquard linux cluster; Seaborg batch wait times and queue structure; NERSC's available computing hardware; and the NERSC Information Management (NIM) system.

7=Very satisfied, 6=Mostly satisfied, 5=Somewhat satisfied, 4=Neutral, 3=Somewhat dissatisfied, 2=Mostly dissatisfied, 1=Very dissatisfied

Item	Num who rated this item as:							Total Responses	Average Score	Std. Dev.	Change from 2005
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Seaborg: Batch wait time	6	5	27	11	35	56	19	159	4.94	1.57	0.99
Jacquard: Uptime (Availability)				2	2	26	55	85	6.58	0.66	0.73
Seaborg: Batch queue structure	1	4	5	13	21	61	48	153	5.77	1.27	0.72
Jacquard: Batch wait time	1		3	5	10	40	23	82	5.87	1.13	0.71
Jacquard: overall		2		2	10	28	46	88	6.27	1.01	0.49
Jacquard: Batch queue structure		1	3	6	7	34	28	79	5.95	1.14	0.49
OVERALL: Available Computing Hardware			3	5	29	108	92	237	6.19	0.82	0.30
NIM			3	2	19	76	102	202	6.35	0.81	0.19

The largest decreases in satisfaction over last year's survey are shown below.

7=Very satisfied, 6=Mostly satisfied, 5=Somewhat satisfied, 4=Neutral, 3=Somewhat dissatisfied, 2=Mostly dissatisfied, 1=Very dissatisfied

Item	Num who rated this item as:							Total Responses	Average Score	Std. Dev.	Change from 2005
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
PDSF SW: Programming libraries			1	3	7	9	11	31	5.84	1.13	-0.62
PDSF SW: General tools and utilities		1	2	4	4	14	9	34	5.62	1.33	-0.58
PDSF SW: Software environment		2		1	6	14	13	36	5.92	1.25	-0.52
Seaborg: Uptime (Availability)		1	4	3	20	52	79	159	6.23	0.99	-0.33
NERSC security	2	1	7	9	10	72	134	235	6.30	1.11	-0.31
Seaborg SW: Performance and debugging tools		3	6	7	13	38	28	95	5.69	1.31	-0.31
OVERALL: Available Software			6	24	22	85	82	219	5.97	1.08	-0.22
CONSULT: overall	1	1	2	3	9	59	124	199	6.47	0.90	-0.21
OVERALL: Consulting and Support Services			4	8	7	58	159	236	6.53	0.85	-0.20
OVERALL: Network connectivity			8	10	19	69	124	230	6.27	1.02	-0.18
CONSULT: Quality of technical advice	1		2	3	8	66	113	193	6.46	0.84	-0.16

Survey Results Lead to Changes at NERSC

Every year we institute changes based on the previous year survey. In 2006 NERSC took a number of actions in response to suggestions from the 2005 user survey.

1. 2005 user survey: On the 2005 survey 24 users asked us to improve queue turnaround times. Seaborg wait time had the lowest satisfaction rating on the survey, with an average score of 3.95 (out of 7).

   NERSC response: In 2006, NERSC and DOE adjusted the duty cycle of NERSC systems to better balance throughput (reduced queue wait times) and overall utilization, and also agreed not to pre-allocate systems that are not yet in poroduction. This approach has paid off: on the 2006 survey only 5 users commented on poor turnaround times, and the average satisfaction score for Seaborg wait times increased by almost one point.

2. 2005 user survey: On the 2005 survey three Jacquard ratings were amoung the lowest seven ratings.

   NERSC response: In 2006 NERSC staff worked hard to improve Jacquard's computing infrastructure:

   • We implemented the Maui scheduler in order to manage the queues more effectively.
   • The system was greatly stabilized by reducing the system memory clock speed from 400 MHz to 333 MHz (more nodes were added to Jacquard to compensate for the reduced clock sped).
   • We worked with Linux Networx and its third party vendors to improve MVAPICH.
   • We worked with Mellanox to debug and fix several problems with the Infiniband drivers and firmware on the Infiniband switches that were preventing successful runs of large-concurrency jobs.

   On the 2006 survey four Jacqaurd ratings were significantly higher: those for up time, wait time, and queue structure, as well as overall satisfaction with Jacquard.

3. 2005 user survey: On the 2005 survey four users mentioned that moving data between machines was an inhibitor to doing visualization.

   NERSC response: In early 2006 the NERSC Global Filesystem was deployed to address this issue. It is a large, shared filesystem that can be accessed from all the computational systems at NERSC.

   Moving files between machines did not come up as an issue on the 2006 survey, and users were mostly satisfied with NGF reliability and performance.

4. 2005 user survey: On the 2005 survey 17 users requested more hardware resources.

   NERSC response: In addition to deploying the Bassi POWER5 system in early 2006, NERSC has announced plans to deploy a 19,344 processor Cray XT4 systemin 2007. User satisfaction with available computing hardware at NERSC increased by 0.3 points on the 2006 survey, and only ten users requested additional computing resources in the Comments about NERSC section.

Users are invited to provide overall comments about NERSC:

113 users answered the question What does NERSC do well?   87 respondents stated that NERSC gives them access to powerful computing resources without which they could not do their science; 47 mentioned excellent support services and NERSC's responsive staff; 27 highlighted good software support or an easy to use user environment; 24 pointed to hardware stability and reliability. Some representative comments are:

The computers are stable and always up. The consultants are knowledgeable. The users are kept well informed about what's happening to the systems. The available software is complete. The NERSC people are friendly.

NERSC runs a reliable computing service with good documentation of resources. I especially like the way they have been able to strike a good balance between the sometimes conflicting goals of being at the "cutting edge" while maintaining a high degree of uptime and reliable access to their computers.

NERSC has a lot of computational power distributed in many different platforms (SP, Linux clusters, SMP machines) that can be tailored to all sorts of applications. I think that the DaVinci machine was a great addition to your resource pool, for quick and inexpensive OMP parallelization.

The preinstalled application packages are truly useful to me. Some of these applications are quite tricky to install by myself.

NERSC makes possible for me extensive numerical calculations that are a crucial part of my research program in environmental geophysics. I compute at NERSC to use fast machines with multiple processors that I can run simultaneously. It is a great resource.

72 users responded to What should NERSC do differently?.

In previous years the greatest areas of concern were dominated by queue turnaround and job scheduling issues. In 2004 , 45 users reported dissatisfaction with queue turnaround times. In 2005 this number dropped to 24 and this year only 5 users made such comments. NERSC has made many efforts to acquire new hardware, to implement equitable queueing policies across the NERSC machines and to address queue turnaround times by allocating fewer of the total available cycles, and this has clearly paid off. The top three areas of concern this year are job scheduling, more compute cycles, and software issues.

Some of the comments from this section are:

The move now is to large numbers of CPUs with relatively low amounts of RAM per CPU. My code is moving the opossite direction. While I can run larger problems with very large numbers of CPUs, for full 3-D simulations, large amounts of RAM per CPU are required. Thus NERSC should acquire a machine with say 1024 CPUs, but 16 or 32 GB RAM/CPU.

More adequate and equitable resources allocation based on what the user accomplished in the previous year.

Increased storage resources would be very helpful. Global file systems have been started and should be continued and improved.

The CPU limit on interactive testing is often restrictive, and a faster turnaround time for a test job queue (minutes, not hours) would help a lot.

67 users answered the question How does NERSC compare to other centers you have used?   41 users stated that NERSC was an excellent center or was better than other centers they have used. Reasons given for preferring NERSC include its consulting services and responsiveness, its hardware and software management and the stability of its systems.

Eleven users said that NERSC was comparable to other centers or gave a mixed review and only four said that NERSC was not as good as another center they had used. Some users expressed dissatisfaction with user support, turnaround time, Seaborg's slow processors, the lack of production (group) accounts, HPSS software, visualization and the allocations process.

Here are the survey results:

1. Respondent Demographics
2. Overall Satisfaction and Importance
3. All Satisfaction, Importance and Usefulness Ratings
4. Hardware Resources
5. Software
6. Visualization and Data Analysis
7. HPC Consulting
8. Services and Communications
9. Web Interfaces
10. Training
11. Comments about NERSC

2006 User Survey Results: Respondent Demographics

Number of respondents to the survey: 256

• Respondents by DOE Office and User Role
• Respondents by Organization
• Which NERSC resources do you use?
• How long have you used NERSC?
• What desktop systems do you use to connect to NERSC?
• Web Browser Used to Take Survey
• Operating System Used to Take Survey

Respondents by DOE Office and User Role:

Office Respondents Percent ASCR 17 6.6% BER 33 12.9% BES 87 34.0% FES 25 9.8% HEP 38 14.8% NP 53 20.7% guests 3 1.2%

User Role Number Percent Principal Investigators 54 21.1% PI Proxies 38 14.8% Project Managers 8 3.1% Users 156 60.9%

Respondents by Organization:

Organization Type Number Percent Universities 138 53.9% DOE Labs 91 35.5% Industry 20 7.8% Other Govt Labs 16 6.3% Organization Number Percent Berkeley Lab 37 14.5% Oak Ridge 12 4.7% UC Berkeley 12 4.7% U. Wisconsin Madison 12 4.7% Livermore 7 2.7% Harvard 6 2.3% Northwestern 6 2.3% PNNL 6 2.3% U. Washington 6 2.3% Argonne 5 2.0% SLAC 5 2.0% Tech-X Corp 5 2.0% Ames Lab 4 1.6% NREL 4 1.6% PPPL 4 1.6% Stanford 4 1.6% U. Oklahoma 4 2.0%

Organization Number Percent Georgia Tech 3 1.2% NCAR 3 1.2% Texas A&M 3 1.2% UC Irvine 3 1.2% Vanderbilt 3 1.2% Auburn Univ 2 0.8% Cal Tech 2 0.8% Georgia State 2 0.8% Huazhong Univ (China) 2 0.8% J. Inst Nuclear Research (Russia) 2 0.8% Jefferson Lab 2 0.8% Kansas State 2 0.8% LAL IN2P3 (France) 2 0.8% MIT 2 0.8% Shanghai Physics (China) 2 0.8% U. Central Florida 2 0.8% U. Chicago 2 0.8% U. Georgia 2 0.8% UC Davis 2 0.8% Wayne State 2 0.8% Other Universities 49 19.1% Other Gov. Labs 7 2.7% Other DOE Labs 5 2.0% Other Industry 4 1.6%

Which NERSC resources do you use?

Resource	Responses	Percent	Num who answered questions on this topic	Percent
IBM SP (Seaborg)	169	66.0%	168	65.6%
NIM	160	62.5%	202	78.9%
NERSC web site (www.nersc.gov)	148	57.8%	211	82.4%
HPSS	110	43.2%	172	67.2%
Jacquard	109	42.6%	88	34.4%
Bassi	107	41.8%	99	38.7%
Consulting services	89	34.8%	199	77.7%
Account support services	85	33.2%	202	78.9%
PDSF	48	18.8%	43	16.8%
DaVinci	30	11.7%	30	11.7%
Off-hours 24x7 Computer and ESnet Operations support	26	10.2%	88	34.3%
Visualization services	9	3.5%	29	11.3%
NGF	8	3.1%	26	10.2%
NERSC CVS server	4	1.6%	24	9.4%
Grid services	3	1.2%	23	9.0%

How long have you used NERSC?

Time	Number	Percent
less than 6 months	31	12.1%
6 months - 3 years	116	45.3%
more than 3 years	109	42.6%

What desktop systems do you use to connect to NERSC?

System	Responses
Unix Total	221
PC Total	130
Mac Total	93
Linux	187
Windows XP	113
OS X	77
Sun Solaris	21
Windows 2000	16
MacOS	15
IBM AIX	7
SGI IRIX	4
HP HPUX	1
Other	3

Web Browser Used to Take Survey:

Browser	Number	Percent
Firefox	119	46.5%
MSIE 6	50	19.5%
Mozilla	42	16.4%
Safari	35	13.7%
Netscape 4	8	3.1%
Opera	2	0.8%

Operating System Used to Take Survey:

OS	Number	Percent
Windows XP	92	35.9%
Linux	80	31.3%
Mac OS X	70	27.3%
SunOS	5	2.0%
Windows 2000	5	2.0%
Windows NT	2	0.8%
FreeBSD	2	0.4%
MacOS	1	0.4%

2006 User Survey Results: All Satisfaction, Importance and Usefulness Ratings

• Legend
• All Satisfaction Topics - by Score
• All Satisfaction Topics - by Number of Responses
• All Importance Topics
• All Usefulness Topics

Legend

Satisfaction Average Score Very Satisfied 6.50 - 7.00 Mostly Satisfied 5.50 - 6.49 Somewhat Satisfied 4.50 - 5.49	Importance Average Score Very Important 2.50 - 3.00 Somewhat Important 1.50 - 2.49
Significance of Change significant increase significant decrease not significant	Usefulness Average Score Very Useful 2.50 - 3.00 Somewhat Useful 1.50 - 2.49

All Satisfaction Topics - by Score

7=Very satisfied, 6=Mostly satisfied, 5=Somewhat satisfied, 4=Neutral, 3=Somewhat dissatisfied, 2=Mostly dissatisfied, 1=Very dissatisfied

Item	Num who rated this item as:							Total Responses	Average Score	Std. Dev.	Change from 2005	Change from 2004	Change from 2003
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
HPSS: Reliability (data integrity)				2		22	69	93	6.70	0.59	-0.03	-0.04	0.09
Account support services	1		1	4	2	47	147	202	6.64	0.76	-0.09	-0.04	0.25
HPSS: Uptime (Availability)				1	2	29	62	94	6.62	0.59	-0.06	-0.05	0.08
DaVinci SW: C/C++ compilers					1	3	9	13	6.62	0.65
Jacquard: Uptime (Availability)				2	2	26	55	85	6.58	0.66	0.73
CONSULT: Timely initial response to consulting questions		1	3	2	6	50	136	198	6.57	0.81	-0.08	-0.13	0.02
Network performance within NERSC (e.g. Seaborg to HPSS)			2	1	3	38	72	116	6.53	0.75	-0.08	-0.07	-0.01
OVERALL: Consulting and Support Services			4	8	7	58	159	236	6.53	0.85	-0.20	-0.14	0.16
Bassi SW: Fortran compilers	1	1			3	18	50	73	6.52	1.02
CONSULT: Followup to initial consulting questions	1		2	3	9	55	117	187	6.49	0.86	-0.08	-0.17	-0.00
CONSULT: overall	1	1	2	3	9	59	124	199	6.47	0.90	-0.21	-0.22	0.13
CONSULT: Quality of technical advice	1		2	3	8	66	113	193	6.46	0.84	-0.16	-0.13	-0.08
Seaborg SW: Fortran compilers		1	1	7	2	35	80	126	6.45	0.93	-0.04	0.04	0.11
PDSF SW: C/C++ compilers					3	13	17	33	6.42	0.66	-0.18	0.19	-0.02
NGF: Reliability				3		6	17	26	6.42	0.99
WEB: Accuracy of information			1	6	7	79	106	199	6.42	0.75	0.02	0.22	0.17
DaVinci SW: Software environment				1	2	7	14	24	6.42	0.83
NGF: File and Directory Operations				1	1	8	12	22	6.41	0.80
Seaborg SW: Software environment			1	6	5	51	77	140	6.41	0.81	0.02	0.07	0.17
Bassi: Uptime (Availability)			1	4	4	31	52	92	6.40	0.85
Seaborg SW: C/C++ compilers			1	6	4	24	55	90	6.40	0.93	0.03	0.14	0.18
WEB: NERSC web site overall (www.nersc.gov)			2	4	8	92	105	211	6.39	0.74	0.10	0.07	0.39
HPSS: Overall satisfaction	1		2	1	5	37	58	104	6.38	0.96	-0.13	-0.18	-0.08
NGF: Overall			1	1	2	5	17	26	6.38	1.06
NIM			3	2	19	76	102	202	6.35	0.81	0.19	0.10	0.27
NGF: Uptime		1		1	1	7	16	26	6.35	1.16
TRAINING: New User's Guide				3	6	53	49	111	6.33	0.70	-0.04	0.07	0.07
Seaborg SW: Programming libraries		1		7	7	35	60	110	6.32	0.96	-0.09	0.05	0.05
GRID: Job Submission	1			1	1	2	14	19	6.32	1.53	-0.21
OVERALL: Satisfaction with NERSC	2		9	3	8	99	128	249	6.31	1.01	0.11	0.21	-0.06
NERSC security	2	1	7	9	10	72	134	235	6.30	1.11	-0.31	-0.18
Bassi SW: Software environment	2		2		4	29	44	81	6.30	1.17
HPSS: Data transfer rates	1	1	2	2	5	33	52	96	6.29	1.10	-0.11	-0.11
SERVICES: Allocations process		1	1	5	12	70	76	165	6.28	0.85	0.12	0.35	0.59
Jacquard SW: Software environment				4	6	29	34	73	6.27	0.84	0.15
Jacquard: overall		2		2	10	28	46	88	6.27	1.01	0.49
Bassi SW: C/C++ compilers		2		2	2	15	27	48	6.27	1.18
Bassi SW: Programming libraries	1	1		4	3	15	36	60	6.27	1.25
CONSULT: Amount of time to resolve your issue	2		6	6	11	68	103	196	6.27	1.08	-0.14	-0.33	-0.09
OVERALL: Network connectivity			8	10	19	69	124	230	6.27	1.02	-0.18	-0.11	0.04
Bassi: overall	2		3	5	2	30	57	99	6.26	1.23
GRID: Access and Authentication		1		2		6	14	23	6.26	1.29	-0.16
Jacquard SW: C/C++ compilers		2		1	4	19	28	54	6.26	1.10	0.11
SERVICES: Response to special requests (e.g. disk quota increases, etc.)		1	4	3	4	36	50	98	6.24	1.08	-0.11	0.17	-0.11
Seaborg: Uptime (Availability)		1	4	3	20	52	79	159	6.23	0.99	-0.33	-0.03	-0.19
DaVinci SW: Fortran compilers	1				1	6	10	18	6.22	1.44
On-line help desk	1		1	6	11	41	55	115	6.21	1.02	0.04	0.05	0.19
WEB: Timeliness of information			1	13	21	69	90	194	6.21	0.92	0.09	0.04	0.16
GRID: Job Monitoring	1			2		4	13	20	6.20	1.54	-0.30
OVERALL: Available Computing Hardware			3	5	29	108	92	237	6.19	0.82	0.30	0.53	0.06
GRID: File Transfer			2	1	1	5	13	22	6.18	1.30	-0.10
SERVICES: E-mail lists			2	8	4	33	42	89	6.18	1.03	0.10	0.06
Seaborg SW: Applications software			1	8	6	35	41	91	6.18	0.97	0.01	0.04	0.18
NGF: I/O Bandwidth			1		3	9	10	23	6.17	0.98
Jacquard SW: General tools and utilities				3	3	24	17	47	6.17	0.82	0.19
Jacquard SW: Programming libraries		2		3	5	18	28	56	6.16	1.17	0.24
OVERALL: Mass storage facilities			4	17	13	52	86	172	6.16	1.08	-0.16	-0.20	0.04
TRAINING: Web tutorials				4	10	44	31	89	6.15	0.79	-0.07	0.05	0.08
CONSULT: Software bug resolution	1	1	1	11	9	37	60	120	6.14	1.16	0.04	0.02	0.50
PDSF SW: Fortran compilers				1	3	6	7	17	6.12	0.93	-0.08	0.25	0.09
Jacquard SW: Visualization software				1	3	6	7	17	6.12	0.93	0.58
Jacquard SW: Fortran compilers		1	5	2	4	18	34	64	6.11	1.30	0.38
Seaborg: overall	1		4	7	17	75	64	168	6.10	1.00	0.18	0.33	-0.33
Seaborg SW: General tools and utilities			2	8	6	45	37	98	6.09	0.97	-0.00	0.18	0.11
Jacquard SW: Applications software	1			3	2	21	17	44	6.09	1.14	0.31
Bassi: Disk configuration and I/O performance	1	1	1	5	2	36	30	76	6.08	1.16
HPSS: Data access time	1	1	3	2	9	37	38	91	6.08	1.17	0.08	-0.17	-0.38
DaVinci: overall		2		1	3	9	15	30	6.07	1.36	0.42	0.59	0.84
OVERALL: Hardware management and configuration	2	2	3	17	14	86	89	213	6.07	1.15	0.09	0.18	-0.00
Jacquard: Disk configuration and I/O performance		1	1	8	3	25	30	68	6.06	1.16	0.18
OVERALL: Software management and configuration			8	19	17	65	89	198	6.05	1.13	-0.17	-0.14	0.01
Bassi SW: General tools and utilities		1	1	5	3	20	22	52	6.04	1.17
Off-hours 24x7 Computer and ESnet Operations support	1	1	3	11	4	21	47	88	6.03	1.37
Bassi SW: Applications software	1			4	6	18	20	49	6.02	1.18
WEB: Ease of finding information	1		4	9	33	90	72	209	6.02	0.99	0.09	0.13	0.22
DaVinci SW: Visualization software		1		2	1	6	9	19	6.00	1.37	0.57
NERSC CVS server				4	2	8	10	24	6.00	1.10	-0.21	0.67
PDSF: Batch queue structure			1	3	3	20	11	38	5.97	0.97	-0.03	-0.34	-0.03
OVERALL: Available Software			6	24	22	85	82	219	5.97	1.08	-0.22	-0.26	-0.08
Jacquard: Batch queue structure		1	3	6	7	34	28	79	5.95	1.14	0.49
PDSF: Batch wait time			1	3	5	18	12	39	5.95	1.00	0.15	0.08	0.02
TRAINING: NERSC classes: in-person				4	2	3	9	18	5.94	1.26	-0.18	0.46	1.06
Seaborg: Disk configuration and I/O performance	1	1	4	13	13	55	49	136	5.92	1.19	-0.14	-0.02	-0.23
Bassi: Batch queue structure	1		2	9	7	38	29	86	5.92	1.16
PDSF SW: Software environment		2		1	6	14	13	36	5.92	1.25	-0.52	-0.44	-0.41
Remote network performance to/from NERSC (e.g. Seaborg to your home institution)	1	5	10	4	19	64	63	166	5.89	1.33	-0.24	-0.23	-0.23
Jacquard: Batch wait time	1		3	5	10	40	23	82	5.87	1.13	0.71
PDSF SW: Applications software			2	2	4	10	10	28	5.86	1.21	-0.28	0.07	-0.01
Bassi: Batch wait time			3	7	16	40	25	91	5.85	1.02
PDSF SW: Programming libraries			1	3	7	9	11	31	5.84	1.13	-0.62	-0.30	-0.16
WEB: Searching			3	13	18	41	35	110	5.84	1.09	0.14	0.20	0.40
PDSF: Uptime (availability)			4	3	6	12	17	42	5.83	1.31	-0.06	-0.57	-0.52
HPSS: User interface (hsi, pftp, ftp)	1	1	4	7	14	35	33	95	5.83	1.26	-0.29	-0.31	-0.15
PDSF: Overall satisfaction		1	3	1	4	23	11	43	5.81	1.20	-0.19	-0.71	-0.60
Bassi SW: Performance and debugging tools	1	2	2	3	6	20	19	53	5.77	1.45
Seaborg: Batch queue structure	1	4	5	13	21	61	48	153	5.77	1.27	0.72	1.11	0.08
Jacquard: Ability to run interactively		2	2	9	7	25	23	68	5.76	1.29	0.20
Live classes on the web				5	1	9	6	21	5.76	1.14	0.04	0.61	1.09
Seaborg: Ability to run interactively		2	10	13	19	42	45	131	5.71	1.32	0.18	0.37	0.14
Seaborg SW: Performance and debugging tools		3	6	7	13	38	28	95	5.69	1.31	-0.31	-0.14	0.12
SERVICES: Visualization services			1	7	3	7	11	29	5.69	1.31	-0.14	0.28	0.88
PDSF SW: General tools and utilities		1	2	4	4	14	9	34	5.62	1.33	-0.58	-0.21	-0.31
Jacquard SW: Performance and debugging tools		4	1	2	6	20	11	44	5.59	1.45	0.24
Bassi: Ability to run interactively	2	4	3	8	8	25	25	75	5.55	1.60
PDSF SW: Performance and debugging tools	1		3	3	5	10	9	31	5.48	1.52	-0.52	-0.29	0.17
Seaborg SW: Visualization software			1	12	5	15	9	42	5.45	1.19	-0.08	0.05	0.37
PDSF: Ability to run interactively	1	1	1	4	11	17	6	41	5.39	1.30	-0.40	-0.29	-0.38
OVERALL: Data analysis and visualization facilities		2	4	32	20	47	23	128	5.37	1.22	-0.28	-0.04
Bassi SW: Visualization software	1	1		4	2	9	5	22	5.36	1.62
PDSF: Disk configuration and I/O performance	1		7	5	6	13	7	39	5.10	1.54	-0.04	-0.49	-0.59
Seaborg: Batch wait time	6	5	27	11	35	56	19	159	4.94	1.57	0.99	1.09	-0.30

All Satisfaction Topics - by Number of Responses

7=Very satisfied, 6=Mostly satisfied, 5=Somewhat satisfied, 4=Neutral, 3=Somewhat dissatisfied, 2=Mostly dissatisfied, 1=Very dissatisfied

Item	Num who rated this item as:							Total Responses	Average Score	Std. Dev.	Change from 2005	Change from 2004
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
OVERALL: Satisfaction with NERSC	2		9	3	8	99	128	249	6.31	1.01	0.11	0.21
OVERALL: Available Computing Hardware			3	5	29	108	92	237	6.19	0.82	0.30	0.53
OVERALL: Consulting and Support Services			4	8	7	58	159	236	6.53	0.85	-0.20	-0.14
NERSC security	2	1	7	9	10	72	134	235	6.30	1.11	-0.31	-0.18
OVERALL: Network connectivity			8	10	19	69	124	230	6.27	1.02	-0.18	-0.11
OVERALL: Available Software			6	24	22	85	82	219	5.97	1.08	-0.22	-0.26
OVERALL: Hardware management and configuration	2	2	3	17	14	86	89	213	6.07	1.15	0.09	0.18
WEB: NERSC web site overall (www.nersc.gov)			2	4	8	92	105	211	6.39	0.74	0.10	0.07
WEB: Ease of finding information	1		4	9	33	90	72	209	6.02	0.99	0.09	0.13
Account support services	1		1	4	2	47	147	202	6.64	0.76	-0.09	-0.04
NIM			3	2	19	76	102	202	6.35	0.81	0.19	0.10
CONSULT: overall	1	1	2	3	9	59	124	199	6.47	0.90	-0.21	-0.22
WEB: Accuracy of information			1	6	7	79	106	199	6.42	0.75	0.02	0.22
CONSULT: Timely initial response to consulting questions		1	3	2	6	50	136	198	6.57	0.81	-0.08	-0.13
OVERALL: Software management and configuration			8	19	17	65	89	198	6.05	1.13	-0.17	-0.14
CONSULT: Amount of time to resolve your issue	2		6	6	11	68	103	196	6.27	1.08	-0.14	-0.33
WEB: Timeliness of information			1	13	21	69	90	194	6.21	0.92	0.09	0.04
CONSULT: Quality of technical advice	1		2	3	8	66	113	193	6.46	0.84	-0.16	-0.13
OVERALL: Mass storage facilities			4	17	13	52	86	172	6.16	1.08	-0.16	-0.20
CONSULT: Followup to initial consulting questions	1		2	3	9	55	117	187	6.49	0.86	-0.08	-0.17
Seaborg: overall	1		4	7	17	75	64	168	6.10	1.00	0.18	0.33
Remote network performance to/from NERSC (e.g. Seaborg to your home institution)	1	5	10	4	19	64	63	166	5.89	1.33	-0.24	-0.23
SERVICES: Allocations process		1	1	5	12	70	76	165	6.28	0.85	0.12	0.35
Seaborg: Batch wait time	6	5	27	11	35	56	19	159	4.94	1.57	0.99	1.09
Seaborg: Uptime (Availability)		1	4	3	20	52	79	159	6.23	0.99	-0.33	-0.03
Seaborg: Batch queue structure	1	4	5	13	21	61	48	153	5.77	1.27	0.72	1.11
Seaborg SW: Software environment			1	6	5	51	77	140	6.41	0.81	0.02	0.07
Seaborg: Ability to run interactively		2	10	13	19	42	45	131	5.71	1.32	0.18	0.37
Seaborg: Disk configuration and I/O performance	1	1	4	13	13	55	49	136	5.92	1.19	-0.14	-0.02
OVERALL: Data analysis and visualization facilities		2	4	32	20	47	23	128	5.37	1.22	-0.28	-0.04
Seaborg SW: Fortran compilers		1	1	7	2	35	80	126	6.45	0.93	-0.04	0.04
CONSULT: Software bug resolution	1	1	1	11	9	37	60	120	6.14	1.16	0.04	0.02
Network performance within NERSC (e.g. Seaborg to HPSS)			2	1	3	38	72	116	6.53	0.75	-0.08	-0.07
On-line help desk	1		1	6	11	41	55	115	6.21	1.02	0.04	0.05
TRAINING: New User's Guide				3	6	53	49	111	6.33	0.70	-0.04	0.07
Seaborg SW: Programming libraries		1		7	7	35	60	110	6.32	0.96	-0.09	0.05
WEB: Searching			3	13	18	41	35	110	5.84	1.09	0.14	0.20
HPSS: Overall satisfaction	1		2	1	5	37	58	104	6.38	0.96	-0.13	-0.18
Bassi: overall	2		3	5	2	30	57	99	6.26	1.23
Seaborg SW: General tools and utilities			2	8	6	45	37	98	6.09	0.97	-0.00	0.18
SERVICES: Response to special requests (e.g. disk quota increases, etc.)		1	4	3	4	36	50	98	6.24	1.08	-0.11	0.17
HPSS: Data transfer rates	1	1	2	2	5	33	52	96	6.29	1.10	-0.11	-0.11
HPSS: User interface (hsi, pftp, ftp)	1	1	4	7	14	35	33	95	5.83	1.26	-0.29	-0.31
Seaborg SW: Performance and debugging tools		3	6	7	13	38	28	95	5.69	1.31	-0.31	-0.14
HPSS: Uptime (Availability)				1	2	29	62	94	6.62	0.59	-0.06	-0.05
HPSS: Reliability (data integrity)				2		22	69	93	6.70	0.59	-0.03	-0.04
Bassi: Uptime (Availability)			1	4	4	31	52	92	6.40	0.85
Bassi: Batch wait time			3	7	16	40	25	91	5.85	1.02
HPSS: Data access time	1	1	3	2	9	37	38	91	6.08	1.17	0.08	-0.17
Seaborg SW: Applications software			1	8	6	35	41	91	6.18	0.97	0.01	0.04
Seaborg SW: C/C++ compilers			1	6	4	24	55	90	6.40	0.93	0.03	0.14
SERVICES: E-mail lists			2	8	4	33	42	89	6.18	1.03	0.10	0.06
TRAINING: Web tutorials				4	10	44	31	89	6.15	0.79	-0.07	0.05
Computer and Network Operations	1	1	3	11	4	21	47	88	6.03	1.37	-0.57	-0.47
Jacquard: overall		2		2	10	28	46	88	6.27	1.01	0.49
Bassi: Batch queue structure	1		2	9	7	38	29	86	5.92	1.16
Jacquard: Uptime (Availability)				2	2	26	55	85	6.58	0.66	0.73
Jacquard: Batch wait time	1		3	5	10	40	23	82	5.87	1.13	0.71
Bassi SW: Software environment	2		2		4	29	44	81	6.30	1.17
Jacquard: Batch queue structure		1	3	6	7	34	28	79	5.95	1.14	0.49
Bassi: Disk configuration and I/O performance	1	1	1	5	2	36	30	76	6.08	1.16
Bassi: Ability to run interactively	2	4	3	8	8	25	25	75	5.55	1.60
Bassi SW: Fortran compilers	1	1			3	18	50	73	6.52	1.02
Jacquard SW: Software environment				4	6	29	34	73	6.27	0.84	0.15
Jacquard: Ability to run interactively		2	2	9	7	25	23	68	5.76	1.29	0.20
Jacquard: Disk configuration and I/O performance		1	1	8	3	25	30	68	6.06	1.16	0.18
Jacquard SW: Fortran compilers		1	5	2	4	18	34	64	6.11	1.30	0.38
Bassi SW: Programming libraries	1	1		4	3	15	36	60	6.27	1.25
Jacquard SW: Programming libraries		2		3	5	18	28	56	6.16	1.17	0.24
Jacquard SW: C/C++ compilers		2		1	4	19	28	54	6.26	1.10	0.11
Bassi SW: Performance and debugging tools	1	2	2	3	6	20	19	53	5.77	1.45
Bassi SW: General tools and utilities		1	1	5	3	20	22	52	6.04	1.17
Bassi SW: Applications software	1			4	6	18	20	49	6.02	1.18
Bassi SW: C/C++ compilers		2		2	2	15	27	48	6.27	1.18
Jacquard SW: General tools and utilities				3	3	24	17	47	6.17	0.82	0.19
Jacquard SW: Applications software	1			3	2	21	17	44	6.09	1.14	0.31
Jacquard SW: Performance and debugging tools		4	1	2	6	20	11	44	5.59	1.45	0.24
PDSF: Overall satisfaction		1	3	1	4	23	11	43	5.81	1.20	-0.19	-0.71
PDSF: Uptime (availability)			4	3	6	12	17	42	5.83	1.31	-0.06	-0.57
Seaborg SW: Visualization software			1	12	5	15	9	42	5.45	1.19	-0.08	0.05
PDSF: Ability to run interactively	1	1	1	4	11	17	6	41	5.39	1.30	-0.40	-0.29
PDSF: Batch wait time			1	3	5	18	12	39	5.95	1.00	0.15	0.08
PDSF: Disk configuration and I/O performance	1		7	5	6	13	7	39	5.10	1.54	-0.04	-0.49
PDSF: Batch queue structure			1	3	3	20	11	38	5.97	0.97	-0.03	-0.34
PDSF SW: Software environment		2		1	6	14	13	36	5.92	1.25	-0.52	-0.44
PDSF SW: General tools and utilities		1	2	4	4	14	9	34	5.62	1.33	-0.58	-0.21
PDSF SW: C/C++ compilers					3	13	17	33	6.42	0.66	-0.18	0.19
PDSF SW: Performance and debugging tools	1		3	3	5	10	9	31	5.48	1.52	-0.52	-0.29
PDSF SW: Programming libraries			1	3	7	9	11	31	5.84	1.13	-0.62	-0.30
DaVinci: overall		2		1	3	9	15	30	6.07	1.36	0.42	0.59
SERVICES: Visualization services			1	7	3	7	11	29	5.69	1.31	-0.14	0.28
PDSF SW: Applications software			2	2	4	10	10	28	5.86	1.21	-0.28	0.07
NGF: Overall			1	1	2	5	17	26	6.38	1.06
NGF: Uptime		1		1	1	7	16	26	6.35	1.16
NGF: Reliability				3		6	17	26	6.42	0.99
DaVinci SW: Software environment				1	2	7	14	24	6.42	0.83
NERSC CVS server				4	2	8	10	24	6.00	1.10	-0.21	0.67
GRID: Access and Authentication		1		2		6	14	23	6.26	1.29	-0.16
NGF: I/O Bandwidth			1		3	9	10	23	6.17	0.98
Bassi SW: Visualization software	1	1		4	2	9	5	22	5.36	1.62
GRID: File Transfer			2	1	1	5	13	22	6.18	1.30	-0.10
NGF: File and Directory Operations				1	1	8	12	22	6.41	0.80
Live classes on the web				5	1	9	6	21	5.76	1.14	0.04	0.61
GRID: Job Monitoring	1			2		4	13	20	6.20	1.54	-0.30
DaVinci SW: Visualization software		1		2	1	6	9	19	6.00	1.37	0.57
GRID: Job Submission	1			1	1	2	14	19	6.32	1.53	-0.21
DaVinci SW: Fortran compilers	1				1	6	10	18	6.22	1.44
TRAINING: NERSC classes: in-person				4	2	3	9	18	5.94	1.26	-0.18	0.46
Jacquard SW: Visualization software				1	3	6	7	17	6.12	0.93	0.58
PDSF SW: Fortran compilers				1	3	6	7	17	6.12	0.93	-0.08	0.25
DaVinci SW: C/C++ compilers					1	3	9	13	6.62	0.65

All Importance Topics

Importance Ratings: 3=Very important, 2=Somewhat important, 1=Not important
Satisfaction Ratings: 7=Very satisfied, 6=Mostly satisfied, 5=Somewhat satisfied, 4=Neutral, 3=Somewhat dissatisfied, 2=Mostly dissatisfied, 1=Very dissatisfied

Item	Num who rated this item as:			Total Responses for Importance	Average Importance Score	Std. Dev.	Total Responses for Satisfaction	Average Satisfaction Score	Std. Dev.	Change from 2005	Change from 2004	Change from 2003
	1	2	3
OVERALL: Satisfaction with NERSC		31	202	233	2.87	0.34	249	6.31	1.01	0.11	0.21	-0.06
OVERALL: Available Computing Hardware	3	31	189	223	2.83	0.41	237	6.19	0.82	0.30	0.53	0.06
Account support services	2	40	144	186	2.76	0.45	202	6.64	0.76	-0.09	-0.04	0.25
SERVICES: Allocations process	3	31	119	153	2.76	0.47	165	6.28	0.85	0.12	0.35	0.59
OVERALL: Consulting and Support Services	4	52	167	223	2.73	0.48	236	6.53	0.85	-0.20	-0.14	0.16
OVERALL: Network connectivity	5	49	159	213	2.72	0.50	230	6.27	1.02	-0.18	-0.11	0.04
SERVICES: Response to special requests (e.g. disk quota increases, etc.)	4	26	59	89	2.62	0.57	98	6.24	1.08	-0.11	0.17	-0.11
OVERALL: Hardware management and configuration	7	68	122	197	2.58	0.56	213	6.07	1.15	0.09	0.18	-0.00
OVERALL: Software management and configuration	10	75	104	189	2.50	0.60	198	6.05	1.13	-0.17	-0.14	0.01
OVERALL: Available Software	9	90	109	208	2.48	0.58	219	5.97	1.08	-0.22	-0.26	-0.08
NERSC security	21	83	121	225	2.44	0.66	235	6.30	1.11	-0.31	-0.18
OVERALL: Mass storage facilities	31	71	80	182	2.27	0.74	172	6.16	1.08	-0.16	-0.20	0.04
Off-hours 24x7 Computer and ESnet Operations support	14	38	38	90	2.27	0.72	88	6.03	1.37
SERVICES: E-mail lists	19	40	24	83	2.06	0.72	89	6.18	1.03	0.10	0.06
OVERALL: Data analysis and visualization facilities	54	57	45	156	1.94	0.80	128	5.37	1.22	-0.28	-0.04
SERVICES: Visualization services	26	15	13	54	1.76	0.82	29	5.69	1.31	-0.14	0.28	0.88
NERSC CVS server	23	11	6	40	1.57	0.75	24	6.00	1.10	-0.21	0.67

All Usefulness Topics

3=Very useful, 2=Somewhat useful, 1=Not useful

Item	Num who rated this item as:			Total Responses	Average Score	Std. Dev.
	1	2	3
SERVICES: E-mail lists	1	38	156	195	2.79	0.42
TRAINING: New User's Guide	1	25	69	95	2.72	0.48
TRAINING: Web tutorials	5	27	59	91	2.59	0.60
MOTD (Message of the Day)	18	71	82	171	2.37	0.67
SERVICES: Announcements web archive	15	87	68	170	2.31	0.63
Live classes on the web	7	13	12	32	2.16	0.77
Phone calls from NERSC	34	43	50	127	2.13	0.81
TRAINING: NERSC classes: in-person	11	11	12	34	2.03	0.83

2006 User Survey Results: Overall Satisfaction and Importance

• Legend
• Overall Satisfaction with NERSC
• How important to you is?