Our Reproducibility Ambassadors Are Heading to FAST '26 — Here's What to Expect
Two PhD students selected through the Reproducibility Ambassador program funded by the NSF REPETO project are heading to FAST '26 to share how researchers can package and reproduce their experiments using Chameleon Trovi. Join them on February 24th and 25th to see it in action.
A guide to creating, attaching, and managing persistent volumes for VMs
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Feb. 17, 2026
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Mark Powers
Since KVM@TACC now requires bounded reservations, VM instances and their data are deleted when reservations end. While snapshots can preserve entire instances, persistent volumes offer a more flexible solution for storing experiment scripts and data that persists independently of your VM lifecycle. This guide walks through creating volumes via the GUI, partitioning and mounting storage, and extending volumes as your storage needs grow.
Testbed updates, new features, webinars, and other exciting news from our user community
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Feb. 2, 2026
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Marc Richardson
2026 is in full swing now. The Chameleon team in Chicago is struggling to keep warm, but the cold isn’t slowing down our momentum as we enter a new year. This newsletter brings upcoming changes to Trovi and the appliance catalog, with announcements about open registration for the 6th Chameleon User Meeting (Boulder, CO, April 15-16), a reminder to submit to the call for presentations, and upcoming webinars (next up: How to Use CHI@Edge to Enable Edge to Cloud Experimentation on Feb. 17th).
Early registration pricing ends Feb. 28th, 2026 - Save Your Seat!
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Jan. 30, 2026
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Marc Richardson
Registration is now open for the 6th Chameleon User Meeting (April 15-16, 2026) at NCAR Mesa Lab in Boulder, CO!
Register now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/6th-chameleon-user-meeting-tickets-1982009337282
Early pricing ends Feb. 28.
Researchers demonstrate that linking resource costs to energy consumption can reduce HPC energy use by 40%
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Jan. 26, 2026
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Alok Kamatar
A survey of 300+ HPC users reveals that fewer than 30% are aware of their energy consumption. This research introduces Energy-Based and Carbon-Based Accounting models that tie computing costs to environmental impact, demonstrating through real experiments and simulations that such incentives can dramatically reduce energy use while maintaining scientific productivity.
Learn about our recent upgrades to resource discovery and reservations on Chameleon
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Jan. 19, 2026
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Paul Marshall
We’re excited to shine a spotlight on the recently refreshed hardware discovery browser on Chameleon! Launched a little while ago, this upgrade makes it easier and faster to pinpoint the exact hardware you need for your experiments, connecting you directly to real-time scheduling and reservations.
As you most likely know, Chameleon offers dedicated, reservable resources. That means your work gets exclusive access to the nodes you choose but navigating hardware specs and reservation calendars together can sometimes be a bit of frustration.
The new resource discovery experience helps you link “what hardware am I getting?” with “when can I actually …
Testbed updates, new features, webinars, and other exciting news from our user community
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Jan. 5, 2026
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Mark Powers
This past month brings 2025 to a close and also exciting updates, including a year in review, Trovi improvements, and a CHI@Edge artifact, along with announcements about upcoming webinars (next up: How to Organize Artifact Evaluations (AEs) with Shared Infrastructure on Jan. 13th), our call for presentations for our sixth user meeting at NCAR’s campus in Boulder, and highlights from our newly appointed reproducibility ambassadors.
Using Large Language Models to Automate P4 Policy Generation for Dynamic Software-Defined Networks
Modern networks are growing increasingly complex, and managing them effectively requires sophisticated policy configurations that can adapt in real-time. Languages that enable direct programmability of network data planes, like P4, offer unprecedented control over packet processing, but come at a steep learning cost. This raises a crucial question: can we automate the generation of these complex network policies while ensuring they're correct, efficient, and adaptable? NetPrompt is a novel framework that harnesses the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) to automatically generate and optimize P4 scripts for Software-Defined Networks (SDN). Read more to learn how the research team implement NetPrompt …
Updates on Chameleon during the winter break
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Dec. 17, 2025
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Mark Powers
As we approach the holiday season, we’d like to thank you once again for being a part of our wonderful Chameleon community!
Please keep in mind the following adjustments in our schedule over the next few weeks:
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The Chameleon Help Desk will be closed from Wednesday, December 24 until January 5th.
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As tradition, between December 19 to the 23rd, we’ll permit you to make 14-day leases for nodes and VMs that typically have 7-day limits.
Tips and Tricks for Resolving Common Help Desk Tickets
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Dec. 15, 2025
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Marc Richardson
It's the end of the year, so that means it's time for our annual Tickets of the Year blog! This blog covers some of our most common help desk tickets and provides solutions, so it can hopefully be a helpful reference if you run into any of these problems. If you need more help, the best places to look would be the docs, the FAQ, or submitting a new ticket to the help desk.