Accessing the Bon Echo cluster (updated January 2026)

Starting in early 2026, the Scientific Computing is implementing changes to the Bon Echo environment that will affect how users access the cluster and run workflows there. There are several key changes that are being rolled out, with an expectation that these will all go live in February.

Notable changes include:

The original login nodes (ie. v.vectorinstitute.ai and vlogin.vectorinstitute.ai) are being retired and replaced.
All the GPU nodes are getting an OS upgrade to Ubuntu 24. This means that old Python environments and installed packages may no longer work.
The system software modules listed under module avail (for example python/3.12.0 or pytorch2.1-cuda11.8-python3.10) will be different.
Many changes to the file system layout.

This document demonstrates all the new login instructions, explains all the changes in detail and shows what to do to update your workflows to work in the new environment.