New center storage system

Dear Users,

 

We apologize for the late notification. However we have some really good news.

 

HPC2N has during the summer and early autumn procured, tested and deployed a new center storage system which will replace the old, aging GPFS based system. The new system is a DDN SFA 12KX and Exascaler solution using Lustre as the underlying filesystem. The new storage system consists of 1PB storage and will be up to 25 times faster, depending on I/O pattern, than the old one. 

 

The time has now come to the point where we are going to make the transition from the old system to the new one, for all users. This will happen during the cooling system maintenance window on Tue Oct 14:th, starting at 06.30. 

 

Almost all data have already been transferred from the old system the the new one. The remaining operations are a reinstallation of the login nodes of both Abisko and Akka[1] and a final synchronization of data. This might force us to increase the length of the service window somewhat.

 

During this final data transfer the old GPFS file system will be unavailable to users. 

 

Trying to make the transition as smooth as possible for all of you, we will keep the same search paths as today. The switch should work as a drop-in replacement but we can't predict all possible corner cases, so...

 

If you notice anything peculiar about the new storage DO notify us IMMEDIATELY by contacting HPC2N support at support@hpc2n.umu.se.

 

If you have added ACLs to some directories then please notify us so we can transfer those too. 

 

If you have done anything else out of the ordinary then please notify us.

 

As with the current storage system, there will be no backup of the new system. It is intended for “scratch”-storage during the run of your jobs. Even if the new system is about ten times larger than the old one, it is still limited in space and we encourage you to remove files that are no longer needed. See [2] for more information about the various file systems at HPC2N.

 

The documentation and some of the scripts/tools have not been updated yet. We will do it as quickly as possible. If you find something that is not working please let us know.

 

Later on we will probably make changes and updates to the structure and policies for

the storage. More information about that later.

 

[1] This also means that /scratch on Abisko and Akka will be cleared. If you have any data on /scratch make sure that you make a copy of that before we do the reinstallation.

 

[2] /documentation/filesystems/overview

 

Mon, 2014-10-13 13:48 | Åke Sandgren