New HPC cluster
It’s been a while since the HPC cluster has had a major update. Over the last few weeks we’ve been planning and constructing a new test environment. One of the major issues on the horizon is the impending demise of…
HPC 2020 update
TL;DR; – The cluster head node operating system, firmware and storage system have all been patched\upgraded. – The wall time for ada has been increased from 72 to 170 hours – Matlab is now available on the cluster Cluster…
Mellanox MLNX_OFED_LINUX driver update issue
This is an updated entry for the issue we encountered last year upgrading our HPC servers and Infiniband drivers. An updated installation ISO needs to be created that allows kernel support for the newly updated kernel. To create the ISO…
Jan 2016 UCT HPC maintenance
What follows is a critical report on the cluster upgrade. Our plan was to upgrade the cluster operating systems on all servers and to bring the FHGFS file system up to the latest supported release, BGFS. Additionally we planned to…
HPC January maintenance
The ICTS hex cluster will be down for scheduled maintenance from Monday January 11th 09:00 to Tuesday January 12th 17:00. The head node, data node and all worker nodes will be patched and rebooted, hence all jobs should be canceled…
Docker and the UCT eResearch HPC
“Build, Ship, and Run Any App, Anywhere” is a bold statement to make but it sure does live up to it. For the past few weeks the team has been working on incorporating Docker into the UCT eResearch HPC Cluster…
SLES12 HPC Live Patching using kGraft
The end of another week has brought about some exciting developments in eResearch HPC. We have upgraded the series700 nodes from SLES11sp3 to SLES12. The main reason for the upgrade was to test the live patching technology called” kGraft”. HPC…
System Administrator Appreciation Day
Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Often a thankless task, but today ICTS management bought all the department’s system administrators pizza for lunch, no small task as evidenced by a 31U rack of pizza boxes. …
Maintenance feedback
What went right?
- The HPC rack was neatened up. This involved moving and consolidating servers, making space for PDU's and removing redundant cables that were impeding airflow. New HPC servers were installed. This task took two entire days as other