Upcoming moves and Updates

Things have generally been “steady-state” with regards to the office moves, and we’re picking up the last pieces. Some notes.

• The copier/printer on 4 (4171) is still awaiting its PostScript module. (I referenced the wrong printer in my last post.)
• A color copier/printer will be installed at 2D11, but is not here yet.
• Fax modules will get installed such that there’s at least one copier that can send faxes per floor.
• The big color plotter is awaiting repair. Remember to check with the help desk if you want to print to it.

We’ve had one full week in the new building, and now our group’s attention must turn back to 221. In slightly less than two weeks, we begin the process of moving our computing infrastructure from the datacenters in 221 (known affectionately as the BMR and the LMR) into the ginormous datacenter here in 240 (known affectionately to me as The Computorium).As such, a lot of our concentration and effort will be going towards getting things packed up or retired. Then, on Friday, October 2, the first move will happen. Two weeks later, the second and last move will happen. We’ve got our schedule of moves set up, so here’s what to expect in terms of moves and downtimes:Move I: October 2-4

• Remaining TeraGrid infrastructure
• NMPDR and IGSB infrastructure
• The Cosmea compute cluster
• LCRC PVFS fileservers

Move II: October 16-18

• Full Disclosure
• Breadboard
• kbT compute cluster
• I2U2 resources
• LCRC DDN storage system
• MCS Core Computing infrastructure

In each of these cases, the resource in question will go down on the Friday before the move (at some point in the day, depending on the resource), and get prepped for move. First thing Saturday morning, the movers will move the equipment into the Computorium, at which point we’ll start hooking things back up and have things operational as soon as possible.I’ll leave it to the administrators of the individual resources to prep you for what you can expect, but as indicated above, you should generally not expect the resource to be available until the Monday following the move (though we’ll obviously strive for getting things up as quickly as possible).Of note is the second move, which contains the MCS core computing resources. Here’s a general schedule of what you can expect for that on the weekend of October 16-18.

• October 16
• 5:00 PM: general core computing resources go down. At this point, all login nodes, compute machines, file servers, etc., will be offline as we pull cables and prepare the machines for the move.
• Note: This should not affect mail service. Reading and sending mail will definitely be unaffected, receiving of new mail may be delayed, but we’re working to avoid that.
• October 17
• Very early in the morning, movers start moving gear to the Computorium.
• If all goes well with no snags, we should be operational before 5:00 PM, however the outage window is still until Monday in case things go other than smoothly.

There you have it! We’re shooting to keep downtimes to a minimum and make these weekends go as smoothly for you (and *us*) as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you, and if you see a showstopper in one of the dates above, let us know ASAP.I’m looking forward to seeing computers in that big ole room across the atrium!Here’s to Fortune’s favor, may we find it!