Clusters and other high performance servers require maintenance. Documented procedures reduce surprises for both enabling scheduled maintenance and emergency work.
Scheduled maintenance and upgrades procedures
ChemIT notifies cluster lead that maintenance will occur on a specific upcoming date.
- What is a long enough lead time for the group?
- What is a short enough lead time for ChemIT?
Message will state:
- Date and time of shut-down. Expected duration of shut-down.
- Most events will occur Mon-Thur, 9am-5pm EST, when staffing and backup folks are available.
- Purpose summary.
Message will be sent to:
- Whom?
Sample message:
To: ?
Subject: PI's ClusterName: Date/ time planned down-time.
To all users of the PI's ClusterName,
On Date/ time, the cluster will be down for planned maintenance for 3 hours.
During this down-time, we intend to:
- Update the OS of the storage system.
- Update the BIOS of the 4 GPU clusters.
- Test new GPU software capabilities
Ideas
Establish a schedule for at least 6 month out. Why? Used by whom? What of things changing?
Emergency work procedures
ChemIT learn of the emergency situation.
- The most common is a power outage.
Typical work done during maintenance
Update BIOS (and why it's done...)
Update OS
Update...
Test UPS
Test backups
Test...