Author: mweiner3

Summary: The Phoenix scheduler became nonresponsive overnight and was restored at approximately 9:00 AM today.

Details: Last night, the Phoenix scheduler became nonresponsive, likely shortly after midnight. The PACE team restarted the scheduler and restored its function just before 9:00 this morning.

Impact: Commands such as “qsub” and “qstat” would not have worked, so new jobs could not be submitted early this morning. Running jobs were not interrupted.

Thank you for your patience early this morning. Please contact us at pace-support@oit.gatech.edu with any questions.

Summary: Hive project & scratch storage cable replacement and potential for an outage

Details: A cable connecting the Hive GPFS device, hosting project (data) and scratch storage, to one of its controllers needs to be replaced, beginning around 10:00 AM Tuesday (April 12).

Impact: Since there is a redundant controller, no impact is expected. However, a similar previous replacement caused storage to become unavailable, so this is a possibility. If the redundant controller fails, your job may fail or run without making progress. If you have such a job, please cancel it and resubmit it once storage availability is restored. PACE will monitor Hive GPFS storage throughout this procedure. In the event of a loss of availability occurs, we will update you.

If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

[Update 4/4/22 12:25 PM]

Summary: [Resolved] Free tier charge account balances did not reset on April 1. A manual reset was performed on April 4.

Details: The deleted Perl library that prevented job submissions last Thursday night and Friday morning also caused an error in the monthly reset of free tier charge account balances at midnight on Friday, April 1. Other accounts that reset on a monthly basis were not impacted. PACE manually reset all free tier account balances just before noon today.

Impact: Job submissions to free tier accounts over the last three days would have succeeded only if sufficient leftover balance from March remained. At this time, all free tier accounts have been reset to their full monthly allocation, and jobs run prior to the reset will not count towards April utilization. All faculty and their teams now have access to their full April free tier allocation. Researchers can run the “pace-quota” command to view their available charge accounts and balances.

We apologize for any disruption this may have caused. Please contact us at pace-support@oit.gatech.edu with any questions.

[Original Message 4/1/22 8:49 AM]

Summary: [Resolved] Phoenix users attempting to submit jobs have received an error message that they are not authorized for their charge account.

Details: Beginning yesterday evening, Phoenix users attempting to submit jobs have at times received an error message indicating that they are not authorized for charge accounts to which they should have access. PACE deployed a temporary repair at 6:45 PM yesterday. The issue recurred at midnight, and the temporary repair was again made at 8:15 AM today. We have now identified the root cause as a deleted Perl library on the scheduler and deployed a permanent fix.

Impact: At this time, researchers are again able to submit jobs. Please resubmit any rejected jobs with the usual charge account. Researchers can run the “pace-quota” command to view their available charge accounts and balances. No running jobs were impacted.

We apologize for this disruption. Please contact us at pace-support@oit.gatech.edu with any questions.

 

 

PACE is nearing the conclusion of our user records and data audit, and we would like to share with you several updates to how PACE handles data stored on our storage systems and the role of schools in managing that data.

PACE takes responsibility for the storage of all data from our old systems in the Rich datacenter that has not been assigned to a current member of the faculty. All of this data has been inaccessible to all users since December 1, 2020. Any school that wishes to do so may request data of a former faculty member and thereby assume responsibility for the data and for the cost of continuing to store it on PACE (unless it is relocated), in accordance with the Data Retention Guidelines provided by the GT administration and shared with you at this time. If the school does not make such a request, PACE will cover the cost of storing this data until July 2024, then delete anything that has not been requested.

All data left on PACE by faculty who departed the Institute after July 1, 2021, will follow the Data Retention Guidelines. Under these guidelines, the faculty member’s former school will be responsible for the data and the cost of storing it on PACE, relocating it to another storage system, or determining it can be deleted while complying with any relevant regulations and contracts. The 1 TB provided to each school at no charge on Phoenix may be used to store these files. Schools also have the option of purchasing PACE Archive storage, which is designed for long-term retention of data that does not need to be used regularly on PACE compute clusters.

If you have any questions about PACE storage, please contact PACE at pace-support@oit.gatech.edu, and we’ll be happy to discuss it with you.

[Update 3/1/22 6:40 PM]

The Phoenix scheduler is restored after the PACE team rebooted the server hosting the Moab workload manager. Thank you for your patience while we performed this repair. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

[Original Post 3/1/22 5:20 PM]

Summary: Phoenix scheduler outage prevents new jobs from starting

What’s happening and what are we doing: The Phoenix scheduler is currently experiencing an outage as the server hosting the Moab workload manager is unavailable. The PACE team is actively investigating and working to bring the scheduler back in service.

How does this impact me: New jobs on Phoenix will not be able to start. While you can submit jobs, they will remain in the queue until service is restored. Running jobs should not be impacted and will continue to run. You may find that Moab commands, including “showq” and others, are not responsive.

What we will continue to do: PACE will continue working to restore functionality to the Phoenix scheduler. We will provide updates as they are available.

Please accept our sincere apology for any inconvenience that this temporary limitation may cause you. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

Summary: Battery replacement on Phoenix project & scratch storage will impact performance on Thursday, March 3.

What’s happening and what are we doing: Power supply units on the Phoenix Lustre storage device, holding project and scratch storage, need to be replaced. During the replacement, which will begin at approximately 10 AM on Thursday, March 3, storage will shift to write-through mode, and performance will be impacted. Once the UPS batteries in the new units are sufficiently charged, performance will return to normal.

How does this impact me: Phoenix project and scratch performance will be impacted until the fresh batteries have sufficiently charged, which should take several hours. Jobs may progress more slowly than normal. If your job runs out of wall time and is cancelled by the scheduler, please resubmit it to run again.

What we will continue to do: PACE will monitor Phoenix storage throughout this procedure.

Thank you for your patience as we complete this replacement. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

[Update 2/23/2022 3:00 PM]

[Update 2/22/2022 5:28pm]

We are following up with an update on the Phoenix storage (project and scratch) slowness issues that have persisted since previous reporting.  We have engaged our storage and fabric vendors as we work to address this issue.  Based on our current assessment, we have identified possible problematic server racks, which are offlined. Scheduler remains online, but Phoenix is operating under reduced capacity, and we ask users to refrain from submitting new jobs unless they are urgent.  We will continue to provide updates to users daily going forward as we work to address this issue.

Please accept our sincere apologies for this inconvenience, and if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

 

[Update 2/17/22 5:15 PM]

The PACE team and our storage vendor continue actively working to restore Lustre’s performance. We will provide updates as additional information becomes available. Please contact us at pace-support@oit.gatech.edu if you have any questions.

[Original Post 2/17/22 10:30 AM]

Summary: Phoenix Lustre project & scratch storage degraded performance

What’s happening and what are we doing: Phoenix project and scratch storage have been performing more slowly than normal since late yesterday afternoon. We have determined that the Phoenix Lustre device, hosting project and scratch storage, is experiencing errors and are working with our storage support vendor to restore performance.

How does this impact me: Researchers may experience slow performance using Phoenix project and scratch storage. This may include slowness in listing files in directories, reading files, or running jobs on Lustre storage. Home directories should not be impacted.

What we will continue to do: PACE is actively working, in coordination with our support vendor, to restore Lustre to full performance. We will update you as more information becomes available.

Please accept our sincere apology for any inconvenience that this temporary limitation may cause you. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

[Update 1/26/22 6:00 PM]

Due to complications associated with a similar repair on the Hive cluster this morning, we have decided to postpone replacement of the storage cable on the Phoenix cluster. This repair to the Phoenix Lustre project & scratch storage will now occur during our upcoming maintenance period.

If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

[Update 1/26/22 5:45 PM]

The PACE team, working with our support vendor, has restored the Hive GPFS project & scratch storage system, and the scheduler is again starting jobs.

We have followed up directly with all individuals with potentially impacted jobs from this morning. Please resubmit any jobs that failed.

Please accept our sincere apology for any inconvenience that this outage may have caused you. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

[Update 1/26/22 10:40 AM]

The Hive GPFS storage system is down at this time, so Hive project (data) and scratch storage are unavailable. The PACE team is currently working to restore access. In order to avoid further disruption, we have paused the Hive scheduler, so no additional jobs will start. Jobs that were already running may fail or run without making progress. If you have such a job, please cancel it and resubmit it once storage availability is restored.

We will update you when the system is restored.

[Original Post 1/24/22 1:25 PM]

Summary: Hive project & scratch storage cable replacement potential outage and subsequent temporary decreased performance

What’s happening and what are we doing: A cable connecting one enclosure of the Hive GPFS device, hosting project (data) and scratch storage, to one of its controllers needs to be replaced, beginning around 10:00 AM Wednesday (January 26). After the replacement, pools will need to rebuild over the course of about a day.

How does this impact me: Since there is a redundant controller, there should not be an outage during the cable replacement. However, a similar previous replacement caused storage to become unavailable, so this is a possibility. If this happens, your job may fail or run without making progress. If you have such a job, please cancel it and resubmit it once storage availability is restored.
In addition, performance will be slower than usual for a day following the repair as pools rebuild. Jobs may progress more slowly than normal. If your job runs out of wall time and is cancelled by the scheduler, please resubmit it to run again.

What we will continue to do: PACE will monitor Hive GPFS storage throughout this procedure. In the event of a loss of availability occurs, we will update you.

Please accept our sincere apology for any inconvenience that this temporary limitation may cause you. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.

[Update 1/10/22 3:45 PM]

Testflight environments are now available for you to prepare for the upgrade of PACE’s Phoenix, Hive, and Firebird clusters to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.9 operating system from RHEL 7.6 during the February 9-11 maintenance period. The required upgrade will improve the security of our clusters to comply with GT Cybersecurity policies. 

All PACE researchers are strongly encouraged to test all workflows they regularly run-on PACE. Please conduct your testing at your earliest convenience to avoid delays to your research. An OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) upgrade requires rebuilding our MPI software, including updates and modifications to our scientific software repository. PACE is providing updated modules for all our Message Passing Interface (MPI) options. 

For details of what to test and how to access our Testflight-Coda (Phoenix) and Testflight-Hive environments, please visit our RHEL7.9 upgrade documentation.  

Please let us know if you encounter any issues with the upgraded environment. Our weekly PACE Consulting Sessions are a great opportunity to work with PACE’s facilitation team on your testing and upgrade preparation. Visit the schedule of upcoming sessions to find the next opportunity.  

If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.