2012; A Grid Odyessy

We haven't published on the blog since September this year which is a bit remiss of us.
There are many reasons for this. Primarily we have been working through the final back log of the DRI grant until October. The expansion of the Glasgow site to 4000 cores, terra scale networking and changes to the disk farm have not been simple. Once the long standing issues with the internal data network were resolved with the upgrade to the Extreme Networks equipment, additional issues around the placement of data by DPM became evident. This was not a non trivial task to investigate. Stuart and Sam are in the process of developing a software patch for allowing a more sensible placement of data files within the cluster.

In addition to this work, we are currently considering software and hardware changes to our data storage architecture in the new year. More of this in January.

Again this year Glasgow has been plagued with infrastructure issues which have caused several major issues to the site's operation. We are now in a position where there is a major upgrade programme underway to deliver a more robust power, fire suppression and air conditioning system throughout the computer rooms.

While these combined issues have caused a large number of issues the Glasgow site saw a return to 100 % availability and reliability metrics for November on the WLCG accounting earlier this week.
Hopefully, this is how we will continue through the Christmas period and into 2013.

As the end of winter is upon us with the winter solstice being just over 15 days away and Christmas following shortly behind it we would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for all of those at Scotgrid.