Term Goals Spring 2016 - Research Support Group

Master ST#104569

Hardware Acquisition, Deployment, and Lifecycle Management

Objective: timely deployment of desktop/laptop equipment to incoming graduate students

• S16 (INF/RSG) acquire and deploy equipment for incoming F16 students by 31 August, for equipment choices/locations identified by the grad office before 10 August - ST#106458
  • order in July based on grad office estimates and historical data

Machine Rooms

• Objective: redundant machine rooms to host CS on-line services
  • S16 (INF): improved bandwidth between CS machine rooms to support replicated services - ST#

File storage

• Implement Distributed File Service - Lawrence/Lori w/Dave/Anthony (ST#98307)
  • Dave/Lawrence/Lori to create updated proposal for January 2016

Database services

• Review the use of PostGRES vs MySQL for ongoing development projects
  • not a priority. Maybe decide which to favour for future development?
• look at other applications that are not on MySQL cluster and decide if they need to move
• understand Odyssey/PostGRES infrastructure - have Isaac provide overview to Ken/cscf-mgmt/Daniel

Networking

Machine Room Interconnect

• 40 Gb networking

Firewall

• • Overall: 88134
    • Finish group consultations (send email to all groups)- Lawrence / RSG staff
      • move all research and client networks behind the firewall

CSCF Special Projects

Exam Management System - Isaac

• have a designated backup
  • software/development/database - Daniel
    • Daniel tracking such notes in ST#104023
  • operation/PoC - Nick
    • have Nick be the primary Point of Contact for EMS work for ISG - ST#104199
    • Isaac to work with other groups on campus to find operational Points of Contact

Grad TA Evaluations - Isaac

• ST#52768
  • begin implementation of evaluations - Phase 1 document
    • trial for Spring term

Inventory - Daniel

• Inventory web application deployed 2009 for CSCF - ST#76671 - Daniel
  • Project to review desired features/changes and decide on priority, eg:
    • Desirable feature-add: plan to integrate ONA (likely won't happne this term)
    • Explore Machine Room mapping / inventory (RackTables / MachineRoomMap) - will need input from Dave, Dan and MFCF
      • need concept of "reserved" space for future planning of space (rack, room, etc.)
      • in progress by Evan/Devon - ST#95545
    • See also #Nagios below
    • SALT-stack integration
    • new equipment types
    • "parent" records

OAT - Isaac

• Overhaul data import to use new data source and provide admissions data - ST#92317
  • still waiting on IST Enterprise Architecture to provide all of the required data

OGSAS - Isaac

• Overhaul to use new datasource and deal with requests from Associate Director Grad Studies (Urs) - ST#?
  • blocked on waiting for the OAT data (see above)

Research Subscription System - Daniel

• Research Subscription web application for CSCF management (re-)deployed June 2011 - ST#78100 - Daniel

ST

• by end of W16: have decision about the future of ST / job-tracking in CSCF - ST#103960
  • met with MFCF, received RT requirements spreadsheet
  • updated spreadsheet to V2

CSCF internal services

Machine Rooms

DC 3556 (Research Machine Room)

DC 3558 (CS Infrastructure Room)

Monitoring

• Report when server hits predefined temperature limit - Gordon
  • 97155
  • Note: confirm with PLG that they're ok with them paying for it (confirmed - see ST#97155, original email from Peter asking about these sensors)

Research computing

Graduate student workstations

• Streamline the AD join process - Mike / Clayton
  • 101333
  • Milestone: revised script that works with current image for Winter 2016 post-install steps
    • Future: (Winter 2016) Update for Spring/Fall 2016 image
    • Mike says that he has done some work in improving the AD script. Need to document in above ST or note related ST
    • ensure that these scripts are in a system directory (not under ~ctucker or ~magore)

HPC

generic cluster ("paper")

• Rack hardware we have in DC 3558 A1 - Lawrence/Lori/Mike/CSCF Coop
  • 99112
  • Rack existing hardware into A1, start building cluster - Lori
  • Report time spent on this project
    • Rack A1 has been emptied and we're now adding hardware to it
    • snowballs and squall can be taken - coordinate with Ronaldo

Ganglia Portal - Wishlist - ST#98196

• VM to be created
• build initial ganglia system - Lori

Research Storage capacity

• catalogue existing storage systems, capacity and current use "swing space" - Lori/RSG
  • part of the 10Gb initiative (see above)

Visitor loaner equipment / Researcher-owned machines

• Workstation imaging: Streamline via Clonezilla - Click'N'Go - Mike
• Milestone: coordinate with Phil (and Dave and Lawrence) to ensure this process is available to CSI

Administration

Billing

• Spring 2016 bills by end of May - ST#105574
  • need to determine how to handle faculty refund based on labour refund ($46k)

CSCF Retreat

• Planning lead - Lawrence - ST#103743
  • follow-up session May/June 2016 - discuss "meetings"

Research Groups

AI - Mike

BIF - Mike

• rebuild m160 File storage from 40TB and 60TB xfs to 100TB zfs - W16 - Mike / Lori - ST#104138

Boutaba - Ronaldo

• update Documentation of CN cluster - ST#93800
  • remove reference to old servers/setup and replace with the new
• decommission the insurance-replaced servers - Lawrence/Ronaldo

Brecht - Lori

• Migrate rocket to new server - Ronaldo / Lori
  • Lori - ST#101572

Cabernet - Mike/Lori

• Upgrade cluster OS to 14.04 (priority)
  • 100316
• Upgrade GPUs? Lori/Mike
  • 98349
• Goals for W16:
  • have Justin decide whether he will get updated hardware
  • upgrade the OS to 14.04
• Status:
  • GPU and OS updated on Node 16
  • query sent to Justin
  • cabernet has a bad drive and a bad PSU - is it worth spending time/money? (Lori)

Daytona - Lori

DB/DSG - Gordon

Games Institute - Lori

HCI - Ronaldo

• migrate hci-web to a newer machine (formerly snap-host) - ST#95233
• purchase and install new equipment - ST#102594

HI - Gordon

Himrod - Lori

ISS4E (Keshav)- Ronaldo

• Documentation - Ronaldo
  • update to reference new systems and remove old (including MachineNotes)
• re-organize file space / backup of NAS, repurpose the backup server (tsunami&flood)

NPSG - Gordon

PLG - Gordon

Ripple - Lori

SciCom - Mike

• Upgrade elora.cs to 14.04 - Mike - ST#103776

SWAG - Mike

• Install in DC 3558
  • 99914

Watform - Ronaldo

• migrate repository to new server - ST#90710
• Documentation - update to remove reference to old servers - ST#78634

ideas for RSG for Spring Term

• rebuild m160 File storage from 40TB and 60TB xfs to 100TB zfs - W16 - Mike / Lori - ST#104138
• Service Catalogue - Daniel / Lawrence - ST#104292
• CSCF Client survey - Lawrence/Omar/Dave
• From the retreat
  • Create an index of our current ST items based on ST categories and keywords
  • Develop / execute survey of faculty, staff, students about what services they would like
  • document inventory testing
  • analyse web logs for client searches/requests
  • link index to documentation
  • other possible service offerings
  • direction of development tools / DBS
  • Accounts management
• Isaac
  • roll out Grad TA evaluations
  • CrowdMark / Learn integration
    • plans to be functional by the end of this term
    • just needs to be pushed to CrowdMark for IMS-created exams, rather than created directly out of Learn
    • CrowdMark just needs to read the data that Isaac is pushing out and then it can feed back into Learn
• Daniel
  • Service Catalogue - Daniel / Lawrence - ST#104292 - investigative? * would be great to be ready at the end of Spring term to be ready to start implementing the catalogue for the Fall (or Winter) term * important - this implies getting a common agreement on what is our list of "services"
  • document inventory testing - well underway, commit to having it well documented for Spring could be a good thing
    • what does "success" look like?
    • automated testing plan that will test each release, and will be in-sync with the manual testing plan, and how to add new tests
  • discussion of development/DB direction for future - Isaac/Daniel/Ken
  • ST -> RT - start developing a plan for what needs to be developed - how would we work with IST on co-development?
  • migrating CS web site - coordination with IST and MFCF * uwaterloo.ca/computer-science vs cs.uwaterloo.ca reverse-proxy (?) * see ST# ?? for the costs outlined by Daniel of the implications of various options, and who runs what servers 1) cs.uwaterloo.ca/whatever -> cs.uwaterloo.ca/whaterver (on UW drupal server) - good 2) uwaterloo.ca/computer-science/whatever -> uwaterloo.ca/computer-science/whatever - bad 3) uwaterloo.ca/search -> [search result on cs.uwaterloo.ca] -> cs.uwaterloo.ca/whatever (on UW drupal server) - good
  • accounts management - better UI tools (CSCF/MFCF/IST?) - investigation/planning only for Spring
  • thinking about AssetMan - implications for our future ...

Other ideas for Spring 2016 - not necessarily RSG

• Course Master's lab - move/refresh - ST#104443
• linux.cs - two servers @ 14.04
• migrate CS web site
• migrate to IST absence management - ST#104369
• create a 3-year plan for all of CSCF services
• Unified job description - managers