27 Aug

Planned Network Maintenance on Wednesday September 4, 2024

To the HPCf community:

On Wednesday September 4, 2024, HPCf staff will be performing maintenance on the HPCf network in order to install new equipment. For this purpose, HPCf staff have reserved a maintenance window starting at 10:00 am and ending at 12:00 pm that day. Although we do not anticipate a service interruption longer than 15 min, we have reserved a two-hour window in case we need to address any unforeseen issues.

We appreciate your understanding, and we apologize for the inconvenience this maintenance may cause to your work.

23 Aug

Planned Network Maintenance on Thursday August 24, 2023

To the HPCf community:

Tomorrow, Thursday August 24, 2023, the HPCf’s network will undergo maintenance in order to migrate the HPCf’s circuit from Claro to Liberty.  The migration will be carried out starting at 8:00 am. During the maintenance window, HPCf and IX-PR services will experience a short interruption.

We apologize for the inconvenience this maintenance may create.

Thank you for your understanding.

22 Jun

Boqueron Back Online – June 22, 2020

Boqueron’s replacement switch has finally been installed and Boqueron is back online. Users should be able to log back in and use the cluster normally.

Before resuming your work, we invite you to take a few moments to back up all your data currently on Boqueron. Please remember that, per our Storage Policy:

Boqueron is not meant to provide reliable long-term storage. We do our best to keep users’ data safe, but by making use of the HPCf cluster (and HPCf systems in general), users agree that they are the ones ultimately responsible for keeping their own data safe, including keeping their own backups outside of HPCf systems.

We thank you for your patience during this outage and we apologize for the impact it no doubt had on your work. As always, please send any questions or comments to help(at)hpcf.upr.edu, and we will gladly get back to you.

03 Jun

Boqueron Unplanned Downtime Status Report – June 3, 2020

The purchase of the replacement switch for Boqueron is underway. Due to the pandemic, it is difficult to estimate how long it’ll actually take for the switch to ship and arrive to us, but we wanted to let our users know how things are proceeding.

We will most likely have to wait for the switch to arrive in order to reestablish user access to their data, since the alternatives that we considered do not seem viable.

We will continue updating on Boqueron’s status as new developments occur. As always, feel free to write any questions or comments to help(at)hpcf.upr.edu, and we will get back to you as soon possible.

26 May

Boqueron Unplanned Downtime Status Report – May 26, 2020

During the past week we identified the main issue that has caused the downtime and we began taking steps to resolve it. The problem lies in Boqueron’s main internal 10 G switch, which, after extensive testing, we have concluded will unfortunately need to be replaced. We have begun the process of obtaining quotes for the new switch to proceed with a purchase.

We are also discussing what our alternatives are during the time it will take for the replacement switch to arrive. We will update as soon as we have a decision regarding this matter.

We would like to at least restore user access to their files as soon as possible, but this too is impacted by the network outage: the /home directory is located in one machine, but the LDAP server (similar to a Windows Active Directory) used to authenticate users (so they can log in) is in a separate computer (this is by design; it is not an error), and without a means of getting the two machines to talk to each other, users will not be able to log in to their files.

We apologize for the inconvenience this outage has no doubt caused to your work. As always, please send any questions or comments to help(at)hpcf.upr.edu and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

19 May

Boqueron Unplanned Downtime – May 19, 2020

An internal networking issue is disrupting Boqueron’s operations. User data is safe, but it is currently inaccessible to users until the issue is resolved. We are working both remotely and on-site to fix the issue as quickly as possible within the restrictions in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus. We will update with more details as they become available.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to write to us at help(at)hpcf.upr.edu.

12 Feb

Boqueron Back Online at Reduced Capacity

This is a quick note to let our users know that the maintenance work scheduled for today Wednesday, February 12 went as planned and Boqueron is back online at reduced capacity.

As indicated in this week’s earlier post, Boqueron will continue to operate at reduced capacity until the electrical work at the data center is completed.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please send them to help(at)hpcf.upr.edu.

10 Feb

Boqueron Planned Maintenance This Week

The data center where the Boqueron cluster is hosted will be undergoing some electrical maintenance from Saturday, February 15 to Sunday, February 16. The electrical work will require a full power down of Boqueron this Wednesday, February 12. After Boqueron is brought back online (which should happen the same day), it will operate at reduced capacity until the electrical work at the data center is completed. “Reduced capacity” means that a significant portion of Boqueron’s nodes will remain offline in order to lighten the load on the the data center’s circuits.

Because of this, we have placed some limits on the jobs Boqueron may currently accept. Specifically, any jobs that cannot complete their run by 8:00 am Wednesday will not be accepted until Boqueron is powered down and brought back online. Furthermore, once Boqueron is brought back online, only half of its nodes will be available to run jobs, so the remaining half will not accept any jobs until the electrical maintenance is completed at the data center.

All of Boqueron’s nodes will be powered down on Wednesday morning. Any jobs currently running will continue as usual, but, if they are still running by the time the nodes are powered down, they will unfortunately be killed.

We realize this information comes on a somewhat short notice, but we at the HPCf were only informed recently that the date for the electrical work would be this weekend, so we had no way of alerting our users much earlier than this. We apologize for any inconvenience this situation may cause for your work.

Half of Boqueron’s node are set to be powered back on on Wednesday, February 12. The rest are set to be powered up again on Monday, February 17. The nodes that will remain powered off throughout the weekend are the following: node011 through node020, node031 through node040, node051 through node060, and node071 through node080.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please send them to help(at)hpcf.upr.edu.

20 Nov

Boqueron Decreased Capacity During the Weekend

The data center where the Boqueron cluster is hosted will be undergoing some electrical maintenance from Saturday November 23 to Sunday November 24. The electrical work requires that we power down a significant portion of Boqueron’s nodes in order to lighten the load on the the data center’s circuits.

Because of this, we have decided to stop accepting new jobs on half of Boqueron’s nodes effective immediately. These “drained” nodes will be powered down on Friday morning. Any jobs currently running on these nodes will continue as usual, but, if they are still running by the time the nodes are powered down, they will unfortunately be killed.

We realize this information comes on a somewhat short notice, but we at the HPCf were only informed today that the date for the electrical work would be this weekend, so we had no way of alerting our users earlier. We apologize for any inconvenience this situation may cause for your work.

All the affected nodes will be powered on again on Monday November 25. The nodes affected by this maintenance are the following: node011 through node020, node031 through node040, node051 through node060, and node071 through node080.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please send them to help(at)hpcf.upr.edu.

18 Jul

Boqueron /work Unexpected Downtime Resolved

Boqueron’s /work file system recently experienced unexpected downtime due to a hardware issue. Our colleagues at Central Administration provided us with the replacement hardware we needed, and the issue seems to have finally been resolved. As far as we can tell, there has not been any data loss; however, we still encourage users to connect to Boqueron and verify the integrity of their files. We’d also like to take this opportunity to remind our users that, per our Usage Policies, the /work directory in Boqueron is specifically built for performance and not for reliability, and that, as such, data in users’ /work directory is not and will not be backed up. Users are responsible for maintaining their own backups of any data they keep in their /work.

We apologize for any delay in communication regarding this issue. The HPCf has been understaffed these past two weeks, precisely when the hardware problem popped up. All HPCf staff should be back at the office starting Monday July 23.

We apologize for the inconvenience this issue has no doubt caused, and we thank you for your patience and continued support for the HPCf. As always, you may direct any questions or comments to help(at)hpcf.upr.edu.