20220314 / Massive Upgrade coming

Hi all,

We have a Massive Upgrade coming this spring!

* From debian 9 to debian 11

• to support both new hardwares and new softwares
• new cluster with new upgrades already available (Cascade)
• every binary must be rebuild
• new ways of sharing programs
• new ways of installations

  Use the web forms when software are missing. We will find the most suitable way for installation(s).

• See below new documentation about R, Python, Perl…

* From SGE to Slurm

• GridEngine have served us well for years, but it can't keep up as we continue to grow (over 30k cores this year),
• We choose slurm because it is used on national and international centers
• better reservation, cleaner exit
• New examples scripts : https://github.com/ltaulell/submission_scripts
• Slurm offer more freedom and more responsabilities!

* New documentation

• https://meso-centres-lyon.pages.in2p3.fr/psmn-rtd/index.html
• New enforced rules around filesystems and storage
• Follow rules for a smooth PSMN use

* We will have to physically re-organize clusters (E5 and Cascade), to double Cascade, and halve E5.

* We will propose meetings and courses to ease the transition, group by groups

* Cons:

• all scratchs will have to be destroyed (we go from v3 to v8, data will not be readable, we must restart from zero)
• E5 and Cascade will have to be turned off for weeks (2 to 4)

* Timeline: ASAP! We want to migrate as fast as possible (endline first of june 2022)

• See http://www.ens-lyon.fr/PSMN/doku.php?id=news:blog and http://www.ens-lyon.fr/PSMN/doku.php?id=news:evolutions for more updated informations