Agenda

• Budget and Production cluster
  • Production orders under way
    • 33 2.9GHz Sandy Bridge processor nodes (head node plus 32 compute nodes
  • Slight hit on budget from faster processors and 10gbit SFP based switch
  • 120 day lead time on 10gbit cards, replacing with identical dual port card
• Schedule
  • Benchmarks were completed by end of May, suggested 2.9Ghz processors to meet eventual Phase II requirements
  • Roughly 1 week behind schedule, originally planned to have orders complete by June 8th now looking like June 15th
    • Shouldn't pose a problem, sufficient slack in July and August to make up time
  • Production cluster should be assembled by July 13th and fully functional by first week of August
  • Walter to visit USNO July 18th to 20th
• USNO Visit Last week of May if possible (Week of May 29th-June2nd) Wed 30th
  • Discussions on benchmark results and their meaning for Phase I and eventual Phase II
  • Discussion on network details, particularly 10gbit interconnects between correlator and existing SAN plus Mark5Cs
  • Discussion on Difx software installation scripts and procedures (including USNO adoption locally)
  • Local tests of USNO GUIs
• Last meeting items
  • NRAO to send power and heat load estimate to USNO
    • Will revise rough estimates once we have 220V system in place
    • Quick/dirty calculation, 35 nodes at 250W = 8750W = ~30K BTU = 2.5 Tons cooling (note assumes 110V power).
  • USNO will send any Security policies we need to accommodate
    • May need to pull updates rather than push
    • May need to sign some paper work for ssh access
  • USNO to send floor plan

Discussion

• Shipping logistics
  • We can pack and ship the rack fully loaded, will weigh about 1600Lbs. Can we actually handle the delivery end
  • Maybe we should just plan on breaking down the correlator into the rack plus 4 packs or 9 to 10 nodes. (still would weigh 200lbs so requires a floor dolly)
• Documentation
  • We're continuing to flesh out the documentation for infrastructure type items. Installation docs are nearly finished
  • Documentation is here: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/HPC/UsnoProjectBook
• Networking
  • Drawing will be ready by meeting
  • Mark5's will mount /home/difx from infrastructure nodes over gbit network
  • USNO to send SAN and public network drawing