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OUCS Annual Report |
4. Central Servers |
The role of OUCS in providing central computing services has been gradually wound down over the years, so that today the orientation of OUCS facilities and services is a far cry from the 1980s "mainframe" days of the ICL 2980, or even of the Vax systems provided in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The University's distributed computing strategy, which has been in place since the early 1990s, has resulted in the winding down (in 1997) of the central Vax service. Nevertheless, the two central Unix systems, Ermine and Sable, continue to grow in use and importance, though their usage is much less now focussed on logins, interactive sessions and general-purpose Unix computing. Rather, they provide the platform from which a wide range of client-server functions have been launched (eg Web serving, Email serving, FTP serving).
Gradually, these various Unix-based services have been devolved onto dedicated (and much cheaper) stand-alone systems, typically commodity PCs running Linux. Several of these have been described in sections 2 and 3 above.
Notwithstanding these overall strategies, the general usage of Ermine and Sable continues to rise, both for interactive logins and for server-processes [figure 34 & figure 35]. So the goal of winding down these services remains elusive. OUCS continues to monitor the types of activity for which these systems are utilised, and to develop plans for devolving the functions to smaller dedicated systems.
The number of users on Sable dropped from 18,000 to 15,000 in September 1998, after the 4,000 new undergraduates were pre-registered with Herald accounts for email. Thus 25% of the new undergraduates elected to create Sable accounts for themselves. Sable was still heavily overloaded during peak times but the stability problems have somewhat lessened, especially after an operating system patch-kit applied in January 1999 [figure 36].
|
4 Weeks Ending |
# |
CPU |
Availability |
Time |
# breaks |
MTBI |
MTTR |
||
|
Sessions |
Hrs |
DEC |
Overall |
Prime shift |
Lost |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
09-Aug-98 |
279104 |
980 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
99.7 |
0.8 |
2 |
336 |
0.4 |
|
06-Sep-98 |
255647 |
905 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
04-Oct-98 |
294697 |
350 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
01-Nov-98 |
559433 |
491 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
100.0 |
0.2 |
1 |
672 |
0.2 |
|
29-Nov-98 |
635628 |
441 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
100.0 |
0.2 |
1 |
672 |
0.2 |
|
27-Dec-98 |
397630 |
374 |
99.8 |
99.8 |
99.3 |
1.5 |
5 |
134 |
0.3 |
|
24-Jan-99 |
391282 |
267 |
99.9 |
99.7 |
99.7 |
1.7 |
2 |
335 |
0.8 |
|
21-Feb-99 |
614022 |
593 |
99.8 |
99.8 |
99.5 |
0.7 |
2 |
336 |
0.3 |
|
21-Mar-99 |
596339 |
559 |
99.9 |
99.6 |
99.4 |
2.3 |
3 |
223 |
0.8 |
|
18-Apr-99 |
361732 |
272 |
99.2 |
99.2 |
99.9 |
5.4 |
2 |
333 |
2.7 |
|
16-May-99 |
618989 |
423 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
99.5 |
0.8 |
3 |
224 |
0.3 |
|
13-Jun-99 |
628284 |
488 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
99.7 |
0.4 |
2 |
336 |
0.2 |
|
11-Jul-99 |
428119 |
353 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
100.0 |
0.3 |
1 |
672 |
0.2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
6060906 |
6496 |
99.8 |
99.8 |
99.7 |
14.3 |
24 |
363 |
0.6 |
Ermine's user-base has remained fairly steady at about 8,000 users, and has had a fairly uneventful year [figure 37].
|
4 Weeks Ending |
# |
CPU |
Availability |
Time |
# breaks |
MTBI |
MTTR |
||
|
Sessions |
Hrs |
DEC |
Overall |
Prime shift |
Lost |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
09-Aug-98 |
79122 |
1883 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
100.0 |
0.2 |
1 |
672 |
0.1 |
|
06-Sep-98 |
68502 |
1778 |
100.0 |
99.4 |
97.9 |
4.3 |
1 |
668 |
4.3 |
|
04-Oct-98 |
80687 |
1461 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
01-Nov-98 |
93169 |
705 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
29-Nov-98 |
96489 |
635 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
27-Dec-98 |
79047 |
970 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
24-Jan-99 |
70345 |
707 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
21-Feb-99 |
97585 |
937 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
99.6 |
0.7 |
1 |
671 |
0.7 |
|
21-Mar-99 |
96572 |
831 |
100.0 |
99.7 |
99.3 |
2.2 |
1 |
670 |
2.2 |
|
18-Apr-99 |
72915 |
542 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
16-May-99 |
96271 |
631 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
13-Jun-99 |
92400 |
455 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
0.0 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
11-Jul-99 |
88128 |
762 |
99.4 |
99.4 |
98.2 |
3.9 |
1 |
668 |
3.9 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
1111232 |
12297 |
99.9 |
99.9 |
99.6 |
11.3 |
5 |
1745 |
2.3 |
The reliability and availability of these systems (as well as the HFS) has improved, but it still not wholly satisfactory [figure 38].
OUCS operates a number of special printing devices, which are typically more expensive than any one department or unit can afford, and only by aggregating demand across the University are they cost-effective. They include:
Usage on all these devices has been steady, and Operations staff make a point of providing professional quality output.
The computer room is staffed from 08:00 until 22:00 each weekday. Operations staff are responsible for all operational duties associated with the large number of computers and network equipment housed there. This includes the central Unix computers, the HFS and its robot tape library, all the network servers, the servers for the OUCS departmental network (including teaching and public area computers), servers associated with the NSMS service, as well as the large supercomputers housed on behalf of the Materials Department and Oscar, the main OLIS library and other library systems, servers for central administration and the Bioinformatics system.
All this equipment is protected by a large UPS system, and multiple airconditioning systems (for resilience).
In addition to standard operational services, the evening operations staff also provide a degree of help to users in the Work Area. Evening staff consist of one permanent employee plus a collection of casual staff, mostly drawn from the ranks of postgraduates.