HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP 1

PCSF - A Pentium®/Windows NT® Based simulation farm

Frederic HemmerCERN IT/PDP

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

2

PCSF - Milestones Part of RD47 in Autumn 96 Price inquiry issued in 12/96 Hardware delivered 4/97 :

• 10 Dual Pentium Pro @ 200 MHz, 64 MB, 2* 4.3 GB Disk (> 800 CU)

• 100 Mbit Ethernet with Switch• 1 Server Pentium Pro 200 MHz, 96 MB,9 GB Disk

Ready to use 6/97 RD47 report 10/97

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

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PCSF PricingPC pricing

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

160000

180000

Taiwan Taiwan Hewlett-Packard

DEC DEC Hewlett-Packard

AST Dell DEC

Manufacturer

MUX+Soft

Server

Clients

10 Dual P6 200 Mhz

20 P6 200 Mhz

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

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PCSF Server

10 PC CSF “clients”

Screen, Mouse,Keyboard

Multiplexor

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

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Software status NT 4.0 SP3 Workstation LSF 3.0b (with DEMO licenses) Entirely uses/depends on NICE CERNLIB Integration almost finished SHIFT software (client) working

• RFIO• Stage commands (to Unix pools)

ATLAS DICE Code ported and integrated LHCB Simulation code almost ready

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

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Specific work so far LSF Job starter adapted Dialog Boxes killer Mapping drives (multi-user issue) Remote management tools User documentation available Job template available http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/pdp/pc Weekly service meetings

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

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HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

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HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

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PCSF Usage week 43/97-2/98

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Usage

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 1 2Week

Dev

Idle

Used

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

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Key Issues

FORTRAN Compiler, CERNLIB & Physics codes CODE reintegration (Physics & CERNLIB) Stability/Predictability/Resilience RFIO in CERNLIB Scalability & Management “Shell” in batch 3rd party tools (Samba, PCAnywhere)

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

11

Next Steps

Install LSF 3.1 Use FlexLM licensing Improve resilience Increase number of users

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

12

Lessons

PCSF allow us (and others) learning about NT and PC’s

Porting SHIFT software was easier than integrating adapting its build mechanism

“Unix” tools very buggy (bash, imake, ls …) maybe avoid them

Windows is fundamentally different than Unix think differently

… but it’s there, it’s running, so use it !

HepNT - January 15, 1997 : PCSF

Frederic Hemmer IT/PDP

13

Other PC Farms PCRD

• A testbed to study performance for future experiments farms (NA48/NA45/Compass)

• Windows NT and Linux LHC Trigger Farms

• A testbed to enable LHC experiments to test/measure/understand/build large scale farms

PC-NA49• A Windows NT implementation of Proof (Parallel root). 5 dual 300 MHz PC’s

with 23 GB each. PC-Nomad

• A production farm for Nomad's reconstruction. 4 dual 266 MHz PC now, will grow to 10.