On 3/21/19 11:49 AM, Ryan Novosielski wrote:
On Mar 21, 2019, at 11:26 AM, Prentice Bisbal <pbis...@pppl.gov> wrote:
On 3/20/19 1:58 PM, Christopher Samuel wrote:
On 3/20/19 4:20 AM, Frava wrote:
Hi Chris, thank you for the reply.
The team that manages that cluster is not very fond of upgrading SLURM, which I
understand.
As a system admin who manages clusters myself, I don't understand this. Our job
is to provide and maintain resources for our users. Part of that maintenance is
to provide updates for security, performance, and functionality (new features)
reasons. HPC has always been a leading-edge kind if field, so I feel this is
even more important for HPC admins.
Yes, there can be issues caused by updates, but those can be with proper
planning: Have a plan to do the actual upgrade, have a plan to test for issues,
and have a plan to revert to an earlier version if issues are discovered. This
is work, but it's really not all that much work, and this is exactly the work
we are being paid to do as cluster admins.
From my own experience, I find *not* updating in a timely manner is actually
more problematic and more work than keep on top of updates. For example, where
I work now, we still haven't upgraded to CentOS 7, and as a result, many basic
libraries are older than what many of the open-source apps my users need
require. As a result, I don't just have to install application X, I often have
to install up-to-date versions of basic libraries like libreadline, libcurses,
zlib, etc. And then there are the security concerns...
Okay, rant over. I'm sorry. It just bothers me when I hear fellow system admins aren't
"very fond" of things that I think are a core responsbility of our jobs. I take
a lot of pride on my job.
All of those things take time, depending on where you work (not necessarily
speaking about my current employer/employment situation), you may be ordered to
do something else with that time. If so, all bets are off. Planned updates
where sufficient testing time is not allotted moves the associated work from
planned work to unplanned emergency (something broken, etc.), and in some cases
from business hours to off hours, generate lots of support queries, etc.
I’ve never seen a paycheck signed by “Best Practices”.
Like I said in my original e-mail, my experience has taught me that NOT
doing those things actually takes more time and work in the end than
doing them. "Best practices: has never signed my paycheck either, but
there's a reason why they get the title "best", right? I have certainly
received comments on my performance reviews about how reliable my
systems have been, and that certainly leads to a bigger paycheck (in
theory, at least).
Prentice
