Post on 03-Jan-2016
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Information Technology at Emory
Information Technology DivisionTechnical Services
IT Briefing Agenda 7/17/05
• Microsoft Agreement• SPSS Site License• IMAP Polling• NetReg/CAT Update• Research Cluster• Premiere Support• NetCom Q&A
• John Ellis• Marcy Alexander• Ken Guyton• Alan White• Keven Haynes• Karen Jenkins• Paul Petersen
Information Technology at Emory
General Updates
Information Technology at Emory
Eagle Mail Performance
An opportunity to make it faster
Ken Guyton
Information Technology at Emory
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Architecture
• Eagle mail consists of three services
– Relay – Delivery– Reading
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Architecture
• Relay
– Moving email from computer to computer (SMTP)
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Architecture
• Delivery
– Delivering messages into an INBOX.
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Architecture
• Reading
– Users retrieving their messages to read them, mark as read, delete, etc. (IMAP)
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Architecture
Relay Spam
Read/Deliv
Virus
IMAP proxy
Webmail
firewall
disk2 4
6
3
4
LDAP routingother svrs
clients
Relay
3
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The Situation
• Reading and Delivery live on the same servers.
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The Situation
1 2 3 4 5
Read/Delivery Servers
100% CPU UtilizationCPU Utilization
90%
50%
80% 80%
50%
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The Situation
1 2 3 4 5Read/Delivery Servers
100% CPU Utilization
12300
4168
12809
8313
75
Users per server
90%
50%
80%
80%
50%
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The Question
• What are 75 users doing to use 50% of a Read/Delivery server?
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Observations
• Make some measurements of busy IMAP processes
• Tracing with truss• Profile processes • Packet snooping
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Observations
• ...to answer questions:– What are these processes doing?– What system calls are using the
most CPU time?– What IMAP commands are being
sent?– ...and how often?
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Results
• Processes are doing a lot of disk I/O.
• The system calls that account for the vast majority of CPU time are read() and alarm().
• The IMAP command is SELECT
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More Observations
• Instrument the imapd daemon (we have the source code!)
• Log SELECTS on a user and mailbox basis
• Plot behavior
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Results
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1 11 21 31 41 51
Users
To
tal
SE
LE
CT
co
mm
an
ds
≤ 1 min≤ 5 min > 5 min
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Conclusions
• High-frequency SELECTs are killing us
• A new server/75 users is EXPENSIVE!
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Hypothesis
• When clients check for new email they send a SELECT
• (They should send a NOOP)• Users are setting their clients to
check for email every minute
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Final Notes
• Webmail checks every five minutes
(and does use SELECT)• Some clients have a drop-down
menu to select this time (1-min, 5-min, etc.)
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Our Plea
• See if your users are polling < 5 min
• 10 min is better• You can always manually check
for new email• Help them change their polling
time if needed
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The UNIX Group
• Chris Alexander• Bruce Anderson• Karla Fields• Amanda Gagnon• Ken Guyton• Curt Tucker• Eric Van Wieren
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NetReg/CAT Update
Alan White
Information Technology at Emory
Emory University High Performance Computing Cluster
Keven Haynes
Information Technology at Emory
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Need for High Performance
• Large number of computations• Large data set• Complex computations• Specialized applications • More disciplines doing
computational work
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Need for Shared Resources
• Most researchers do not have physical resources to house large computing systems. Air Conditioning, Power, Security are all important, often overlooked.
• Many researchers lack technical expertise required to manage systems, especially Linux/Unix.
• Most personally-owned systems are underutilized, therefore not as cost-effective.
• Money pooled-together can buy bigger and better systems.
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Emory High Performance Computing Cluster
• Partnership between Emory College, BIMCORE (School of Medicine) and ITD.
• Emory College and individual faculty (Jeager, Printz) provided funding for purchase of the cluster.
• BIMCORE provides software expertise, cost-recovery infrastructure.
• ITD provides facility and system administration.
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The Cluster - hardware
• 63 dual-processor (AMD 2.2 GHz Opteron 248) Sun V20z’s “Compute Nodes”
• 1 quad-processor (AMD 2.2 GHZ Opteron 848) Sun V40z “Master Node”
• Compute Nodes have 2 GB of RAM each, Master node has 8GB.
• Each node has 73 GB of local disk space (RAID 1)
• Master Node has 550+ GB of local disk space• Two 47u APC powered rack enclosures
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The Cluster - Networking
• All nodes connected via gigabit Ethernet (copper) on private network
• Two SMC gigabit switches• 21 Nodes are connected via 4 gigabit Myrinet• Service processors connected via 100 Mb
Ethernet• Two MRV serial console switches
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The Cluster - Software• Red Hat Enterprise Linux - Version 3, x86_64,
Advanced Server and Workstation– Kernel 2.4.21, glibc 2.3.2, gcc version 3.2.3– 64-bit Operating system/runtime environment
• Sun Grid EngineTM :– Manages queuing and prioritization of jobs– Performs job and user accounting for time-shared
resource– Can support up to 200,000 jobs simultaneously– Heterogeneous support allows connection of Mac
OS X, Solaris and other execution hosts
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Current and Future Applications
• Genesis (neural simulator, Jaeger)• Pattern Generation and Homeostasis in
Neural Circuits (Prinz)• Pharmacology (Severson)• Others:
– Animation Rendering – Statistical Analysis (-R-) – Numerical Analyis (MATLAB) – Bioinformatics (BLAST) – Large Population Studies, GIS
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Who may use the Cluster?
• Researchers, namely PI’s• Open to anyone affiliated with
Emory, possibly some external research
• Subscription Fee: ~ $3000/year or $750/quarter
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Questions?
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Premiere Support Overview
Karen Jenkins
Information Technology at Emory
Information Technology DivisionTechnical Services
Premiere Support
• Advanced/escalated support for specific set of customers– Local support and other campus technical
professionals– Executive leadership (later phase)
• Benefits– Dedicated number to reduce wait times– Direct entry to high level support
technicians
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When to use • Reporting of system down and other
performance issues only.– University Enterprise applications & Network– Examples include: Network Outage affecting a
large department, building, or campus; Eagle Mail is down; PeopleSoft is crawling; other “strange” behavior
• Non-critical or other work requests should go through Manage IT or ESR.– Examples include: account requests, virus
reporting, suggestions to improve service, etc.
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Logistics
• Hours: M-F 8:00am – 5:00pm• After hours calls automatically
forwarded to the help desk (which forward to on-call after help desk hours).
• Premiere Support Team:– Call Center supervisor– Craig Myers– Linda Ellis
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Responsibilities
• Obtain technical input/details• Escalate to proper Tier 3 team• Provide regular communication
and updates– Via Manage IT Bulletin Board
• Provide final debrief / explanation of problem– Again via Manage IT
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Setup
• Dedicated line rings on the primary team members phone sets
• After 4 rings rolls over to help desk FTE phones … if busy the queue– Premiere Support calls are placed in
the front of the queue.– Investigating adding a visual indicator
for the help desk FTEs.
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Pre-Requisites
• Requires a support account in Manage IT
• Participation in the local-l listserv• Caller ID information displayed
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… and the number is …
Will be posted on the Manage IT Bulleting
Board
Available on TBD
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INPUT, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS
?Questions?Questions
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Quick Manage IT Update• New Manage IT Major Features for 8/31/05
– Flashboards– Port Status Table– 2-Way email– Assignment permissions group
• Target Features for 9/30/05– PS Status Table– Emory Reports– Magic View– Resolution / Communication to requester
Manage IT Training Session Scheduled for:September 13th @ 1:00pmNDB Auditorium or Kennessaw
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Quick ESR Update
• New ESR Major Features by 8/31/05– Change pop-ups to long names– Web & DB self-service forms
• Target Features for 9/30/05– On-behalf of (in Manage IT too)– Communication box
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NetCom Q&A
?Questions?Questions