Macromolecular Crystallography Workshop 2004 Recent developments regarding our Computer Environment, Remote Access and Backup Options

Outline Description of PX experiment’s computing environment –Current status and future paths Remote Access –Abandoning Citrix ICA Client –NX Server from NoMachine Backup Options –New Firewire DVD –Continued support SRB Private laptop/storage Regular File Transfer (ftp, scp, sftp, rsync) –Phasing out some tape formats Discussion

Schematic Beamline Computing Layout BL Workstations Blu-Ice application Data Processing Blcpu[1-5] File Server BL Control System dcss Instrument controlCamerasDetectors Public Network Private Network

Detalied Description of Computer Systems Network backbone File server 12 CPU Origin 3900 host 30 TB RAID storage Data archive Remote Storage Resource Broker Beam line Control Linux on IA32 hardware Beam line computers SGI, Linux Data backup DVD robot, Laptop, Tape Beam line switch 1 Gbps Hardware switch 1 Gbps Video 100 Mbps Detector Linux Cluster 52 Dual 2.8 GHz Xeon nodes (Genomics) Web servers SGI Origin 300s Compute servers 24 Alpha CPUs/5 nodes 32 GB RAM

From IRIX to Linux Desktop Phasing out IRIX desktop –This run, one IRIX workstation will remain at each the beamline –User feedback will have influence on how long we will keep IRIX New desktop – Linux –Does everything you need for crystallography today –More powerful and much cheaper than SGI/IRIX –Connectivity to external devices –Window manager confusion –Default to XFce4

Remote Access Access via Citrix ICA protocol closed –Hard to administrate in terms of licenses and external users access –Got much more expensive with change of licensing scheme –Indirect access to UNIX/Linux desktop via ReflectionX or similar appl. NX Server – A light-weight X protocol –Server runs on Linux –Free Clients for Windows, Linux, OS-X, Solaris, some PDAs and PS2 –Blu-Ice and X based data processing flawless on a 384kb DSL link –Does not support GLX extension at the moment (no OpenGL apps)

New Backup Options DVD backup this run –Central location DVDs stored with our secretary until pickup –Web interface for job submission Status updates when job completed containing file list. –Possibility to have the DVDs sent by mail or FedEx back to you DVD for next run –Writer/Printer at each beamline

New Backup Options contd. Firewire (IEEE 1394) disks –Can be connected to Linux workstation at beamlines –Support for ext2, ext3 and FAT32 file systems –File permissions when mounting as user. ext2 and ext3 - All previous permissions on the file system are preserved FAT32 - All previous files will be owned by the mounting user –FAT32 considerations 128GB file system limit Case conversion: XTAL = Xtal = xtal File name ending with a ‘period’ will be copied but is unreadable by MS Windows Conclusion – Use a Linux file system if you have the option

SRB and Tapes Storage Resource Broker –Continued support for storing data at SDSC –New project for local a SRB system Tapes –Continued support 4mm DAT (DDS3 and DDS4) –Being phased out 8mm Exabyte (8500 format) DLT 4000/7000 –Possible support if there is interest SDLT 220/320

Discussion Items Remote processing Backup formats Desktop opinions