IT-Service: Lustre file system

Overview

• output of simulations
• experiment data, output of analyses

• Used in connection with GSI batch farm
• Accessible for GSI Linux users
• User directories upon request

Lustre file system

• Lustre is the general large scale storage for experiment and simulation data
  • Data on Lustre is mainly used = analyzed or produced by batch farm calculations
  • Lustre is not an archive storage for experiment data
  • Lustre does not have any backup
• To use Lustre, a Linux account is necessary
• The computing-coordinator of the users group or an administrator has to create a suitable directory on Lustre
• Access to Lustre is via the interactive lustre.hpc.gsi.de nodes
• Outside the cluster, Lustre is only accessible through sshfs.
• Limits:
  • Size-Quotas for groups, managed by computing coordinators
  • Inode-Quotas for users, managed by administrators
• Best practices:
  • avoid many small files ( O(10^6) )
  • avoid compilation/installations on Lustre -> see also CvmFs, VirgoContainers
  • keep number of parallel file-open and file-lock operations small
  • avoid massively parallel metadata operations
  • do not store too many files in a directory ( O(10^4) )
  • do not write into one file from many processes
  • keep files open and buffer data during job run time
• Batch Farm
• Lustre details

Availability, Support

• Service times: 24x7
• On-call-duty: yes
• Backup: No
• Service-Email: lustre-service@gsi.de