Friday, August 3, 2007

back online

Ok, so I'm back from vacation, and back in swing on the new system.

We are in the midst of getting everything ready for when the large amount of hardware starts arriving. Fun things like filesystem structure, pxe booting over ib, provisioning the OS over ib using torrents, and the necessary setup that will easily allow us to install and keep track of 4000 machines and all their characteristics, much less making them all play nicely together.

The cabling alone will be a massive undertaking, and will need to be completed before the equipment begins to arrive. In fact, the filesystem hardware, all 1.7 Petabytes, will begin arriving in about a week or so. Not much time before the tsunami of hardware arrives.

I'm pretty jazzed about working on this new, cutting edge equipment. The constellation system, and all the new management hardware and software is really making my life much easier. I spend about half as much time in a 57 degree meat locker-like machine room, which means my body can get re-acclimated to a normal temperature again. I am constantly switching between a 50 degree difference in temperature. 57 inside, 107 outside. It's like a hot tub and cold dip, especially with the humidity lately.

6 comments:

Linda said...

I have no idea what a petabyte is but I'm sure it must be a whole lot more than a megabyte. Just guessing here.

Anonymous said...

Why did you remove the "sour grapes" post of August 3rd ?

Tex Swiss said...

because someone I work with found my personal, anonymous blog, and complained to someone else who has a great deal of influence over my career.

even tho I have gone to great lengths to conceal my own identity, and the identity of all people concerned in the 'sour grapes' post, someone I work with took exception and asked me to edit my blog.

thanks for the curiosity.

by the way - um, what made you aware of it, and why do you ask? is there something i should know?

Anonymous said...

Why people gotta be playa haters.....

Anonymous said...


by the way - um, what made you aware of it, and why do you ask? is there something i should know?


I check your blog every couple of days and I saw your post about the NSF Track1/2 leak. However, you didn't say who were the winners, so I had to play with google cache on the blog of the PSC guy to figure out. Then it was picked up by the NY Times and ZDnet, and I was curious if you would feel some heat about it. When I saw that your post was gone, I wondered if your boss complained somehow. After all, you are probably payed on NSF money right now :-)

BTW, I don't think your post was inappropriate, nothing wrong with it.

Anonymous said...

Dude, we need more updates.