Computer Science Status
CS Storage Maintenance, Tuesday, August 5, 2025, 06:00-11:00
Who is affected:
All users of the CS department storage or computing facilities.
What is happening:
We are upgrading our storage operating system, which requires the
components of the CS storage system to be rebooted. This upgrade is
expected to be mostly non-disruptive, and department services will continue
as usual, but sporadic moments of interruption may be noticeable at times.
All services that depend upon access to storage share the same minor risk
of performance hiccups for some periods during this window, including cycle
servers, ionic and neuronic clusters, web content, home directories, CIFS,
etc.
Why is it happening:
An upgrade is required to address a bug that is causing unreliable snapshot
expiration, generating unnecessary costs.
While we do not anticipate any extended service outages, you may find that
there are momentary interruptions, and some connections (especially
CIFS/SMB connections) may need to be reestablished.
We will post updates to the status page: www.csstaff.org
as necessary.
If this downtime will cause you undue hardship, please contact
csstaff@cs.princeton.edu immediately, so we can discuss options to reduce
any negative impact. Your patience is appreciated.
Sincerely,
CS Staff
CS Cycles/Ionic/Neuronic Systems Downtime, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, 07:00-15:00
Who is affected:
All users of the CS Department Beowulf high performance computing clusters,
known as ionic and neuronic.
All users of the CS Staff-managed public login systems, including the
cycles, courselab, and armlab systems.
What is happening:
CS Staff will upgrade the Ionic and Neuronic clusters, as well as the
Cycles, Courselab, and Armlab systems, to the latest Red Hat 9
distribution.
In addition, the cluster management and job scheduling system, Slurm, along
with its database, will also be upgraded. No data loss is anticipated.
Why is it happening:
This is part of the routine maintenance and will bring newer versions of
installed tools and software.
We will post updates to the status page: www.csstaff.org
as necessary.
If this downtime will cause you undue hardship, please contact
csstaff@cs.princeton.edu immediately, so we can discuss options to reduce
any negative impact. Your patience is appreciated.
Sincerely,
CS Staff