After getting 100 Gbit fiber and consolidating subMIT’s hardware last year into building 24 for optimal access by the project team and giving it more reliable power supply, we were planning to move the facility one last time to the big and even better supported computing room in Building 24, just about 20 meter from were we landed last year. There were a lot of preparations that needed to be done. The big LNS computing room needed to retire a lot of hardware and needed a general cleanup, the power in the big room needed to be extended and properly installed into the raised floor and the networking hardware needed to be renovated and prepared and finally on Monday July 29 we were ready to move.

Hectic meetings with lists and schedules were exchanged in the weeks before, but Monday at 8am the rubber hit the road. LNS Computing Group director, Paul Acosta, directed the group consisting of Dave (master sysadmin and hardware expert), and the subMIT team in form of Marianne, Chad, Qier and Max. We also got help from one of the PPC’s visiting students Joseph Sorel. Matt Heine also showed up and the move went very well.

The crucial home and work directories and the main brain of the system were up and running at 11am already, but getting the entire mass storage and all the other computers in line took a while. The subMIT project manager, Josh, from remote (CERN) made sure that in the end all relevant computers were booted again in the right sequence so that all services were up and running and finally he sent out the all clear message around 5pm local time.

During the move, as usual, plans were changed on the fly; for example the GPU computers were longer than anticipated and blocked the installed power strips and power needed to be re-routed.

Or, why disassemble the complex filer? Just move the super heavy rack. Jack McGlashing even showed up to help out. I learned what a J-bar (Johnson bar) is, which he brought along. If you hold the device in the right orientation it does resemble a ‘J’ ….

But all changes of plans were accommodated by our nimble movers and it showed that this was not their first rodeo. The move put us in a great spot, the center is now professional grade, and it was not a big deal to finally get it done. It was a great opportunity to get to know our team in person and it was a great experience.