Hi,
64 bits SL4 WNs always need some manual rpm tweaking here form time to
time. If we knew it in the beginning we probably would not make them 64
bit at all. I guess your decision was made due to something like "look
64 bit WN is out, 64 bits are cool, perform better, let's do it". It is
a temptation that I also find hard to resist.
But if I recall correctly, at some point our ROC asked us to move to 64
bit WNs, obviously based on a request coming from somewhere. Most likely
users. However our own userbase should not care about the glite arch as
far as I know. There were assurances of backwards compatibility so it
did not seem a bad idea.
I will agree that the amount of effort involved in debugging,
discussing, opening tickets, replying to tickets, sending mails,
escalating tickets, begging for replies, filling reports, waiting for
solutions, following up, is too big and draws effort that could be
invested in actual problem solving, including infrastructure problems
that need quiet some brainstorming and a clear state of mind.
That's why for example I prefer to always play it safe when I know I do
not have the time to risk for a new unknown update. I learned that the
hard way. If you find yourself overwhelmed, I would seriously consider
reinstalling everything with glite arch 32 bit, if you judge that the
effort involved would save you more effort wasted in a nightmare of
dependencies.
You do not see for example me complaining because I have complained
already numerous times for a rather wide range of issues, sometimes for
the same issues all over and I feel bad to be the one that always
complains. And producing each time I complain a good report that can be
productive takes so much effort that I tend to do that only for what is
critical (like serious breakage) for me forgetting numerous minor
annoyances. If you add up the usual site workloads, not much time is
left for anything else.
Cheers,
O/H Arnau Bria έγραψε:
> On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 18:39:59 +0200
> Dario Barberis wrote:
>
>> Well, let me comment on this one...
> Hi Dario,
>
> [...]
>>> In resume, I feel in the middle of experiments & gLite problems,
>>> and we
>>> lose many time adapting ourselves to them... meanwhile our internal
>>> problems are abandoned.
>>>
>>> Or maybe I'm wrong and we're doing something wrong, cause i see no
>>> complains about problems like ours from other sites... How many
>>> sites are running 64 btis software?
>>
>> First of all, we (ATLAS) have never asked sites to move to 64-bit
>> systems. Our existing code does not work in 64-bit mode as it needs
>> twice as much memory to run as in 32-bit mode. Work is in progress
>> to try to improve, but it will only apply to future releases on
>> SL(C)5 with gcc4.3.
> Ok, for that reason I ask myself why we (site pic) have moved to 4 bits,
> not why glite did move to 64... The migration was our decission, not an
> obligation.
>
>
>> CERN has deployed 64-bit SLC4 since a long time and our code works
>> there. You should ask sites that have (nominally) the same system as
>> you installed just now, before blaming code that runs perfectly
>> everywhere else in the world.
>
> ATLAS needs some 32 bits compatibility, so because of ATLAS's software
> compatibility we have to deal with sl4-x86_64 32bits packages, so the
> problems comes from ATLAS requirements. But I don't blame
> about ATLAS software, I was complaining about how SL4-x86_64 manages 32 bits packages.
>
> Again, the decission to move to 64 bits was ours. We could ask
> experimets first and then take the correct decission.
>
> *But, from what I've heard (you'll probably know much than me about
> this) apart from us, other sites (don't know the number) are
> failling new pilot jobs. We were not the only site who hit this issue
> (AFAIK).
>
>> ATLAS code is running right now in >50k cores around the world on
>> several flavours of RHEL4 based systems, and also on SL5 systems
>> (provided SELinux is disabled).
>
> Well, AFAIK ATLAS requested a test queue for sl5, so I suppose
> supporting ATLAS in SL5 is not trivial at this moment (correct me if
> I'm wrong).
>
> In my previous post I was explaining my experience after some months in
> 64 bits world. not trying to excuse myself on other people's work
> neither complaining about ATLAS/gLite software.
>
>> Cheers
>> Dario
> Cheers,
> Arnau
>
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