Probe: Completed Probe Projects Archival

In February of 2000, effective network bandwidth between ORNL and NERSC was observed to be about 250 kilobytes/second over an ESnet link that should have been capable of much higher throughput. After this project, effective bandwidth has been improved by a factor of 50 by its end in November, 2001. Important elements of the project are early testing of ESnet III and developing a better bulk-transfer mechanism.

• Timeline of the project
  
  
• Development of a Faster Bulk Transfer Mechanism
  Start October 2000 -- End November 2001
  
  
• ESnet III early testing
  Start May 2001 -- End November 2001
  
  

Big Project - Evaluate DBMS Products Operating on HPSS Metadata

  - Comparative Performance of HPSS Metadata Alternatives

Big Project - Evaluate Texas Memory System RAM-SAN

  - ORNL testing of the RAM-SAN

  - NERSC testing of the RAM-SAN

Big Project - Wide-Area-Network HPSS Remote Movers

  - remote_movers.html

Smaller Projects

  - Improve ORNL-NERSC effective network bandwidth, Experimental
    Start Jan 17 -- End Feb 4 2000

  - Prototype third-party HPSS-HPSS transfers via Hierarchical Storage Interface (hsi)
    Start April 2000 -- end June 2000

  - StorageTek FibreChannel 9840 Tape Configuration
    Start July 24, 2000 -- End August 11, 2000

  - Use of Compaq StorageWorks SCSI RAID with IBM PCI SCSI
    Start September 8, 2000 -- end September 14, 2000

  - Installation of FibreChannel Switch and Disk Array
    Start Jan 31 -- End Feb 16 2000

  - Testing IBM SCSI RAID
    Start March 2001 -- End March 2001

  - Studies of Performance of Scheduled Transfer
    Start June 2001 -- End January 2002

HPSS-related Performance and Compatibility Tests

Big Project

  - GSN testing with ORNL IBM RS/6000 p660-6H1
    Complete

  - Commodity-scale HPSS mover platform testing and tuning
    Start February 7, 2000 -- end April 2001

Smaller Projects

  - HPSS and AIX 5.1

  - SFS file Creation Tests in Probe
    Start May 4, 2000 -- End June 3, 2000

  - Two-Stripe HPSS transfers, FibreChannel disks, Gigabit Ethernet jumbo frames
    Start September 11, 2000 -- End September 12, 2000

  - 9840 drives and HPSS on AIX 4.3.3
     Start May 8 -- End May 11 2000

  - Implementation of HPSS on an AIX 4.3.3 system
    Start Jan 4 2000 -- June 19 2000

  - Beta test of HPSS 4.2

Server Performance Tests

S80 Performance Testing
Start Dec 6 1999 -- End Jan 7 2000

Quick Benchmark
Start/End Feb 10 2000

Network Equipment Performance Tests

Gigabit Ethernet Testing, Normal and Jumbo Frames
Start Dec 6 1999 -- End Jan 7 2000

Testing in Preparation for Production Jumbo Frame Gigabit Ethernet
Start August 14, 2000 -- End August 21, 2000

Testing of Internet Storage Router (iSR)
Start October 10, 2000 -- End October 10, 2000

IBM/Houston testing of HPSS

HPSS 4.2 Testing of StorageTek Redwood Tape Drives
Start July 2000 -- End August 8, 2000

Beta testing of HPSS version 4.2
Start September 2000 -- End November 2000

HPSS 4.3 Testing of StorageTek silo under AIX and Solaris
Start June 2001 -- End July 2001

Setup a test HPSS/DFS system using PROBE equipment
Start Jan 20 2000 -- End Feb 29 2000

Miscellaneous

Providing a large research dataset
Start Dec 7 -- End Dec 14 1999