Difference between revisions of "NJHPCFEDAuriStorEval"

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Latest revision as of 16:34, 5 October 2020

Objective: RU, MSU, NJIT technical staffs judge the value that AuriStorFS would likely bring to the NJHPCFED, and later to the Eastern Regional Research Platform (ERRP).

If that value is considered sufficient, proceed with budgeting the purchase of AuriStorFS.

  1. Go over in detail the items listed below
    • Designed for wide area network
    • Single global namespace for all clients. All clients see exactly the same path and ACLs.
    • Clients for all platforms - Linux, MacOS X, Windows, others
    • Extremely efficient administration and applications distribution
      • Administration by any authorized Kerberos principal from any AFS client
    • Long history of working well and reliably at many institutions and international corporations
    • No administrator intervention in making mount points available to all clients, other than creating the mount point - a single command done from any AFS client
    • Volume : basic storage unit. Volumes work very well as specific-purpose containers, e.g., software, datasets, web content, documentation)
    • Read-only replication of volumes
    • Scalability - number of clients, volumes, users are readily accommodated
    • Fine-grained ACLs CMU doc
      • Directory
        • l (lookup) List the contents of a directory; does not allow the reading of files
        • i (insert) Create new files in a directory or copy new files to a directory
        • d (delete) Remove files and sub-directories from a directory
        • a (administer) Change a directory's ACL. The owner of a directory can always change the ACL of a directory and any subdirectories in that directory
      • File
        • r (read) Read the contents of any file in the directory
        • w (write) Modify the contents of files in a directory and use chmod on them
        • k (lock) Allows programs to lock files in a directory
      • Groups of groups supported in AuriStorFS
    • Machine-based ACLs
    • Native Kerberos integration
    • Simple enforcement of quotas
    • To make a volume available, mount it somewhere, using 1 or 2 commands. It then becomes immediately visible to every client accessing the cell
    • Reconfigurations with no user impact; AFS client automatically discovers new configuration
      • Move volumes to a different partition, on same or different file server
      • Change what volume is mounted at which mountpoint (new volume at existing path)
    • On-line backup volumes
    • Client caching
      • Software is downloaded to local disk, so is local when accessed
    • Collaboration via cells across geographic regions

    AuriStorFS (https://www.auristor.com/) is a commercial implementation of OpenAFS with important enhancements in performance, security, capacities, authorization, per-file ACLs, and administration relative to OpenAFS.

    Filesystem comparison

    Fact sheet

  2. Location of database servers and file servers : TBD
  3. Public cell - i.e., open to the Internet
    • Cell name : njhpcfed.rutgers.edu (?)
    • Cell alias : njhf (?)
      • Instead of, e.g., cd /afs/njhpcfed.rutgers.edu/... : cd /afs/njhf/...
    • Path to everything in the njhpcfed.rutgers.edu cell : /afs/njhf/.....
  4. Find out what startup service AuriStor provides for new cells
  5. ARCS would be willing to provide guidance and technical help in the management of the njhpcfed.rutgers.edu cell
  6. Access various cells, e.g., /afs/grand.central.org, /afs/athena.mit.edu, /afs/cad.njit.edu, ...
    • Demonstrate some user and administrative interactions
  7. Use cases
  8. Works anywhere that "fopen" does, including all of: RW, RW+, R, sequential or random access (as opposed to http/https, which is RO sequential only).

    • Software
    • Scripts
    • Data repository
    • Documentation
    • Web content
  9. AuriStor Licensing
    • Basic : $21,000/cell/yr
      • Security and bug fixes, support for current operating systems, new features as they become available, and technical support
      • Unlimited AuriStor client software for all supported platforms
      • Unlimited support via email and web 9-5 M-F EST with 4-hour response time
      • 4 database servers
      • 4 file servers
      • 1000 user or machine IDs
    • Optional
      • Additional database server or file server : $2,500/server/yr
      • On-site consultant : $1.500 for 8 hours, plus travel and hotel
  10. Database and file servers hosting and cost
  11. TBD