As the now aging HPC Wales systems approach their end of life, it is increasingly important to perform certain software & hardware upgrades in order to sustain the appropriate levels of maintenance & support from our suppliers.

A major upgrade of the scratch file systems at both the Cardiff and Swansea hub sites is now required, and is scheduled to take place in the week of the 9th to the 13th October. Cardiff will be unavailable from Monday 9th to Wednesday 11^th October, and Swansea from Wednesday 11th to Friday 13th October.

A detailed planning process has taken place with our suppliers who will be performing the upgrade work. Given the major nature of the upgrade, we must advise the user community that there remains a small risk of data loss during this work. Every effort has been and will continue to be made to prevent this, but there remains a small risk that cannot entirely be mitigated for we do not have any other appropriately-sized storage that can be used to maintain a full backup. Note that as this work involves the scratch file system, this data is not backed up anyway as the file system is only intended for short-term, working storage.

We provide this advance notice so that you may take any appropriate steps you deem necessary. If you have any specific queries relating to this work, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via the Supercomputing Wales support desk, support@hpcwales.co.uk