Using the Common Storage

All CÉCI clusters are connected to a Common Storage system that is visible from all login and compute nodes of all clusters.

Given the setup, this Common Storage has a much lower performance than the dedicated scratch filesystems present on the clusters (see globalscratch). Therefore, this storage cannot be used as a scratch.

As with any network filesystem exposed to different nodes it should never be modified the same file from two different clusters simultaneously and neither from different nodes of the same cluster.

Warning

Do not write to the same file from different nodes at the same time. This would corrupt the file.

The common storage is split into two distinct directories:

Every CECI user have read and write access to the first area by default and to the second if you are part of a “Common_Storage” project.

Warning

For this particular storage you should avoid to run the du command as this will stress the storage solution. We provide an alternative duc tool that must be used instead.

/CECI/home

Inside this area are hosted personal directories for each user, which can be considered a common home like area shared among the clusters. An environment variable named $CECIHOME points to your folder on the common storage so you can execute cd $CECIHOME to switch to this directory or echo $CECIHOME to print the full path.

You have a quota of 100GB for data and 100.000 files to store your own software, configuration files, and transfer data between CÉCI clusters. The advantage of using this home rather than the cluster-specific one is that no matter how you configure your environment on one cluster, you will find the same environment on all clusters without the need to move and copy files around.

To get your current usage on this area use the ceci-quota command from any of the clusters.

Note

If you have, in your CÉCI home, binaries that you compiled by yourself, make sure you have used the tips and tricks mentioned in Compiling for multiple CPU architectures to make sure they will be able to run on every CPU architecture present in the CÉCI clusters.

/CECI/proj

The /CECI/proj partition is dedicated to projects, i.e. groups of researchers working towards a common goal and sharing files. Projects will be created upon motivated request, with a specific quota and a specific duration.