MARS

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Massive Archive and Retrieval System

(Pilot usage phase to start in Jun/2011 with a select group of users. Deployment and configuration are still a work in progress)

The SciNet Massive Archive and Retrieval System (MARS) is a tape backed hierarchical storage management system that will provide a significant portion of the allocated storage space at SciNet. It is a repository for archiving data that is not being actively used. Data will be returned to the active GPFS filesystem when it is needed.


Migration of data into and out of the repository will be under the control of the user who will interact with system using one or both of the following utilities:

  • HSI is a client with an ftp-like interface will be used to archive and retrieve large files. It is also useful for browsing the contents of the repository.
  • HTAR is a utility that creates tar format archives resident in the archive. It also creates a separate index file that can be accessed quickly.


User access will be controlled by the job scheduling system of the GPC. An interactive session can be requested that will allow a user to list, rearrange or remove files with the HSI client. Transfer of data into or out of the archive is expected to be scripted and submitted as a batch job.


Guidelines

  • HPSS storage space is provided on tape -- a media that is not suited for storing small files. Files smaller than ~100MB should be grouped into archive files with tar or htar.
  • The maximum size of a file that can be transferred into the archive is 1TB. However, optimal performance is obtained with file sizes <= 100 GB.
  • Make sure to check the application return code and check the log file for errors after all data transfers.
  • Pilot users: DURING THE TESTING PHASE DO NOT DELETE THE ORIGINAL FILES FROM /scratch OR /project

Access Through the Queue System

All access to the archive system is through the queue system.

Interactive Access

To get an interactive session and use the HSI client, use the -I option of qsub.

gpc04 $ qsub -q archive -I
hpss-archive01:~ $ hsi ls
******************************************************************
*   Welcome to the Massive Archive and Restore System @ SciNet   *
*                                                                *
*        Contact Information: support@scinet.utoronto.ca         *
*  NOTE: do not transfer SMALL FILES with HSI. Use HTAR instead  *
******************************************************************
[HSI]/archive/group/user->

Scripted File Transfers

File transfers in and out of the archive should be scripted into jobs and submitted to the archive queue. 

#!/bin/env bash
#PBS -q archive
#PBS -N hsi_file_transfer
#PBS -j oe
#PBS -o hpsslogs/$PBS_JOBNAME.$PBS_JOBID

/usr/local/bin/hsi  -v <<EOF
cput -p /scratch/$USER/workarea/finished-job1.tar.gz : finished-job1.tar.gz
EOF
if [ ! $? == 0 ];then


Using HSI

HSI is the primary client with which a user will interact with the archive system. It provides an ftp-like interface for archiving and retrieving files. In addition it provides a number of shell-like commands that are useful for examining and manipulating the contents of the archive. The most commonly used commands will be:

cput Conditionally stores a file only if the HPSS file does not exist
cget Conditionally retrieves a copy of a file from HPSS to your local file space on the host system only if a local copy does not already exist.
cd,mkdir,ls,rm,mv Operate as one would expect on the contents of the archive.
lcd,lls Local commands.

Simple commands can be executed on a single line. 

   hsi "mkdir examples; cd examples; cput example_data.tgz

More complex operations can be performed using a Here Document. 

hsi <<-EOF
  mkdir -p examples/201106
  cd examples
  mv example_data.tgz 201106/
  lcd /scratch/knecht/examples/
  cput -R -u * 
EOF


HSI Documentation

Examples

  • Put a subdirectory LargeFiles and all its contents recursively. You may use '-u' option to resume a previously disrupted session (as rsync would do).
    hsi "prompt; mput -R -u LargeFiles"
  • Interactively descend into the Source directory and move all files which end in ".h" into a sibling directory (ie, a directory at the same level in the tree as "Source") named "Include":
    hsi <RETURN>
    [HSI] cd Source
    [HSI] mv *.h ../Include
  • Delete all files beginning with "m" and ending with 9101 (note that this is an interactive request, not a one-liner request, so the wildcard path does not need quotes to preserve it):
    hsi <RETURN>
    [HSI] delete m*9101
  • Interactively delete all files beginning with H and ending with a digit, and ask for verification before deleting each such file.
    hsi <RETURN>
    [HSI] mdel H*[0-9]
  • From a shell, save your local files that begin with the letter "c" (let the UN*X shell resolve the wild-card path pattern in terms of your local files by not enclosing it in quotes):
    hsi mput c*
  • From a shell, get all files in the subdirectory subdirA which begin with the letters "b" or "c" (surrounding the wildcard path in single quotes prevents shells on UNIX systems from processing the wild card pattern):
    hsi get ’subdirA/[bc]*’
  • Save a "tar file" of C source programs and header files:
   tar cf - *.[ch] | hsi put - : source.tar

Note: the ":" operator which separates the local and HPSS pathnames must be surrounded by whitespace (one or more space characters)

  • Restore the tar file source kept above and extract all files:
    hsi get - : source.tar | tar xf -
  • The commands below are equivalent (the default HSI directory placement is /archive/<group>/<user>/):
    hsi put source.tar
    hsi put source.tar : /archive/<group>/<user>/source.tar

Using HTAR

  • To write the file1 and file2 files to a new archive called files.tar in the default HPSS home directory, enter:
    htar -cf files.tar file1 file2
OR
    htar -cf /archive/<group>/<user>/files.tar file1 file2
  • To write a subdirA to a new archive called subdirA.tar in the default HPSS home directory, enter:
    htar -cf subdirA.tar subdirA
  • To write the file1 and file2 files to a new archive called files.tar on a remote FTP server called "blue.pacific.llnl.gov", creating the tar file in the user’s remote FTP home directory, enter (bonus HTAR functionality to sites outside SciNet):
    htar -cf files.tar -F blue.pacific.llnl.gov file1 file2
  • To extract all files from the project1/src directory in the Archive file called proj1.tar, and use the time of extraction as the modification time, enter:
    htar -xm -f proj1.tar project1/src
  • To display the names of the files in the out.tar archive file within the HPSS home directory, enter (the out.tar.idx file will be queried):
    htar -vtf out.tar

For more details please check the HTAR - Introduction or the HTAR Man Page online

More detailed examples

Submitting_A_Batch_Job

  • gpc-archive01 is part of the gpc queuing system under torque/moab
  • Currently it is setup to share the node with up to 12 jobs at one time
  • default parameters ( -l nodes=1:ppn=1,walltime=48:00:00)
showq -w class=archive

qsub -I -q archive
  • sample data offload
#!/bin/bash

# This script is named: data-offload.sh

#PBS -q archive
#PBS -N offload
#PBS -j oe
#PBS -o hpsslogs/$PBS_JOBNAME.$PBS_JOBID

date

# individual tarballs already exist
/usr/local/bin/hsi  -v <<EOF
mkdir put-away-and-forget
cd put-away-and-forget
put /scratch/$USER/workarea/finished-job1.tar.gz : finished-job1.tar.gz
put /scratch/$USER/workarea/finished-job2.tar.gz : finished-job2.tar.gz
EOF

# create a tarball on-the-fly of the finished-job3 directory
/usr/local/bin/htar -cf finished-job3.tar /scratch/$USER/workarea/finished-job3/

date
  • sample data list
  - Very painful without interactive browsing
      -Tentative solution: dump all user files to log file and use that as file index

#!/bin/bash

# This script is named: data-list.sh

#PBS -q archive
#PBS -N hpss_dump
#PBS -j oe
#PBS -o hpsslogs/$PBS_JOBNAME.$PBS_JOBID

date
echo ===========
echo
/usr/local/bin/hsi  -v <<EOF
ls -lUR
EOF
echo
echo ===========
date
  • sample data restore
#!/bin/bash

# This script is named: data-restore.sh

#PBS -q archive
#PBS -N restore
#PBS -j oe
#PBS -o hpsslogs/$PBS_JOBNAME.$PBS_JOBID

date

mkdir -p /scratch/$USER/restored-from-MARS

/usr/local/bin/hsi  -v << EOF
get /scratch/$USER/restored-from-MARS/Jan-2010-jobs.tar.gz : forgotten-from-2010/Jan-2010-jobs.tar.gz
get /scratch/$USER/restored-from-MARS/Feb-2010-jobs.tar.gz : forgotten-from-2010/Feb-2010-jobs.tar.gz
EOF

cd /scratch/$USER/restored-from-MARS
/usr/local/bin/htar -xf finished-job3.tar

date
  • sample analysis (depends on previous data-restore.sh execution)
gpc04 $ qsub $(qsub data-restore.sh | awk -F '.' '{print "-W depend=afterok:"$1}') job-to-work-on-restored-data.sh
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