[Bioclusters] Admins / node?

[Brodie, Kent]

Yes, we fit the first environment.   We actually call it the "computer
core" too, which is interesting.   Our core consists of a Sr manager,
two Windows server/desktop dudes, one VB programmer (for interfaces to
instrumentation), and then myself (Sr Unix Mgr+sysadmin) and a Unix
sysadmin (position currently open- hint hint hint - "inquire within").
Between our group, we manage all of the computing technology spread
across several floors and a bunch in the data center.

We do not use "corporate I.T." for anything except for network ports,
because we're too specialized for them to be able to service the needs
of the research community.  They're uh..  a demanding bunch :-)

Just as we treat the various sciences as specialties and have our own
experts (genetic analysis, protein stuff, and all that - all the
principle investigators to go fetch grant money and then do cool things
with the computers...), we treat "computing" as its own specialty and
have the in-house talent to manage it properly.

I agree that when you end up with "research people" also doing
double-duty as pseudo sysadmins, you end up with a lot of wasted time.

--kcb



-----Original Message-----
From: bioclusters-bounces+brodie=mcw.edu at bioinformatics.org
[mailto:bioclusters-bounces+brodie=mcw.edu at bioinformatics.org] On Behalf
Of Christopher Dwan
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 9:30 AM
To: Clustering, compute farming & distributed computing in life science
informatics
Subject: Re: [Bioclusters] Admins / node?


Kent,

You raise a really valid point.  In my opinion there are two basic  
sorts of environment:

1) Your organization includes a research IT core.  You're going to  
add a cluster to it.  How many people do you add to that core?  Or,  
if you're the core, how many new admins do you "bid" in order to  
agree that you can support this new system?

2) Everyone else.

My feeling is that group 2 will require more person hours than group  
1, since there are a lot of baseline networking / facilities / IT /  
account management responsibilities that come along with any big  
computing resource.

-Chris Dwan

On Feb 2, 2006, at 10:09 AM, Brodie, Kent wrote:

> That's a really good question.   I am also going to assume there's as
> many answers as there are list subscribers.

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