Computational Facilities
Offices
K. Baker, J.Wanetick, M.Ohman, M.Vernet, E.Venrick and R.Guza are members of the Integrative Oceanographic Division (IOD). Baker maintains an office and an informatics design studio at 2251/2252 Sverdrup Hall on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus as well as a working partnership at the Institute for Computational Earth System Science (ICESS) located at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Wanetick and Guza maintain offices in the Center for Coastal Studies Building where the IOD computational facility occupies several rooms.
Infrastructure
The Integrative Oceanographic Division (The IOD digital infrastructure supports more than 200 computer platforms,ity. The directly attached storage amounts to approximate 8.5 Terabytes. The storage configuration is undergoing transition when approximately 7 terabytes Mac-based storage will migrate behind a SANS (Storage Attached Network) fabric permitting server load sharing. There are currently three server-Raid devices.
Backups
Full backups are performed monthly the first Friday of every month at 8pm and take approximately 16 hours to complete over a 1GB network backbone. Incremental backups are carried out nightly (at 8pm) to catch files which have changed since the last full backup. take a few hours to complete. Backups are to super DLT tape using the application Legato Networker for Sun and Linux and application Retrospect (Dantz) for Macs in the local CCS area. The tape system is a NEO 2000 jukebox library with 52 tape capacity. A set of four back up sets are rotated through every 4 months. Three months worth of backups are kept off-site with the fourth set in the jukebox. The tapes have native 110 gbyte native capacity and 220 gbytes compressed where binary files don't compress well while ASCII do. The main purpose of the backup system is for disaster recovery, i.e. disk crash, natural disaster, etc. If you happen to delete one or more files, they can be recovered.
Environment
The IOD computational facility operates within and supports an open architecture and frequently an open source environment. The infrastructure facilitates the interaction of the Division's scientific, engineering, administrative and information groups, along with the organizational and education/outreach efforts of SIO as a whole. The IOD computational facility contributes to the work of its multiple user communities through participatory practices incorporating ongoing feedback and dedication to the principles of functionality, sustainability and adaptability. At the same time, it draws from and enriches the field of ocean informatics through active engagement with sociotechnical design strategies, strategic infrastructural development, and advanced data management practices.