Personal and Project Data

isginf operates and maintains highly available files server with NFS and SMB/CIFS connectivity.

This file server is integrated with the rest of our services.

• Ceph back end for block storage.
  • All enterprise grade NVME distributed over five servers.
  • Triple redundancy of data.
  • Total storage capacity 120TB
• Two front end nodes that export ZFS on said block storage via NFS and SMB/CIFS.
• 100Gb redundant network.
• Daily snapshots within the file systems for quick restores.
• Daily off-site disk-to-disk copy with 10 days retention.
• Backup of all data to an off-site tape library with 90 days retention.
• Archival of deleted home directories

Backup and Restore

All files are backed up to tape daily. We also have daily snapshots of all files.

If you need to recover files you can first check on the snapshot server and copy the data over yourself. For a restore from tape please contact our service desk.

Access and security

Groups that use the iiStore cluster for file services need to be aware of the customization options and configuration of their storage.

Filesystems

The number of filesystems and their size depends on the amount and type of data:

• The maximum supported size of a file system is about 1TB. If there is more data it needs to be distributed in a meaningful fashion over several filesystems. Larger filesystems are technically possible but are difficult to handle for backup and recovery operations (e.g. fsck).
• Groups that have project directories and want to control data usage using disk quota are advised to put home directories and project data on separate filesystems.

Disk Usage

Nagging Mails

For file systems on iiStore an additional nagging quota may be active. This quota is not enforced technically but you (and your ITC) are informed by mail when your nagging disk quota on a particular file system is exceeded. For more information see here.

The nagging disk quota limits can be viewed in your user account details for your group here.

Service Host Name

The data of a particular group is accessed using a dedicated IP with one or more host names. The default is {ou}.fs.inf.ethz.ch where {ou} is replaced by the LDAP OU of the group, e.g. isg.fs.inf.ethz.ch.