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Project Focus |
IRIS DMC Offsite Backup and Restore Facility Reaches a Milestone
The IRIS DMC recently completed an important phase of construction of
their offsite backup and restore facility. The purpose of this
project is to provide a complete live offsite data backup, as well as
to provide a fully functional facility if there were some sort of disaster
in Seattle that rendered the DMC unusable, such as a large earthquake
or fire. The the majority of the capitalization of this project was provided
by the NSF EarthScope Project and most of the ongoing operation and maintenance
costs will come from the NSF EAR Instrumentation and Facilities subaward
to IRIS.
 For the first few months, all the equipment for this facility was located
in Seattle to facilitate setup, data transcription, and testing. The
first order of business was the transcription of all our data holdings
into the SL500 tape library. This took roughly 5 months to complete,
and the process went smoothly. At the same time, the backup Oracle
Database server was integrated into the new network environment. All
other servers were setup with their operating systems, and preliminary
operating environments, including web service, FTP service, mail service,
naming and time service, and realtime data service.
Once
the transcription was complete, plans were made for the move to the IRIS-PASSCAL
facility in Socorro NM. All the tapes from the
SL500 library were removed and boxed up, and all the servers and associated
equipment were repackaged in their original packing materials and palleted
for moving. I then traveled to Socorro, and spent a week there
building the site from the ground up. The final configuration consists
of 2 SL500 tape libraries, and one equipment rack with all the networking
equipment, firewall, and servers. It all fit into PASSCAL’s
server room, although it is a tight fit! Other than a few not altogether
unexpected snags, the installation went fairly smoothly.
Now this project moves onto the next phase, which is the full integration
of supported services into the DMC Socorro servers, and creating the
processes to keep everything synchronized between sites. The process
for testing the site will also be developed, and at some future date
we will begin periodic failover tests.
I would like to extend a hearty thank you to all the folks at PASSCAL,
who assisted me in many ways, and made me feel right at home.
Submitted by Rick Braman, IRIS DMC |
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The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
is a consortium of over 100 research institutions with major commitments
to research in seismology and related fields. IRIS operates a facilities
program in observational seismology and data management sponsored
by the National Science Foundation through its Division of Earth
Sciences. |
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