Support Procedures

For the CAE Service

Michel Manent

IT Product Support / Unix Infrastructure section

 

Date : 20/10/2002

 

 

Introduction

This document describes the most current interventions executed on the Sun workstations of the CAE (Computer Aide Design for Engineering) service at CERN.

 

Until now all system management, both hardware and software, of the workstations was done by the CAE service administrators. In order to free staff members for other tasks we propose to use the general service of the desktop support contract to provide the first levels of support for the CAE service clients.

 

We are producing the current document to reflect the definition and procedures of the service provided by the CAE service in order to be able to use the outsourcing contract effectively.

 

 

Overview of the CAE service

The CAE service purpose, rather 85 workstations distributed across the site and some central servers, is to support all hardware used for applications related to electronics for all CERN divisions. The service is implemented using 85 Sun workstations distributed across the CERN site and a set of Sun servers that provide access to the applications, floating license server, disk space including home directories, user registry (NIS cluster) and other services.

 The largest user is EP division, followed by EST, PS and SL and external staff. divisions.

The applications include digital and analog design, digital and analog simulation, as well as routing and other tools for printed circuit board production.

 

Servers

This CAE service is based on 5 Sun servers (Ultra3000, Ultra3500, SunFire280R*3) running Solaris 7 or Solaris 8.

A NIS domain for the cluster  is running from DSY-SRV2 (master) and DSY-SRV4 (slave).

Home directories are served from DSY-SRV2 and DSY-SRV4 using three Sun A1000 disk boxes.

DSY-SRV1, DSY-SRV3 and DSY-SRV5 act as CPU and memory servers for electronics application users.

 

Clients

We have 85 CAE service clients distributed all over the CERN site. They are Sun workstations with

They have different types of Sun workstation architectures, such as, Ultra1, Ultra2, Ultra5 and 10, Ultra30, Ultra60 and Sun Blade100

The CAE clients are not under a hardware maintenance contract, except for the first year following the purchase when they are under guarantee. This means that hardware interventions by Sun require quotation and payment.

Different Operating System are installed on these workstations, Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7 or Solaris 8. They are configured to use CDE (Common Desktop Environment) and recommended by Sun for graphical presentation.

 

Software

·        Cadence

·        Xilinx

·        Altera

·        Ansoft

·        Visual

·        Synopsys

·        Lattice

·        Synplify

 

are the main software packages used in this cluster, all of them directly related to electronic design and simulation as well as tools for printed circuit board production.

 

 

General Procedure for Problem Determination

 

Starting Point

 For now onwards when the user has a problem he must first contact the Computing Helpdesk:

Helpdesk@cern.ch, Tel. 78888.

The Helpdesk, which has been given instructions on how to handle all possible types

of problems that Electronics CAE service users may encounter. , is the focal point for User support and should It will open a Remedy ticket for the problem and dispatch it to the right support category.

The backend support for the CAE serviceis support breaks up as follows:

-         hHardware, OS  => Michel Manent Tel. 72366

-         new/upgrade installation software, user configuration => Antoine Thys Tel 74918

-         digital application & simulation => Serge Brobecker Tel. 78693

-         analogic application & simulation => John Evans Tel. 78971

 

Problem with Applications

If it is evident that the problem is appearing within an application software for electronics, such as the ones mentioned above, the Heldesk will route the call to the concerned person through the appropriate Remedy categories.

 

System Problems

In case of a normal Unix system problem the contract will handle it both for first and second level kind of problems.

If a problem requires escalation to third level support PS/UI will service it through the Solaris Support category.

The creation and the updating of specialist scripts for the environment (i.e. CDE, Gnome) are not covered under the terms of this contract.

 

Hardware Problems

The first or second levels of support will determine if a hardware intervention is required.

 

We consider the following types of hardware intervention

 

- To move a workstation to another area in the building or on the CERN site. This is described by the standard procedures for the general desktop contract.

 

- To add some internal card (i.e. LabView), Disks, DVD, memory, CPU, etc. This is also described by the standard procedures for the general desktop contract.

 

- When getting a technical problem in the hardware of a workstation. In this case we propose the procedure that follows

 

When the failing part is one of the following

 

Motherboard              

CPU                           

Power supply                   

Graphic card                       The supplier is Sun Microsystems at Gland

Display

Keyboard

Mouse

 

This procedure is covered by the terms of the general maintenance contract of Sun with CERN B984/02.

Once the problem has been determined, the user must ask for a estimation to Sun Microsystems in Gland

Tel. 022 9990444.

On E-mail form (under the term of the general contract of Sun with CERN B984/02) Tthe quotation received from Sun Sun on an e-mail form must be accepted and returned to Sun Microsystems by the staff memberbold responsible for the budgetary code.

Sun must then fix if the problem either by doing an intervention on the CERN site or by sending the required parts that will have tomay  be installed by the desktop contract.

The way that the problem is to be solved has to be specified in the quotation and has to be agreed beforehand.

 

If the hardware problem cannot be precisely determined on the spot, the workstation can be sent to Sun Microsystems by CERN’s external transport service, always after agreement by CERN’s responsible staff member.

 

Disks

Original disk problems are dealt by Sun during the guarantee period.

In case of disk problems after the guarantee period we recommend to buy a third party disk as it is much cheaper than buying it from Sun. Third party disks for Suns are available from a number of sources. We normally use Transtec tl. 01 8184700 Fax. 01 8184720 http://www.transtec.ch/.

Although the desktop contract personnel may provide support to the purchase process, the userbold himself or the responsible CERN staff will be responsible for the purchase of the required parts.

Once the third party disk is available, the desktop contract personnel will install it in the workstation with the user dData transferred if it ’is possible.

 

Memory

Original memory is dealt by Sun during the guarantee period. Sun memory is marked as such.

Third party memory is much cheaper than Sun memory for similar quality, so third party memory is recommended for workstation upgrades, or for replacement of faulty Sun memory after the guarantee period.

The preferred supplier of third party memory is IAS in Geneva (http://www.ias.ch/).

Although the desktop contract personnel may provide support to the purchase process, the userbold himself or the responsible CERN staff will be responsible for the purchase of the required parts.

Once the third party memory is available, the desktop contract personnel will install it in the workstation.

Memory from IAS has lifetime warranty so IAS should be contacted in case of problems with their memory.

Network

In case of network problem the first recommended action is to take contact with Netops (tel. 74927 Netops@cern.ch). Netops may afterwards reroute the problem to other specialists of the network service.

 

Printer

All configuration, mechanical, toner, network connection problem must be reported

 to Helpdesk (Tel. 78888) or to Printer Support (printer.support@cern.ch).

 

The Cadence administrator (Antoine Thys, or Michel Manent in his absence) have to be contacted to enable printers in the Cadence environment.

 

Software Interventions

Desktop Support personnel may be requested to install software in workstations of the CAE cluster.

 

Operating Software (re) installation and upgrade

As a fully automated Solaris network installation server is provided most of the cases requiring  a system installation do not require a local intervention (as long as the user can type the startup command (boot net:dhcp – install).

This fully procedure has been already prepared in the SUE project_cae directory and this installation is configured to run with the CDE environment.

Some cases, where a disk is broken or some basic configuration has been lost, I may require to work directly on the console to debug or recover the system, for instance boot cdrom –sw, format, etc.

 

Software problem linked with the Operating System:

A local intervention may be required when a system must be rebooted due to software problems linked with the operating system.

Other system problems, such as,  a “temporary partition full”, may also require an intervention of desktop contract personnel.

 

 Good knowledge of Unix, Sun material and the CERN infrastructure is required to analyse Solaris system problems. In any case PS/UI section backs the contract by providing third level support when escalation is required. PS/UI also owns and supports the infrastructure for automated Solaris network installation.

 

 

Maximal Intervention Delays

All the interventions described here are standard cases described for the general desktop contract and managed with the delay limits for this contract.

 

Contact Person

Michel Manent will be the contact person to the Desktop Contract for CAE cluster.

In his absence Ignacio Reguero for the hardware and Antoine Thys and Ignacio Reguero for the software may be contactedcan be replace provisionally.

Michel ManentHe is responsible for the cluster and as such

·        He must have feedback to maintain up to date the database of client workstations.

·        He must prepare the future operating system releases and configurations.

·        He will be the contact to resolve all difficult or particular problems that were not foreseen in the Desktop Contract procedures.