[ccp4bb]: Centralized binaries

[Gordon Webster <gordon_webster@hms.harvard.edu>]

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Christopher A. Waddling wrote:

We have a lot of users here who will potentially be using OSX to do
crystallography-related computing and graphics. So, instead of having each
user maintain their own binaries, I wanted to test the feasibility of having
a central location for MacOSX binaries that would be accessible to everyone
running OSX. My thinking was that I'd then only have to update the software
in this directory instead of having everyone do it themselves, or have me do
it individually on each Mac ...
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This is a good idea and it certainly works as long as your network is healthy 
.....

The downside of this arrangement is that if your network crashes or suffers 
gridlock, nobody can do any work at all (been there, done that). In addition, 
there can be a considerable time overhead in loading large binaries over a 
network and you need to be very careful how you set up things like shareable 
libraries, scratch files and working directories, so that this network 
overhead does not also cause your applications to continue dragging their 
heels once they are launched.

Since disk space is cheap and time is money, why not set up a maintained, 
central repository of binaries as you suggest, but then use something like the 
very nice (and free) utility "rsync", to mirror this disk partition on each 
user's machine. Using some very (very) simple scripts, your central machine 
can update each mirror periodically (probably once a day at midnight is enough 
unless you are a software company in the throes of a beta release) and every 
user's machine will have a partition that automatically mirrors the layout of 
your central applications disk.

This system allows everybody to carry on working even if the network throws a 
wobbly, as well as saving time and reducing the traffic on your network. The 
redundancy of information also makes this system a lot more robust and 
flexible, especially when s**t happens, as we all know it does ;)

Gordon

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Gordon Webster Ph.D.
Harvard Institutes of Medicine
Tel: (617) 667 0566
Fax: (617) 975 5243
email: gordon_webster@hms.harvard.edu
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