ORBIT-USER: Scheduling changes

[Ivan Seskar]

Dear Members of the ORBIT Community,

Happily, ORBIT usage is steadily increasing over time.  We've reached
the point where our very informal system of scheduling time on the grid
needs more structure.  Effective immediately, we'll be using the
following policies to try to ensure that access to the grid and
sandboxes is allocated fairly and efficiently.  Also, these policies
should make planning out your time on ORBIT more reliable.

1) Users are expected to use ORBIT with goodwill toward other members of
the ORBIT community.  There are obvious ways to game these policies in
order to obtain a great deal of time on the grid at the expense of other
users.  Please don't.

2) ORBIT users should use the sandboxes for developing and testing their
experiments as much as possible.  Please do not use the grid until you
have seen good results from testing your experiment on a sandbox.

3) You are limited to four hours a day of pre-approved time on the main
grid.

4) Scheduling requests received before noon will be approved for the
following day at some point between noon and 2 in the afternoon.  For
example, if it is Tuesday morning before noon, and you ask for 4 to 6 in
the evening Wednesday, you will know for sure whether you have this time
by 2 in the afternoon on Tuesday.

5) Conflicts will be resolved based on how much time you've already used
over the last two weeks.  Those who have used less time will be more
likely to have their requests approved.

6) It will still be possible to request time on the grid with less than
12 hours notice.  This will be done using the informal system we have in
place now; if nobody else asks for a time slot you have requested,
you're automatically approved at the moment your time slot starts.
WINLAB staff will do their best to resolve conflicts in such scheduling,
but please do not base your plans on having such time available in
quantity.

Orbit team.