ORBIT-USER: [Fwd: Reservation created for 02/01/2007] - FAIRNESS?

[Andrea G Forte]

Ivan,

thank you for your explanation. All the rules seem very nice on paper 
but when it comes to enforce them you guys do not follow them yourselves.
According to rule #5 as you have written below, last week the one 
conflict I had should have been resolved in my favor (since I only had 
one hour of grid time that week). Instead you write me back saying that 
a first-come first-served policy is used with no fairness at all.
So, my question to you is, are you administrators going to follow these 
rules? (Rhetoric question)
I am sorry if I sound upset but the reason is that I am upset. Lately 
slots have been approved following no logic at all (or following 
different rules on different days) and when you are on a deadline a 
refused slot might mean missing an important deadline.

A few other comments on two other points:
2) Sandboxes have only two nodes, so it is very hard to be able to test 
complex experiments on sandboxes. Perhaps having a few sandboxes with 4 
nodes would help a lot and would also free grid time.
4) Is this something that is going to happen in the future? Until now I 
have not seen it (look at the grid).

Thank you,
-Andrea


Ivan Seskar wrote:
> Hi Andrea,
>
> As you can see grid is fully booked and in order to get everybody a
> chance we are trying to shuffle people around manually (rather than just
> refuse slots mainly because people complained about "first come first
> serve" policy). We are trying to fully automate the approval process
> based on the following policy (but it will be a while before we get
> there):
>
> 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.
>
>
> Ivan.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrea G Forte [mailto:andreaf at cs.columbia.edu] 
> Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 3:47 PM
> To: Joseph F. Miklojcik III
> Cc: Ivan Seskar; orbit-user at winlab.rutgers.edu
> Subject: Re: ORBIT-USER: [Fwd: Reservation created for 02/01/2007] -
> FAIRNESS?
>
> Dear all,
>
> I would like to know why my slot got changed and even though I reserved
> it a while ago you assigned it to someone else. As per your email below,
> users that reserve the slot first get it regardless of fairness (and
> that is why last week I could only get one hour of grid time for the
> whole week).
> This is all very confusing, please clarify.
>
> Thank you,
> -Andrea
>
> P.S.
> I am referring to today's slot 4-6.
>
>
>
> Joseph F. Miklojcik III wrote:
>   
>> On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 14:57 -0500, Andrea G Forte wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> I would like to know what happened to my reservation for the grid for
>>>       
>
>   
>>> tomorrow (see below)??? This week I was able to get only one slot of 
>>> one hour on Monday. I do not think this is fair at all. Could anybody
>>>       
>
>   
>>> please look into this?
>>>     
>>>       
>> Hi Andrea,
>>
>> We're sorry you couldn't get the time slot you requested.  Mesut had 
>> signed up for the time slot in question a week ago, and your request 
>> was received only a day ago, so time slot was approved for Mesut.  It 
>> is possible that Mesut does not need all of the time he has scheduled,
>>     
>
>   
>> and if you send him a personal email you may be able to work something
>>     
> out.
>   
>> Thanks for your patience.
>>
>>   
>>     
>
>