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Hi Leandro,
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<div class="">I think the silence in response to your question says a lot, don’t you? :-O</div>
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<div class="">IBM has said (on this list, I believe) that the Meltdown / Spectre patches do not impact GPFS functionality. They’ve been silent as to performance impacts, which can and will be taken various ways.</div>
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<div class="">In the absence of information from IBM, the approach we have chosen to take is to patch everything except our GPFS servers … only we (the SysAdmins, oh, and the NSA, of course!) can log in to them, so we feel that the risk of not patching them
is minimal.</div>
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<div class="">HTHAL…</div>
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<div class="">Kevin<br class="">
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Mar 1, 2018, at 9:02 AM, Avila-Diaz, Leandro <<a href="mailto:lavila@illinois.edu" class="">lavila@illinois.edu</a>> wrote:</div>
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Good morning,<o:p class=""></o:p></div>
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Does anyone know if IBM has an official statement and/or perhaps a FAQ document about the Spectre/Meltdown impact on GPFS?<o:p class=""></o:p></div>
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Thank you<o:p class=""></o:p></div>
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<b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">From:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""><<a href="mailto:gpfsug-discuss-bounces@spectrumscale.org" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">gpfsug-discuss-bounces@spectrumscale.org</a>>
on behalf of IBM Spectrum Scale <<a href="mailto:scale@us.ibm.com" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">scale@us.ibm.com</a>><br class="">
<b class="">Reply-To:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>gpfsug main discussion list <<a href="mailto:gpfsug-discuss@spectrumscale.org" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">gpfsug-discuss@spectrumscale.org</a>><br class="">
<b class="">Date:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Thursday, January 4, 2018 at 20:36<br class="">
<b class="">To:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>gpfsug main discussion list <<a href="mailto:gpfsug-discuss@spectrumscale.org" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">gpfsug-discuss@spectrumscale.org</a>><br class="">
<b class="">Subject:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Re: [gpfsug-discuss] Meltdown, Spectre, and impacts on GPFS<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div>
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<div class=""><a name="_MailOriginalBody" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">Kevin,</span><br class="">
<br class="">
</a><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">The team is aware of Meltdown and Spectre. Due to the late availability of production-ready test patches (they became available today) we started today working on evaluating the impact of applying these
patches. The focus would be both on any potential functional impacts (especially to the kernel modules shipped with GPFS) and on the performance degradation which affects user/kernel mode transitions. Performance characterization will be complex, as some system
calls which may get invoked often by the mmfsd daemon will suddenly become significantly more expensive because of the kernel changes. Depending on the main areas affected, code changes might be possible to alleviate the impact, by reducing frequency of certain
calls, etc. Any such changes will be deployed over time.</span><br class="">
<br class="">
</span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">At this point, we can't say what impact this will have on stability or Performance on systems running GPFS — until IBM issues an official statement on this topic. We hope to have some basic answers
soon.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br class="">
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<br class="">
<br class="">
</span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">Regards, The Spectrum Scale (GPFS) team<br class="">
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If you feel that your question can benefit other users of Spectrum Scale (GPFS), then please post it to the public IBM developerWroks Forum at</span></span><a href="https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Furldefense.proofpoint.com%2Fv2%2Furl%3Fu%3Dhttps-3A__www.ibm.com_developerworks_community_forums_html_forum-3Fid-3D11111111-2D0000-2D0000-2D0000-2D000000000479%26d%3DDwMGaQ%26c%3D8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ%26r%3DcLEEIBn42RKkb7Uaw7awSyh9R6FQnSiXaB-OA4kE6vo%26m%3DB_3Q9il30tD-RgLvGVp5L7NDgT_4zoa4AwHUcf-ayBw%26s%3DHosnnsJuEYnDPQMX7VSEdm4oftDIXxU62SV-1H2WnGE%26e%3D&data=02%7C01%7CKevin.Buterbaugh%40vanderbilt.edu%7Ceec49ab3ce144a81db3d08d57f86b59d%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C0%7C636555138937139546&sdata=TyIu%2BFpjVUuCZGIxs3xlBibs1KmjT0%2F3alw4eGX98sU%3D&reserved=0" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class=""><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/forum?id=11111111-0000-0000-0000-000000000479</span></span><span class=""></span></a><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br class="">
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If your query concerns a potential software error in Spectrum Scale (GPFS) and you have an IBM software maintenance contract please contact 1-800-237-5511 in the United States or your local IBM Service Center in other countries.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br class="">
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The forum is informally monitored as time permits and should not be used for priority messages to the Spectrum Scale (GPFS) team.</span><br class="">
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<span id="cid:image001.gif@01D3B13C.03ADC3F0"><image001.gif></span></span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(66, 66, 130);" class="">"Buterbaugh, Kevin L" ---01/04/2018 01:11:59 PM---Happy New Year everyone, I’m sure that everyone is aware
of Meltdown and Spectre by now … we, like m</span><br class="">
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</span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(95, 95, 95);" class="">From:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">"Buterbaugh, Kevin L" <<a href="mailto:Kevin.Buterbaugh@Vanderbilt.Edu" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">Kevin.Buterbaugh@Vanderbilt.Edu</a>></span><br class="">
</span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(95, 95, 95);" class="">To:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">gpfsug main discussion list <<a href="mailto:gpfsug-discuss@spectrumscale.org" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">gpfsug-discuss@spectrumscale.org</a>></span><br class="">
</span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(95, 95, 95);" class="">Date:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">01/04/2018 01:11 PM</span><br class="">
</span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(95, 95, 95);" class="">Subject:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">[gpfsug-discuss] Meltdown, Spectre, and impacts on
GPFS</span><br class="">
</span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(95, 95, 95);" class="">Sent by:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""><a href="mailto:gpfsug-discuss-bounces@spectrumscale.org" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">gpfsug-discuss-bounces@spectrumscale.org</a></span><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div>
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Happy New Year everyone,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br class="">
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I’m sure that everyone is aware of Meltdown and Spectre by now … we, like many other institutions, will be patching for it at the earliest possible opportunity.<br class="">
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Our understanding is that the most serious of the negative performance impacts of these patches will be for things like I/O (disk / network) … given that, we are curious if IBM has any plans for a GPFS update that could help mitigate those impacts? Or is there
simply nothing that can be done?<br class="">
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If there is a GPFS update planned for this we’d be interested in knowing so that we could coordinate the kernel and GPFS upgrades on our cluster.<br class="">
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Thanks…<br class="">
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Kevin<br class="">
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P.S. The “Happy New Year” wasn’t intended as sarcasm … I hope it is a good year for everyone despite how it’s starting out. :-O<br class="">
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—<br class="">
Kevin Buterbaugh - Senior System Administrator<br class="">
Vanderbilt University - Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education<br class="">
</span><a href="mailto:Kevin.Buterbaugh@vanderbilt.edu" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class=""><span class="">Kevin.Buterbaugh@vanderbilt.edu</span><span class=""></span></a><span class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>- (615)875-9633<br class="">
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<div class="">—</div>
<div class="">Kevin Buterbaugh - Senior System Administrator</div>
<div class="">Vanderbilt University - Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education</div>
<div class=""><a href="mailto:Kevin.Buterbaugh@vanderbilt.edu" class="">Kevin.Buterbaugh@vanderbilt.edu</a> - (615)875-9633</div>
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