Data decommissioning policies

Starting at the 2020.1 resource allocation period, storage decommissioning procedures have been established for HPC and NIRD project storage. This should make project storage more predictable for the projects and the provisioning more sustainable to Sigma2.

HPC projects

Every project that is granted resources on any Sigma2 computing facility will get a fixed amount of storage on the HPC resources for staging of data. Access to the data will be removed by the end of each period unless the project is granted resources in the next allocation period.

If a project remains without computation quota on machine A for an entire allocation period, that project’s data on machine A will be scheduled for deletion. This project's data will be deleted after an additional grace period of 6 weeks. In other words, the data of a project will remain on the Sigma2 system for 6 months + 6 weeks after the quota on the machine expired. Please note that data on machine A will still be deleted if you have a quota on machine B. 

Period start - First period without an allocation

If you don't have an allocation at the period start, as a project leader or executive officer, you will be notified by e-mail that the project may be decommissioned on systems without an allocation.

At this stage, the following actions are taken:

  • Access to the project will be closed for all users on systems without an allocation.
  • Project management is notified by e-mail about the decommissioning process.
Period start - Second period without an allocation

If you still don't have an allocation at this point, project leaders and executive officers will receive another notification by e-mail that the grace period has started.

The grace period is for 6 weeks, and after this the project will be deleted.

6 weeks after period start

If you still don't have an allocation on machine A at this point, the project data will be deleted from machine A. 

 

At this stage, the following actions are taken:

  • Project data on systems without an allocation is permanently deleted. This action is irreversible.
  • Project management is notified by e-mail that the data has been deleted.

Examples

Project NN0000K last had an allocation in 2019.1 on the system Fram. They did not apply for 2019.2 and didn't have an allocation for the entire period. Access to the project on Fram is closed at the period start, and the project will be decommissioned and deleted on Fram 6 weeks after the period start of 2020.1.

 

Project NN0000K last had an allocation in 2019.1 on the systems Saga and Fram. They did apply for quota in 2019.2, but only got an allocation on Saga. Access to the project on Fram is closed at period 2019.2 start, and the project will be decommissioned and deleted on Fram 6 weeks after the period start of 2020.1.

NIRD projects

 

Projects without an allocation in the previous period will be decommissioned.
Decommissioning procedure consists of deleting data after a grace period of 6 weeks, where project leaders will get support to download the data.

 

Period start - First period without an allocation

If you don't have an allocation at the period start, you as a project leader or executive officer will be notified by e-mail that the project may be decommissioned.

 

At this stage, the following actions are taken:

  • Access to the project will be revoked for all users
  • Backups are stopped
  • Snapshots are stopped
Period start - Second period without an allocation

If you still don't have an allocation at this point, project leaders and executive officers will receive another notification by e-mail that the grace period has started.

The grace period is for 6 weeks, and after this the project will be deleted.

Grace period ended - 6 weeks after second period start

At this point, the project data will be permanently deleted. This action is irreversible.

Examples

Project NS0000K last had an allocation in 2019.1. They did not apply for 2019.2 and didn't have an allocation for the entire period. Access to the project on NIRD is closed at the period start, and the project will be decommissioned and deleted 6 weeks after the period start of 2020.1.