[not urgent] low priority fair share contribution

[KjongLehmann]

Hi,
this is really nothing urgent, but it would be nice to revisit the question whether jobs in low priority q should contribute towards fair share since all those jobs can be preempted by any other job. Right now users are getting punished for being nice.

[tatarsky]

Are you seeing a problem with that @KjongLehmann ? Because I've already attempted to not penalize users for using the low priority queue and if its not working I will indeed revisit but I did the config I was suggested to do by Adaptive.

[tatarsky]

I assume you are seeing a problem BTW or you would not be opening an issue but I wanted it clear I attempted to make low priority "fairshare non-impacting" per a ticket with Adaptive quite awhile ago.

[KjongLehmann]

I just got ready to send a few batch jobs and out of curiosity checked my fair share status which is quite high considering that I only ran low priority jobs. So far it has not been a problem, but may become one if things get more busy again. Thus I marked it "not urgent". Maybe I misunderstand my fair share value?

[tatarsky]

Are you seeing your lowpriority jobs being held due to fairshare? Because that was the config I was attempting per their instructions.

[akahles]

I think the point is different. It would be good if jobs run under the lowpriority Q would not contribute to the spending as shown under mdiag -f. Right now, these jobs can increase my fairshare value and thus contribute to later batch jobs not being scheduled.

[tatarsky]

I went around and around with this concept above with Adaptive and didn't get much help. So while I understand what you are saying, the support for what you describe (a queue completely non-tracked by fairshare) didn't seem easily implemented.

[akahles]

I see, but then there is no real benefit in the queue other than having a way to be nice ;). How tightly are the fairshare groups coupled to the actual linux groups / users? So would it be possible to just accumulate fairshare for a different user (e.g., me_lowprio instead of my regular user me) depending on the queue used? This way one's batch jobs (run as me) would not suffer from the load generated as (me_lowprio).

[tatarsky]

Please note the key word "easily". They were recommending switching to the "Hierarchical Fairshare/Share Trees" methods for tracking fairshare which exceeded my risk/change impact threshold.

[akahles]

Ah, I see :) Maybe its worth to get an opinion from "leadership" here on how urgent this is. Did not want to spam @KjongLehmann 's thread btw. Just wanted to add my two cents and support @KjongLehmann that this would be a really nice feature to have.

[tatarsky]

I understand but the impression I got was a major change to the config. I did the closest I could come up with. I would recommend you indeed discuss the priority in view of the remaining hours. In particular given I don't know a darn thing about "Hierarchical Fairshare/Share Trees".

[KjongLehmann]

Thank you Andre for clarifying. That was in fact the feature I was wondering about. Certainly not urgent right now and also a rather specialized problem for a small subset of users.

On Jul 6, 2015, at 11:26 AM, tatarsky notifications@github.com wrote:

I understand but the impression I got was a major change to the config. I did the closest I could come up with. I would recommend you indeed discuss the priority in view of the remaining hours. In particular given I don't know a darn thing about "Hierarchical Fairshare/Share Trees".

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[tatarsky]

If it was as easy guys as something like "DOESNOTADDTOFAIRSHARE" on the lowpriority queue I would have already done it ;) I did not get the impression after numerous discussions that it was in the current fairshare method being used (user/group). I will scan it again however.

[KjongLehmann]

Thank you for looking into that! Much appreciated. Again, one of these nice-to-have items….

On Jul 6, 2015, at 11:31 AM, tatarsky notifications@github.com wrote:

If it was as easy guys as something like "DOESNOTADDTOFAIRSHARE" on the lowpriority queue I would have already done it ;) I did not get the impression after numerous discussions that it was in the current fairshare method being used (user/group). I will scan it again however.

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[jchodera]

I think it would be great to actually get this to work as intended, but @tatarsky is correct that we have to assess the cost to us. Perhaps this would be a great feature to have in a batch queue redesign/update discussion with @juanperin for when the MSK HPC staff assumes control of the batch queue system.

[tatarsky]

I think it would an excellent topic for somebody to start learning the ways of Moab. I spelled out what I wanted per the above to Adaptive and got told to switch to another way of tracking fairshare than what I was handed from SDSC.

But I'm not likely to do that lightly or really without a test environment to tell me its worth it. I'm casting around a few other waters.

Right now I believe the lowpriority queue IGNORES a users fairshare but it does indeed accrue at what I believe is lower weight value. But I'm double checking that with some runs myself shortly. But I don't know how to make it "not count at all"

[jchodera]

But I'm not likely to do that lightly or really without a test environment to tell me its worth it. I'm casting around a few other waters.

This should likely be coupled with the purchase of a new Torque batch queue master node, since that would allow us to experiment without disrupting existing production systems.

[tatarsky]

Agreed on above. I am looking at the "Fairshare" stats files which are emitted at 8:00AM and 10:00PM to get some insight into the scoring weights of the classes (aka queues)

[tatarsky]

My review continues at a moderate pace. I can clearly state all usage of the cluster in the current fairshare mode is tracked in the DEDICATEDPES mode of operation (dedicated processor-equivalent seconds). Regardless of class (what moab maps to a queue) your usage is accumulated (as you have clearly noted but 100% confirmed)

The scheduling priority decisions made based on that data is where I am re-reviewing my options with both the user/group FS method currently in use and these Hierarchical Fairshare/Share Trees.

[tatarsky]

I have mostly confirmed that the fairshare system would probably need to be moved to this other method (they are not runable at the same time). But to truly confirm that a test environment would be wise.

[jchodera]

A new batch queue management node is being budgeted for 2016, but if sufficient funds remain for 2015, @juanperin could "borrow" from 2016 by making the purchase this year and using one or two cluster nodes to test.

[tatarsky]

This issue will be investigated via #349. Although it is believed that a completely different fairshare system would be required to support the above desire.