Who is affected:
ALL users of CS Department (or University) cluster computing systems
AND
ALL users of research rack space at the HPCRC (151 Forrestal Road)
What is happening:
On October 20, 2026, all “B”-side power at the HPCRC will be turned off and
unavailable for the full business day while preventative major maintenance
is performed on the building’s power systems. “B”-side power accounts for
half the power to the building, and ALL of the power to some racks occupied
by the Computer Science Department.
Other than the ionic and neuronic clusters, most research racks in the CS
portion of the HPCRC use “A”-side power. Nevertheless, it would be prudent
to anticipate that research racks may lose power at 07:00 and not regain
power before 15:00. It is recommended that researchers arrange to power off
their equipment prior to the 07:00 start time and be prepared to check its
health and restore services after the 15:00 end. CS Staff is announcing a
wider 12-hour window to allow for this time to orderly shut down clusters,
and to power back on after the work.
ALL ionic and neuronic cluster resources will be offline and unavailable.
ALL courselab and armlab systems will be offline and unavailable.
The “cycles” systems will be rebooted at the start of the window, but are
anticipated to be available.
All other central CS services (e.g. email, web service, storage) are
anticipated to remain available.
OIT’s announcement of this maintenance can be found here:
oit.princeton.edu/events/hpcrc-planned-downtime-maintenance
Why is it happening:
The power equipment at the HPCRC is overdue for major maintenance to reduce
the risk of unplanned failures and outages. This maintenance window, like
the earlier outage on June 9, allows for this maintenance to be performed
safely.
We will post updates to the status page: www.csstaff.org
as necessary.
If this downtime will cause you undue hardship, please contact
csstaff@cs.princeton.edu immediately, so we can discuss options to reduce
any negative impact. Your patience is appreciated.
Sincerely,
CS Staff