The School of Computer Science (SCS) facilities are currently undergoing major renovations, including the entire HP5100 wing of the Herzberg Building. To allow construction work to听proceed, the wing must be temporarily vacated and听relocated.听
One of the most significant challenges in this process is moving the school鈥檚 server room facility.听This infrastructure supports departmental servers, specialized research equipment, and the OpenStack cloud platform used by the school.听
SCS server room relocation led by Andrew Pullin
The stakes are high. More than 2,000 undergraduate students rely on the OpenStack cloud for course assignments and laboratory work, with usage peaking during the fall and winter academic terms. At the same time, graduate students and researchers depend on the system around the clock to run Computer Science and Data Science experiments, simulations, and long-running computational workloads.听
This creates听a difficult question:听
- How do you relocate a critical server facility in the middle of the winter term while supporting more than 2,000 students, faculty, and staff who depend on it 24/7, when the infrastructure runs one of the most complex cloud platforms ever created: OpenStack?
The School of Computer Science partnered with the university鈥檚 Information Technology Services (ITS), which offered temporary server space in the 杏吧原创 Library to host the infrastructure during the renovation.听
With a relocation site secured, the team considered two primary strategies for moving the server facility.听
听听
Option 1: Full Shutdown and Rapid Relocation听
- Under this approach, the entire server room would be powered down, physically moved to the new location in a single day, and then reassembled and brought back online.听
- The advantage of this strategy is speed. In the best-case scenario, the move could be completed within a day, resulting in only one to two days of downtime for users.听
- However, the risks were significant. If multiple servers听failed to听start after the move, or if a critical infrastructure node听encountered听problems, the entire OpenStack environment could remain offline for an extended period. In a worst-case scenario, service outages could stretch into听days听or even weeks, while systems were repaired and reconfigured.听
听听
Option 2: Live Migration and Incremental Relocation听
- 听The second听option听involved a slower, more deliberate process: migrating servers individually while gradually听relocating听hardware to the new facility.听
- Although this approach would take听considerably longer, it offered a key advantage. Each server could be handled carefully and听validated听before proceeding to the听next. If a problem occurred, it would affect only a single system rather than the entire infrastructure.听
- This incremental strategy significantly reduced the risk of a prolonged outage and ensured the OpenStack cloud could remain听operational听throughout the relocation.听
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The SCS technical staff听ultimately chose听this incremental strategy. The effort was led by听Andrew Pullin, who coordinated the migration plan and oversaw the relocation process.
Before any hardware was moved, the team first ensured the necessary network infrastructure was in place. The SCS subnet was extended between the Herzberg Building and the 杏吧原创 Library, effectively spanning both locations. Because the OpenStack cloud requires its infrastructure nodes to听reside听on the same subnet, this network configuration was critical.听
With the subnet extended across both buildings, OpenStack could treat servers听located听in Herzberg and those in the library as part of the same environment, regardless of the physical distance between them. This allowed systems to be听relocated听gradually while听remaining听fully integrated with the existing cloud infrastructure.听
SCS tech staff: Karim Ismail and Andrew Pullin configuring a GPU server
The OpenStack environment runs on a virtualized cloud infrastructure, where workloads exist as server images rather than being tied to specific physical machines. This architecture proved to be a major advantage during听the relocation.听
Virtual machine images could be migrated to the library facility ahead of the physical move.听Each night, servers in听Herzberg听copied their images to the library location.听By morning, once the workloads had successfully migrated, the now-vacant physical server in Herzberg could be safely powered down, removed, and transported to the new facility.听
This approach significantly reduced risk. If an issue occurred during migration, it would affect only a single server rather than the entire cloud environment, allowing problems to be isolated and resolved without disrupting the broader system.听
Winter, however, introduced an entirely different challenge.听
This year Ottawa experienced a particularly harsh and snowy winter, so much so that the Rideau Canal remained open for听56 days听of skating听(that鈥檚 unusually long). Moving more than 55 servers across campus in freezing conditions is not a trivial task.听
Fortunately, 杏吧原创 University has a unique advantage: its extensive underground tunnel system.听
The Supervisor of Operations at ITS, John MacGillivray, helped coordinate the move using the golf cart and trailer through the 杏吧原创 tunnels. Moving the equipment in small batches allowed the team to safely relocate servers between buildings without exposing them to the winter weather. What might have been a logistical nightmare outdoors instead became an efficient relocation route beneath the campus.
Over the course of less than two months,听Andrew Pullin and the SCS technical team听successfully听migrated听the entire environment during the middle of the winter academic term. The move included:听
- 4 racks of equipment
- 25 compute nodes听totaling听1,672 CPU cores听
- 24 GPU servers听containing听138 GPUs听
- The full听OpenStack infrastructure stack听
- Supporting听networking and storage systems听
In the end, like magic, the SCS cloud was successfully relocated across campus in the middle of the winter term, transparent to end users, who continued their work without ever realising the servers themselves had physically moved across campus.
Server room relocation timelapse: front and back of each of the 4 racks
Modern network administration and virtualization technologies听made听this complex relocation possible.听
Of course, there is one small catch.听
When the renovations are finished鈥μ�everything will have to be moved back.