Excessive Data Transfer Time from UoM Laptop to Blackett: 1GB Python Tarball Taking ~45 Mins

[ickc]

I've had slow data transfer rates (~45 mins to transfer 1GB python tarball from my laptop by sftp) but not sure if this is the same problem

Originally posted by @earosenberg in https://github.com/simonsobs-uk/data-centre/issues/8#issuecomment-1803493717

[ickc]

@earosenberg, it could be related to a couple of things, which I probably will document later:

• WiFi issues: UoM buildings are going through network upgrade (citation needed), and currently Alan Turing Building is still haven't been upgraded yet. The old network due to its ancient design has limited public IPs to distribute, and therefore are very selective to assign IP to LAN connections. Hence it is a policy for us to not have wired connections unless it is a workstation or similar. The only solution here is to wait the network upgrade to be deployed in our building too (the UoM website said it was already upgraded, confusingly.) However, WiFi (and its throughput) is usually not a problem in our office.
• protocol: it may be worth trying to use another protocol, such as rsync, or a more advanced but more involved setup—Globus
• You could also work using our workstation in the office, soukdev1. Once you have the tarball ready, you can upload from that machine to Blackett, where soukdev1 has wired connection which could have resolved the WiFi issue above. Did you get an account on soukdev1 yet?

[earosenberg]

Getting 10MB/s to blackett from home; also had slow transfer speeds between ATB and NERSC today so looks like an Alan Turing problem rather than a data centre problem per se. Sounds like soukdev1 might help -- I'm not set up yet, maybe we can discuss elsewhere

[ickc]

@earosenberg, ask either Hasib or me when either of us is in the office and we can setup an account for you. (Note to Hasib: I have instructions on how to do it in my Notion wiki.) This is due to UoM firewall that we can't reach that computer outside UoM.

[ickc]

Dup of #8. This can't be fixed as the interconnect between Blackett and campus is saturating and until IT upgrades them, it won't be changed. (Don't hold your breath for that...)