[labnetwork] Tool PC backups / PC redundancy

[Shivakumar Bhaskaran]

Hi ,

At UIUC We had three Plasma Therm PECVD/RIE tool, one of them were from 90s and OS is windows98 and the CPU was aging we had issues with the hardware, we tried replacing the hardware but was not successful, we purchased a new CPU from the Plasma Therm to see whether it will support the old plasma therm. With little bit effort from IT folks and spending more time in upgrading the software and tried to configure the communication port we were able to make a backup. So we have one CPU unit (this will be a spare one) and three backup hardware (for three tools). So without any worries we were confident that we can replace the CPU if it stopped working. As I said I didn't get immediate solution, this took us more than 3months to figure this out (this was mainly due to the tool was always in use, I had difficult time to test the unit with upgraded software)

This might help for some tool but not all, we might be little bit lucky to see this worked out.

--Shiva


Shivakumar Bhaskaran
Searle CleanRoom Manager
University of Chicago
5735 S.Ellis, Room 032
Chicago-60637
Ph:773-795-2297







From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Morrison, Richard H., Jr.
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2014 5:21 AM
To: Nathan Nelson - Fitzpatrick; labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] Tool PC backups / PC redundancy

HI,

Here at Draper we have Win-7 XP machines. The Win7 are backed up on the internal web, the XP we backup on portable hard drives. Anything with a motherboard no longer supported we try to purchase at least one and keep it in stock. Most of them cost us about $1500 which gets expensive but it is better than a down tool.

Rick


Draper Laboratory
Principal  Member of the Technical Staff
Group Leader Microfabrication Operations
555 Technology Square
Cambridge Ma, 02139-3563

www.draper.com<http://www.draper.com>
rmorrison at draper.com<mailto:rmorrison at draper.com>
W 617-258-3420
C 508-930-3461



From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu<mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Nathan Nelson - Fitzpatrick
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 10:08 AM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu<mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: [labnetwork] Tool PC backups / PC redundancy

Hi Labnetwork,

Over the past year our lab has seen quite a few new tool installations and as a result we now have over thirty tools (microscopes, EBL, deposition/etch systems, etc...) that have some sort of interface with a personal computer.  Many of these personal computers are run-of-the-mill consumer grade PCs and I think that running this many computers over a many-year timescale will mean that failures are virtually guaranteed.  I'm very interested in knowing how larger labs with many computers (with many different port configurations, hardware requirements, and operating systems) prepare for and deal with this problem.

At our site, we are simply cloning the various tool hard drives (using Clonezilla) onto external hard drives that sit on a shelf in my office.  This is time consuming and requires some discipline to keep going.  The other problem with this approach is that it does not really protect us in the case of non-disk hardware failures (such as a motherboard failure).  I'd love to know the philosophies and approaches that larger labs employ to deal with this problem.

Thanks,
  -Nathan
--
Nathan Nelson-Fitzpatrick  PhD
Nanofabrication Process Engineer
Quantum NanoFab
University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, ON   Canada  N2L 3G1
Ph: +1 519-888-4567 ext. 31796




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