Temporarily release nodes from reservation?

[john.ou...@gmail.com]

Here is a new feature that I think would be very useful for CloudLab:

If someone has a reservation for nodes, allow them to temporarily reduce the size of the reservation, with the reservation returning to its original size at a specified future time.

I find that I'm often in a situation where I have a reservation but I know I won't be able to use most of the nodes for a few days. For example, I might have to fix a bug, which only requires one or two nodes. Or, I may have to work on things unrelated to CloudLab, so I can't use the nodes. Right now the only way to make those nodes available to others is to cancel the reservation, but then I may not be able to get the nodes back again when I need them. As a result, I leave nodes idle for nontrivial periods of time, "just to be safe".

I suspect that others have experienced the same dilemma. If it were possible to temporarily release nodes from a reservation, and if people were conscientious about doing this, I suspect that we'd be able to make better use of CloudLab nodes. It might even increase the availability of nodes enough that people don't need to make reservations as often?

-John-