GridPP PMB Minutes 1 - 4th September 2001 ========================================= Present: Dave Britton(DB), Nick Brook(NB), Pete Clarke(PC), Tony Doyle(TD), Neil Geddes(NIG), John Gordon(JCG), Steve Lloyd(SLL), Robin Middleton(RPM). Agenda ------ 10:30-10:45 Introduction - Tony Doyle 10:45 Roles and Issues Project Leader - Tony Doyle EU DataGrid Liaison - Robin Middleton and Budget Holder CERN liaison - Tony Doyle PP Les Robertson Deputy PL - John Gordon CB Chair - Steve Lloyd Resource Manager - Dave Britton Experiments Board - Nick Brook Technical Liaison - Pete Clarke e-Science Director - Neil Geddes 1:00 lunch 2:00 Agree roles 2:15 Backlog of Issues/Matters arising .... 4:00 Discussion of critical issues ... Mapping roles to outstanding tasks. 1. PMB Membership ----------------- The constitution of the Project Management Board was discussed. A flat management structure is required especially in the early days of the project. The membership of the Board has been constituted as described in the Proposal except for the addition of the Resource Manager as agreed at the first Collaboration Board Meeting and the addition of the DataGrid UK Project Leader. The latter has yet to be approved by the Collaboration Board. The Deputy Chair of the Experiments Board is currently in the process of being elected. The candidates are Roger Barlow and Dave Newbold. Project Leader Tony Doyle Appointed by Collaboration Board Deputy Project Leader John Gordon Appointed by Project Leader Chair of Collaboration Board Steve Lloyd Ex officio Chair of Technical Board Pete Clarke Appointed by Project Leader Chair of Experiments Board Nick Brook Ex officio Deputy Chair of Experiments Board tbd Ex officio Resource Manager Dave Britton Appointed by Project Leader DataGrid UK Project Leader Robin Middleton Ex officio CERN Liasion Les Robertson Appointed by CERN e-Science Director Neil Geddes Ex officio 2. Roles on the PMB ------------------- The roles of the PMB members were drafted prior to the meeting and were discussed. The roles were refined through discussion, and are to be collected in one area http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~doyle/GridPP/PMB/roles such that the collaboration understand the roles, responsibilities and relationships within the PMB structure. Input was provided by all PMB members, resulting in updated (summary) roles on the web. Various issues arose as the roles were discussed (noted below): Project Leader -------------- (see http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~doyle/GridPP/PMB/GridPP_Sep4.ppt) The role of Project Leader of Project Leader was updated following input from the PMB. The important issues related to other roles were connected to establishing the Technical Board and its relation to DataGrid. Secretarial Help: The PMB agreed that a part time-post should be funded through GridPP to help in coordinating diaries, minute-taking, noting actions, organisation of meetings, preparation of (web) documents and generally helping improve communications from the PMB to the outside world. Tony would define the role, based on external input. It was agreed that the Project Leader (80%), and associated admin. assistant (50%) would be funded by GridPP for 3 years from Sept. 1st. DataGrid UK Project Leader -------------------------- The role was discussed by RPM. The overlap with the TB and PMB function requires further discussion between RPM, TD and PC. In RPM's role as Budget Holder, it was noted that we have used approx. 50k in the first half year. Estimate 150k for this year + 50k for last year. The final estimates require inspection of the latest travel budget figures. A request should then be made to PPARC. On the DataGrid jobs at RAL - Antony Wilson and Laurence Field have been appointed plus a 3rd has accepted. RPM noted that we can claim 121kEuro over three years from EU funding, with the first priority being support of EU funded posts and second to support DataGrid-related travel for others. CERN Liaison ------------ TD presented the role of CERN liaison on behalf of Les Robertson (LR). There was agreement on the various functions performed in this role. A summary of the role was required for the web. For the CERN posts/PPARC fellowships there will be a standing advert - first review 19th Oct. The contribution to CERN was defined as 1/3 of the GridPP allocation (17m). This would be used as a guide in assessing financial commitments. Deputy Project Leader --------------------- JCG presented his role to help, deputise and share the duties of Project Leader. In addition, JCG's role included tasks that were personal to him and not directly the role of Deputy PL so shouldn't be included. These were to: o Build TierA/1 Centre o Integrate Tier1 with Tier2s and with Tier0 through LHC Computing project o Build Links with CLRC e-Science Centre and Grid Support Centre and through them with other RC programmes o Maintain role in the technical programme JCG will also report on relevant points from DataGrid weekly meetings. The Deputy was agreed to be funded at 50% for 3 years (as discussed in the GridPP proposal), subject to discussions between CLRC and PPARC. Collaboration Board Chair ------------------------- SLL discussed whether to set up Dissemination Board as per proposal. This was included before e-Science Centres were proposed. It may not be useful to have such a committee now but dissemination activity at a high level was still very important. Role changes were noted as: "to ensure that correct mechanisms are in place for GridPP dissemination activities" and "To be the first point of contact for external enquiries" (the new Web pages already have this). SLL will take care of oversight of web pages at the startup of the project. Constitutions and ToR of all Management Structures will be updated from the proposal version in a new (web) document by SLL. The CB Chair was agreed to be funded at 50% for 3 years (as discussed in the GridPP proposal), subject to discussions between the University and PPARC. Resource Manager ---------------- DB discussed the role of Resource Manager which was approved by the PMB. The financial commitments need to be evaluated as a function of time in order to report back to PPARC's Project Oversight Board in mid-December. The technical requirements of the project require similar project management tools and it was planned to have a common approach. Technical Board Chair --------------------- PC discussed the role of TB Chair. A summary of the role was required for the web. The technical scope of the project cannot be evaluated fully until an assessment of requirements, deliverables and priorities is made. An interim TB consisting of 4 members of the PMB (PC [Chair], JCG, RPM, LR) was constituted in order to determine technical requirements. A short-term priority was to provide input to the EB on how requirements for each of the experiments can be presented. The TB Chair was agreed to be funded at 100% for 3 years (as discussed in the GridPP proposal), subject to discussions between the University and PPARC. Experiments Board Chair ----------------------- NB presented the role of the chair and deputy of the EB. There would be no pre-defined separate role for each of those posts, subject to discussion with the deputy EB. Responsibilities would be shared on an ad-hoc arrangement between the chair and deputy. The roles of the EB should include defining the experimental requirement and scope of the GridPP project. It was agreed that PC and NB should discuss the relative roles of the EB and TB. In doing so they should come up with a requirement format for the experiments that will allow the TB to assess the technical requirements of the project. e-Science Director ------------------ The role of e-Science Director was discussed. NIG will represent PPARC's interests and wider aims and goals. Where appropriate he will respond to GridPP requests and inform GridPP of wider issues in relation to e-Science, CERN etc. 3. Issues Arising ----------------- Peer Review ----------- It was agreed that NIG should approach a proposed chair for the PRSC. The Chair should be informed about UK activities, but should not be a member of a bidding UK institute. It was agreed that the Chair of the Technical Board should also be on the PRSC. This requires CB approval. GridPP posts are costed at 2.5 years in the proposal - it was agreed they should be funded for 3 years, anticipating further e-Science funding in years 4-6. Funding of Tier-1/A Centre -------------------------- Dave Kelsey's paper explained that CLRC needed financial approval from PPARC before they could start tendering. He suggested a solution of adding the hardware expenditure to the existing PPARC SLA with PPD. This was approved and NIG was actioned to tell Janet Seed to allocate 900K of GridPP allocation to the PPD SLA for this year. This will be an upper limit as some hardware has already been purchased last year. 100k approved by CNAP has so far been used to purchase 2Tb of disk, a few PCs and a Gigabit switch. JCG will form a small working group to advise on the hardware acquisition. This will contain volunteers from EB plus some technical experts. There was discussion on a number of issues pertinent to the acquisition, e.g. single or multiple vendor, memory size, maintenance. JCG to set timescale for tender. Technical Advice Group for Tier-1/A: Roger Jones, Roger Barlow, Dave Newbold, Dave Kelsey, Andrew Sansum, Ian McArther and John Gordon (chair). Recruitment Timetable --------------------- TD outlined the current issues, focussed on the 3 months up to December. A draft timetable for allocation of GridPP posts (and CERN recruitment timetable) was approved by the PMB, subject to agreement by the EB of the initial deadline. All dates are approximate at this stage. 8th October - EB input deadline 19th October - Technical assessment document - first review of CERN posts 26th October - PMB definition of tasks inc. allocation of posts to Working Groups 2nd November - Tender document 5-6th November - Collaboration Meeting 30th November- Deadline for submission 7th December - PRSC mtg. 14th December- summary document submitted to PPARC outcomes communicated to groups - second review of CERN posts Second Collaboration Meeting ---------------------------- The PMB approved the proposal to have the 2nd Collaboration Meeting at the National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh on 5-6/11/01. The local organiser is Steve Playfer. PMB Meetings ------------ The PMB will meet weekly via 1-hour scheduled meetings. Papers should be tabled with the Chair 3 hours prior to the meeting. The Standard PMB video conference will be at 1pm on Mondays (via H323, using the UCL MCU). PMB Monthly Meetings -------------------- In addition longer 1-day meetings are required ~monthly. The first of these were fixed (subject to further input) as: 27th September - UCL 9th November - RAL Action List ----------- 4/9/01 1.1 RPM to determine status of awarded EDG posts 1.2 SLL to report the membership of PMB to CB 1.3 RPM to report on last year's spend attributable to GridPP 1.4 RPM to estimate this year's travel based on spend to date 1.5 SLL to get web page updated 1.6 PC to publish contact details for weekly video conference 1.7 JCG to set up PMB mailing list 1.8 JCG to summarise weekly WP meetings to PMB 1.9 RPM to circulate DataGrid PMB agenda and summary of meetings to GridPP PMB 1.10 PC to forward information on X-project 1.11 PC&DB to determine which project management tool to be used 1.12 NIG to email Janet Seed cc: Dave Morrell with PMB request to allocate GBP900K to RAL SLA this year for GridPP hardware procurement 1.13 JCG to convene hardware acquisition group and define timeline 1.14 NB to consult with EB on feasibility of timetable for defining programme of work and filling posts 1.15 TD to finalise timetable after feedback from NB 1.16 SLL to describe process and timetable to CB 1.17 PC and NB to define format of experimental requirements 1.18 Everyone to rework their roles for publication on web 1.19 Everyone to produce input for minutes on their contribution