GridPP PMB Minutes 5 - 1st October 2001 ======================================== Present: Roger Barlow (RB), Dave Britton (DB), Nick Brook(NB), Pete Clarke(PC), Tony Doyle(TD), Neil Geddes(NIG), John Gordon(JCG), Steve Lloyd(SLL), Robin Middleton(RPM), Les Robertson(LR) Review of Actions ----------------- ONGOING... 1.1 RPM to determine status of awarded EDG posts Liverpool outstanding. Robin will circulate remainder. Closed 1.11 PC & DB to determine which project management tools to be used Will be done but not critical path. Not before 19th. 2.3 LR to table a 1-page document on the proposal to spend 300k on hardware. Initial discussions with STK suggest tape best done in Switzerland, not through UK. 2.4 LR to contact Guy Rickett to confirm financial transfer options PPARC would like equipment to be purchased in UK. CLOSED 2.5 RPM to put place holder for InterGrid with potential interest from BaBar/CDF/D0 using prototype Tier-1/A at RAL. Done. RPM will present BaBar case on Sunday. D0 status will be presented by Kors Bos. What about CDF? RPM needs brief. 2.6 RB to track options via InterGrid from application point of view Document in draft. France and US interested. Probably involve Italy too. Should be ready for Robin before weekend. Richard Mount says the Grid projects need to contribute staff effort. Should discuss SHEFC bid with Edinburgh so that it can include BaBar. 3.2 PC, NB, RB + EB to define experimental requirements 3.8 NG to provide details of Oversight Board timetable 3.10 DB to assess current financial commitments prior to request for transfer of up to 200k (total) via RAL SLA for travel this year 4.1 TD to set up the PMB web pages Exists on Glasgow Server, but requires transfer to GridPP site 4.2 NB to set up the EB web pages Exists on Bristol Server, but requires transfer to GridPP site 4.3 SLL to set up CB web pages Done - but discussion on usability 4.4 RPM & PC to finalise GridPP PMB roles before next meeting Done 4.5 RB to table a 1-page docuument to InterGrid on BaBar interest In preparation 4.6 RPM to circulate Les' background note Done 4.7 RPM to formulate guidance on costs of sending person to CERN on LTA. Some examples would be useful. Agree with Ken Peach and circulate to PMB (Les would use this information to inform potential applicants). Started but not yet complete. 4.8 TD to contact Mary Elizabeth Shewry about the potential need for accommodation for Grid LTAs Done 4.9 JCG to prepare the advert in the EU Journal. Within a couple of days 4.10 RPM to appraise David Boyd of Globus support through DataGrid in the short term Done 4.11 TD to appraise Malcolm Atkinson and NeSC of Globus support through DataGrid in the short term Done - MA thought that UK should give support through GSC. 4.12 RPM to circulate a paragraph for submission to next DataGrid PMB on UK position on Globus support. Done 4.13 SLL to send to AstroGrid a list of the GridPP working group contacts Done - currently available via GridPP Technical Board page 4.14 ALL - Each PMB member should prepare a presentation on the issues they see confronting GridPP over the coming few months. Technical Developments (Pete Clarke) ------------------------------------ In summary Pete was happy with developments. His highest priority was to talk with the experiments. He had already had intensive discussion with LHCb, CDF and BaBar but less contact (if any) with the remaining experiments. He was planning to concentrate on the documentation the experiments had already provided to him for the 8th October deadline. He saw this not as a hard deadline but part of an interative process. He would like the TB to look at possible solutions to the expt. requirements to that end he would like to have on the TB: Dave Colling, Andy McNab and John Gordon + others. His strategy was that GridPP should be pushing for expt projects that could deliver real, tangible (visible) goals on the timescale of GridPP. Future Experiments & Theory (Nick Brook) ---------------------------------------- EB meeting on 2nd October to discuss technical requirements. Minimal feedback from input from ALICE UK. They have no definition of program in UK beyond installing ALICE s/w across Grid. Request for modest manpower to achieve this. ATLAS requirements & use case document under preparation. Joint meeting between ATLAS & LHCb computing co-ordinators (plus other interested parties) to discuss joint Gaudi initiatives. CMS submitted long term DataGrid requirements document. Detailed discussion of what they would like to achieve over the Grid, no explicit use case scenarios. (Submitted after PMB meeting) LHCb submitted use case and requirement document based on distillation of DataGrid short-term & long-term requirement documents. Also submitted their draft DataGrid project plan. LHCb & ATLAS are developing join initiatives (see discussion under ATLAS). Theory have a modest, well defined short-term programme. They wish to transparently access a fixed distributed set of data over a small node of facilities based at UK QCD institutes. Running Experiments (Roger Barlow) ---------------------------------- BaBar use case has been iterated with Peter Clarke. There has been Input from D0 and "other" experiments and CDF's input is imminent (arrived after PMB meeting). BaBar management warm(ish) to the UK Tier A proposal. BaBar UK agrees that 20TB disk can be cheap IDE/linux. From the BaBar point of view, Athlons CPU are out. BaBar UK had concerns about purchase timescales. On the involvement of BaBar in the InterGrid project there is already UK/France collaboration and US joining enthusiastically. It is difficult defining the timescales and further discussion is needed for what we can do in 12 months. CERN (Les Robertson) -------------------- There have been no major developments since reporting back last week. The situation with the LHC computing project is the manpower is fully funded but not the hardware. CERN will be setting up a MC production system in the Grid context. Les indicated that CERN GridPP manpower could be directed from within the UK towards delivering effort for technical work groups and also support for Grid-ification of experimental software. Les circulated the CERN staffing requirements and undertook to keep PMB informed about job description and adverts as they appeared. DataGrid (Robin Middleton) -------------------------- RPM is monitoring the progress of the deliverables. Steve Fisher has taken over from RPM in heading up WP3. There seems to be a large gulf between WP8 and the technical packages in their understanding of each other. The PMB should be pro-active in promoting DataGrid activity within the UK. Hardware Advisory Group (John Gordon) ------------------------------------- BaBar wants hardware by the end of the year. In principle this is achievable but in practice is not feasible. A disk tender and a CPU tender will be be prepared. The tender for the STK will be handled differently. It was agreed that IDE disk would be OK. CMS & BaBar flagged they need disk space now. 4Tb will be purchased outside of EU tender process. JCG will advertise notification of tender in the EU journal in next few days, which gives 1-2 weeks to firm up specifications. John has been making technical contacts with Tier 2 centres to discuss establishing Grid framework: Liverpool(Patel), Glasgow(Martin), and Imperial(Colling). Discussion followed about manpower effort available through GridPP for Tier 2 support - it was assumed that this should come through displacement. Resources (Dave Britton) ------------------------ Work is ongoing assessing project management tools (with PC) - not regarded as high priority. The spend to date is to be understood (liaise with RPM). Dave needed to understand committments this FY (iterate with Dave Morrell). NIG will provide the cost of the current allocated jobs to Dave. The provision of travel within GridPP had to be understood and how this was built into the original formulae and does it need to be re-addressed. A financial reporting format needs to be put in place. A RAL assessment document, prepared by Dave Morrell, of staff in place who will contribute to the GridPP programme was discussed. A long discussion about displacement took place. It was clear that there was some confusion across the community about what this entailed. It was also clear that non-Grid expt. core software effort could not be displaced. These displacement issues will be raised at the next Collaboration Board meeting. Summary (Tony Doyle) -------------------- We need to refine financial model. The EB requirements need to be fed into the TB which then produce the TB summary of requirements inc. proposed implementation methods. It will be important to discuss this at the next collab. mtg. Next meeting: 15th October - 1:00pm (due to various people away in Frascati at EU DataGrid and GGF3 mtg.) PMB Action List 01/10/01 Action List ----------- ONGOING... 1.11 PC & DB to determine which project management tools to be used 2.6 RB to track options via InterGrid from application point of view 3.2 PC, NB, RB + EB to define experimental requirements 3.8 NG to provide details of Oversight Board timetable 3.10 DB to assess current financial commitments prior to request for transfer of up to 200k (total) via RAL SLA for travel this year 4.1 TD to set up the PMB web pages 4.2 NB to set up the EB web pages 4.5 RB to table a 1-page to InterGrid on BaBar interest 4.7 RPM to formulate guidance on costs of sending person to CERN on LTA. Some examples would be useful. Agree with Ken Peach and circulate to PMB (Les would use this information to inform potential applicants). 4.9 JCG to prepare the advert in the EU Journal. 4.12 RPM to circulate a paragraph for submission to next DataGrid PMB on UK position on Globus support. 4.13 SLL to send to AstroGrid a list of the GridPP working group contacts. 4.14 ALL - Each PMB member should prepare a presentation on the issues they see confronting GridPP over the coming few months. NEW... 5.1 JCG and LR to discuss CERN hardware purchase. 5.2 LR to circulate document on CERN staffing requirements from GridPP. DONE during meeting 5.3 LR to circulate URL of CERN posts advert and job descriptions. DONE during meeting 5.4 PC to appoint deputy 5.5 RPM to report on current status of EU funded posts 5.6 JCG to estimate manpower needs for Tier 1/A centre 5.7 PC to come up with a list of names for TB 5.8 NIG to pass costings of the current allocated post to DB