GridPP PMB Minutes 9 - 9th November 2001 ========================================= (1-day meeting at RAL) 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) (Roger and Les via VC) A short (1 hour) meeting of the PMB at the Edinburgh GridPP Collaboration Meeting on 5th November was used to gather requirements for this 1-day meeting. Review of Actions ----------------- 1.11 PC & DB: Project management tools still under investigation. MS project was used for examples of experiment timescales (presented by PC at the Collab. Mtg.) 3.8 NIG: Oversight board meeting confirmed 14th December Review - resource choices, deliverables, status of project NEW ACTION: Definition of high level deliverables: annual & quarterly (TD, JCG & PC) 4.1 TD: PMB web pages still to be done. Subsequently completed by SLL. see http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/pmb/ and accessible via "About GridPP" link 4.7 RPM: to provide cost of LTA at CERN Done COLA - £5100 p.a. London weighting - £1760 (subject to clarification) + accommodation (at reasonable cost) 5.7 PC: List of names of TB: ongoing - subject to discussion during meeting 6.2 JCG: H/W specs to EB will be done next week 8.1 NB: Clarify experiment overlap Done. CMS/BaBar objectivity identified as a possible common project. 8.2 TD/SLL: date & venues for future collab. meeting Done. Feb 14/15 - Cambridge (Andy Parker) May - Manchester (RB & Andrew McNab) November - Imperial (DB and Dave Colling) Feedback given to organisers of Edinburgh meeting Annual £30k budget for Collab. Meetings (3 *10k) Proposal that future collab. meeting agenda be organised with 2 sessions for Experiments overviews (EB) & 2 sessions for Technical Status (TB). Request for input to TD from all members of GridPP on required format for future collaboration meetings (with increased emphasis on technical developments). Experiments Board - NB ---------------------- NB presented his & RB's view of the role of the EB and relationship with the TB now we are moving beyond tendering stage. feedback from experimental project monitoring of expts. (TB X-members important role here) dissemination between expts.: - inside GridPP - outside GridPP meet every 3 months (i.e. same as "reporting" schedule ) Relationship with TB Feedback & prior discussion of: a. middleware issues b. development at the "Tier" centres Detailed assessment of expts. technical input Following discussion of this proposal, PC presented his view on the role of TB. Technical Board - PC -------------------- The TB will have responsibility for monitoring of GridPP 3-monthly deliverables, which includes the experiment deliverables, with no formal role for the EB in this procedure. Following discussion, the PMB approved this general approach. The role of the EB was discussed further, without reaching specific conclusions. NB will consult with the EB on its role, matched to the EB role specification, assuming that the TB is responsible for 3-monthly monitoring. The make-up of the TB was discussed and names were suggested for membership. The TB will organise technical meetings e.g. EDG testbed1 roll out, Data management "how to", etc. PC will start process of iteration with expts to refine milestones & deliverables. The issue of how best to determine Tier 1/A milestones was discussed. Andrew Sansum & JCG will produce a proposal. This led to a discussion of displacement, in particularly at CLRC. NIG noted that displacement at RAL had to occur this year in order to avoid cuts in PPD & ITD. The only people to be displaced this financial year will be from RAL. ACTION - the deliverables & objectives of GridPP buying effort from PPD & ITD should be defined (i) for this year & (ii) for the duration of the project. TD to contact Ken Peach - with a deadline of the end of November, in order to provide input to the GridPP Oversight Committee (see below). Resources - DB -------------- DB summarised the financial commitment and presented the spreadsheet tools developed to monitor the project's financial commitments. There was agreement to provide education & training on issues with direct relevance to Grid activities. For current CNAP courses (e.g. OO, C++) PPARC e-science will provide funding. Steve Fisher to be encouraged to go ahead and organise courses as usual. It was noted that it might be possible, in some circumstances, to use Tony Hey's core e-science funds to finance travel for GGF. The deadline for the BaBar common fund rebate (offset against the Tier A centre) is in January. RB pointed out in order to qualify for this BaBar UK must make a commitment to have access/use of 2/3 of the GridPP h/w resources. Discussion followed on what this actually meant in reality. ACTION: RB to submit the BaBar UK Tier A proposal to PMB for discussion before final submission to BaBar. DB will build into his financial tools, the numbers and integrity checks with extraction & reporting mechanisms. Following on from the BaBar discussion it was noted it will be important to monitor use of resources - JCG notes that a CNAP-like mechanism at Tier 1/A is all that could be currently envisaged. This required further consideration. CERN - LR --------- CERN is in the process of setting up the 3 LHC computing committees (Overview, PEB, SC2). The expts will nominate their representatives to Hans Hoffmann by Nov 12th. It was hoped there would be an initial meeting of the SC2 before Christmas and a workshop is planned to be organised for Feb 2002. The s/w co-ordinators of the LHC expts have already requested that some of the Technical assessment groups be set up before the convening of the SC2 eg assess persistency solutions. The PEB will meet in the next 10 days. GridPP should have representatives on all 3 committees. Preliminary names, discussed at the meeting were: Project Overview Board (Chair: Hans Hoffmann) - Neil Geddes Project Execution Board (Chair: Les Robertson) - Tony Doyle Software and Computing Committee (Chair: Matthias Kasemann)- Pete Clarke On CERN recruitment, 29 applications were judged to be above threshold. They will be interviewed in the UK on 3rd/4th December. Other interviews will take place at CERN on 6th December. Tier 1/A & Testbed - JCG ------------------------ JCG has produced a Tier 1/A requirements document for the GridPP tendering procedure. The tender for the h/w of the Tier centre has gone into the EU journal. It is foreseen that the evaluation will begin the end of December/early January with delivery the end of January/early February. He will circulate the specification document to the EB next week. The interim disk purchase will be requested. For the testbed roll-out, RAL seems to be slipping down the list of priority sites in EDG. The testbed h/w is ready to go and will gain experience of Globus 2 (outside of EDG) by installing the toolkit independently. DataGrid - RPM -------------- Busy preparing for EU review of DataGrid. RPM will contribute input on EU-funded staff at RAL to the Q4 and annual reports. Due to the late turn on of GridPP funding, problems with PPARC contributions to DataGrid. WP3 contrib. is now OK. WP5 is 1-2 quarters behind schedule. RPM outlined the WP5 recovery plan: (i) immediate/short term: use of agency staff to get things going (ii) medium term: offer 6-12 month contracts. (1 verbal acceptance at the moment). Make use of other recruitment in CLRC to work in WP5 area. (iii) general recruitment: advert for 2 EDG funded posts (WP3 & WP5) and 2 EDG unfunded posts (WP5 & WP6) is running currently and closes next week. So far 25 applicants for posts. Highest priority to recruit WP5 posts. Aim is now to have 3 staff years over 2 years. NIG stressed it was essential that the UK EDG was seen to be putting its house in order and being pro-active in addressing the problems of WP5. In the worse case scenario PPARC could be thrown out of EDG if it's felt that it's not meeting its commitments. It was suggested the current CLRC WP8 effort be temporarily re-directed to work on WP5. NB expressed concern on this development and thought it would have consequences on the roll-out of the testbed at RAL and its subsequent evaluation by UK LHC collaborations. It was noted that CMS UK had already moved their UK priority site from RAL to IC over concerns over lack of expt support. There were ~8 "unfunded" (i.e. GridPP funded) EDG posts in position now. Concern was raised about the lack of a UK political presence in WP6, since Dave Newbold stood down during the summer. A suitable candidate to take over from Dave needs to be found. AoB --- PC raised the issue of preparation for the Oversight committee. He suggested a dedicated PMB meeting to plan the presentation. He raised the question of how we address the cut-backs to the proposed programme due to the reduced funding. Meeting closed at ~16:30 The next GridPP PMB 1-day meeting is planned for Wednesday 16th January at Imperial College. This should include time for further discussion of the EB and TB roles and their relation to the PMB.