GridPP PMB Minutes 20 - 4th February 2002 ========================================= Present: Dave Britton, Nick Brook, Tony Cass, Pete Clarke, Tony Doyle, Neil Geddes, John Gordon, Steve Lloyd, Robin Middleton Late start to meeting due to problems with MCU at UCL - both primary and backup system had failed. Review of Actions ================= ACTION 15.2: TD to iterate with Oversight (OS) committee on understanding management of the Tier-2 centres. Not done - TD will contact Paul Jeffries ACTION 17.7 TD Examine Gantt chart and identify risks, and consider how to manage them. Ongoing. TD has received GANTT chart from PC. It is not obvious how to relate to risk strategy. TD will iterate with PC to understand GANTT chart (which contain not inter dependencies as they stand at the moment). TD proposes another approach that would start from the SuperJANET4 document rather than the management tools. PC concurs with this approach. Further information for the risk assessment will come from the WP functionality information for each EDG testbed release that PC is collecting from WP contacts at the moment. The OS committee wish to meet with GridPP at the beginning of April. This timescale sounds reasonable for an integrated risk document and GANTT charts. NEW ACTION : PC & TD to produce integrated risk assessment document & GANTT charts for OS meeting in April ACTION 17.8 NG Find out who gets the money if there's a gap in a post. Done. The money, in principle, will return to PPARC (ie GridPP). In some scenarios PPARC (e.g. maternity leave) won't claim the money back. ACTION 17.9 SL with Andrew McNab; improve website. Discussion with Andrew ongoing ACTION 17.10 PC Encourage JIF and SRIF sites to put up Grid software. Ongoing. PC has been in discussion with varios people (incl. JG, RM, Dave Kelsey) to put together some formal procedure & clear plans for testbed rollout & support eg support lines, … It is hoped installation of s/w could be progress through following a simple crib sheet. The help line is hoped to be run out of CLRC. All these thoughts are up in the air at the moment. NEW ACTION: PC will produce a draft document outlining this ACTION 17.11 TD Contact Astrogrid project manager and see what we can learn. Ongoing. TD has failed to contact directly the Astrogrid project manager. Is waiting reply of e-mail. ACTION 17.13 JG and RM consider what 'running the grid' means. This action is ongoing and should be rolled into PC's draft document under NEW action in 17.10 ACTION 17.14 JG revise Tier 1/A staffing plans. Not done. JG been snowed under with WP5 work. Situation better than some time: Andrew Sansum, Barry Saunders & Stephen Traylen active + Marc Kelly (e-science student from Bristol). Interviewing for positions in e-science centre occur Thursday/Friday of this week - hope to gain posts from this recruitment. (These are separate from the GridPP funded posts). ACTION 17.18 PC forward spreadsheet to DB (including RAL grid effort and some words to explain meanings). Done ACTION 17.19 DB process spreadsheet from PC and use in reporting. Ongoing - EXCEL macros needed ACTION 17.20 PC through TB: get evaluation criteria to make MDS/R-GMA decision. Done. Discussion with Steve Fisher and within EDG has led to a September deadline being put in place for the comparison. RM - pointed out that this deadline may be soft and may be modified in light of forthing discussion at the GF workshop. JG pointed out there seems to be no-one using MDS or FTREE within the testbed release - CERN GIIS seems not to be up. These issues have to be raised at EDG WP managers meeting. NEW ACTION: PC will also raise issue at this weeks TB meeting. NEW ACTION: JG to find out what is being used & deployed in EDG, liaise with Antony Wilson ACTION 17.23 PC, RM and NB improve communication of TB and EB with WP8. Ongoing. Should also include Frank Harris in discussion. PC is working on it he is thinking about the monitoring of effort given to expts. He plans to use LHCb as testcase - will take plans & milestones as appeared in tender document & will iterate. ACTION 17.26 ALL get grid certificates and learn how to update the GridPP website. Done except for PC & TC ACTION 17.27 RM write document describing how PPARC controls unfunded EU effort and send to Fab. Process initiated this is now in the hands of NG and Fab. They will iterate at GGF. RM has 4 identified area of unfounded effort in his circulated note (point of clarification: HEFCE staff fall unde same category heading as ScotGrid type effort) NEW ACTION: NG to finalise write document describing how PPARC controls unfunded EU effort and send to Fab ACTION 17.28 RB Provide BaBar+Intergrid slides for Robin. Still to happen ACTION 17.30 NB and RB Arrange EB meeting mid March. Waiting feedback from PMB on document circulated in response to ACTION 18-1. (Since meeting NB circulated EB with document and proposed date. Ongoing) ACTION 18.1 NB/RB to investigate reporting format for Experiments Testbed experiences. Done. Circulated to PMB (& after today's meeting to EB) ACTION 18.3 SLL to get GridPP personnel details on website. SLL circulated e-mail to UKHEPGRID awaiting people's response. 27 replies so far. NG would also like this info so can be fed into NeSC etc NEW ACTION: SLL to provide NG with GridPP personnel details ACTION 18.5 TD Investigate making Glasgow MCU available as a backup. Ongoing at Glasgow. UCL also plan a production service soon. Need to make a decision whether to use these or buy and run an MCU ourselves. ACTION 19.1 PC to send latest GANTT chart to TD Done ACTION 19.2 JG give brief report on testbed status at RAL. At the moment the EDG testbed1 is trying to synchronise itself into a release that is run everywhere at the same level. Sites are popping in and out of the testbed daily as things change. RAL is more up to date with the basic software than most sites but were temporarily disconnected last week RAL are gearing up to re-install to the latest level in sync with everyone else this week. The 1.4TB for CMS has been taken out of the testbed. The other 1.4TB will be used for BaBar. The testbed isn't using much storage just now as it is still struggling to establish basic functionality. When it fires into life, we can buy some time by buying a few 120GB disks for the testbed SEs. There is a risk that if the testbed demand rockets that we are criticised for taking testbed resources and giving them to CMS and BaBar. ACTION 19.3 TD provide summary report of PEB to PMB There were various issues covered at the monthly PEB mtg. Here are some we need to pay attention to: 1. A spreadsheet (3 sheets) presented by Chris Eck (Resource Manager) shows the current financial status. Les agreed that this could be circulated to the PMB [attached]. (a) The UK commitment on hardware has been profiled differently from Dave's current spreadsheet due to mismatch in financial years. The sum (over 3 years) should be consistent with Dave's input, but is subject to e.g. currency fluctuations. Proposal is that Dave monitors this output to ensure no mismatch occurs. (i.e. Dave <-> Chris liaise and each reports back) (b) The UK contribution on hardware is relatively small (c.f. German contribution of 5MDM). The CERN contribution cannot currently be included in the planning which leads to a deficit. The situation is worse than September 2001 (in terms of planning for the LHC Computing Project). (c) A deficit of 8.2MSF in 2003 and 16.7MSF in 2004 is projected. 2. The posts attached to the LHC computing project were reported separately by Les. (a) For the UK the first of ten people starts in Feb and a new round of interviews is planned in March. (b) Overall the manpower is not a problem, compared to the projected deficit on the hardware. 3. Future plans (Les): (a) LHC project is being projected to start in 2007. Its implications can now be discussed. (b) The LHC computing prototype becomes a 4 (rather than 3) year project. (c) Recosting required (of CPU, Disk, Tape, manpower) according to 4-year profile. Timescale for 20-30 page document to LHCC: ~June for LHCC mtg. in July 2002. The next ~monthly main meeting of the PEB is March 5th. LR summary of situation was that the staff pledges were at a reasonable level but there was still a shortfall in hardware provision over the next 4 years. The next round of CERN interviews are likely to be held late in March. ACTION 19.4 SL to issue reminder to CB to respond on RAL posts Done - SLL received a majority support for the proposal by CB members NEW ACTION: SLL to send formal email reporting this with copies to appropriate PPARC people. AOB CNAP meets on 5/2. Changing role due to GridPP taking responsibility for central facilities. Will now include astronomy. Next Meetings : V/C Monday 11th Feb, Thursday 14th Feb at Collaboration Meeting at Cambridge. No meeting on 18th. Actions 04/02/02 ================ ACTION 15.2: TD to iterate with Oversight (OS) committee on understanding management of the Tier-2 centres ACTION 17.9 SL with Andrew Mcnab; improve website. ACTION 17.11 TD Contact Astrogrid project manager and see what we can learn. ACTION 17.14 JG revise Tier 1/A staffing plans. ACTION 17.19 DB process spreadsheet from PC and use in reporting. ACTION 17.23 PC, RM , NB and Frank Harris to improve communication of TB and EB with WP8. ACTION 17.26 PC & TC to get grid certificates and learn how to update the GridPP website. ACTION 17.28 RB Provide BaBar+Intergrid slides for Robin ACTION 17.30 NB and RB to finalise EB meeting at end of March. ACTION 18.3 SLL to get GridPP personnel details on website. ACTION 20.1: PC & TD to produce integrated risk assessment document & GANTT charts for OS meeting in April ACTION 20.2: PC will produce a draft document outlining procedures and help available for installing Grid middleware/EDG testbed releases ACTION 20.3: PC will also raise issue of MDS/R-GMA at this week's TB meeting. ACTION 20.4: JG to find out what WP3 tools are being used & deployed in EDG, liaise with Antony Wilson ACTION 20.5: NG to finalise written document describing how PPARC controls unfunded EU effort with Fab ACTION 20.6: SLL to provide NG with GridPP personnel details ACTION 20.7: SLL to send formal email to PMB reporting CB response to RAL recruitment with copies to appropriate PPARC people.