Dear All,
Please find attached the weekly GridPP Project Management
Board Meeting minutes. The latest minutes can be found each week in:
http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/pmb/minutes/this-week.txt
(as well as being listed with other minutes e.g. 020319.txt).
Cheers, Tony
________________________________________________________________________
Tony Doyle, GridPP Project Leader Telephone: +44-141-330 5899
Rm 482, Kelvin Building Telefax: +44-141-330 5881
Dept of Physics and Astronomy EMail: [log in to unmask]
University of Glasgow Web: http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~doyle
G12 8QQ, UK Video - IP: 194.36.1.234
________________________________________________________________________
GridPP PMB Minutes 26 - 19th March 2002
=======================================
Present: Dave Britton, Nick Brook, Peter Clarke, Tony Doyle, Neil Geddes,
John Gordon, Steve Lloyd, Robin Middleton
1. Project Discussion [All]
There was a general feeling that GridPP needed better dissemination
within our own community. We should stress that GridPP is providing the
analysis/computing framework of the future that will need to be developed,
independent of the current funding problems.
Future EU funding was discussed; the question was raised whether this
could be focussed on hardware support. It was noted that there was
general underfunding of the infrastructure, in particular support for the
Tier 2 centres.
There was discussion of future strategy. There were two approaches: high
risk developing core middleware services, and; low risk developing
middleware more specific to the application needs.
Phase 2 of the LCG was expected to be aimed more at acquiring manpower for
the project from within the member states as opposed to requesting
contributions for h/w.
Hans Hoffman should produce "vision" document with respect to possible
future EU funding by the end of this week. The EU will be requesting
Expressions of Interest for future Grid funding project for 5th April and
will request bids in June for early November framework 6 funding. Tony Hey
is keen to support the CERN-led bid. There was concern expressed that
the current strategy of funding from the EU through PPARC is restrictive
in the placing of EU funds. Do we want to consider putting in place
structures along INFN lines? This issue will be addressed again at the May
PMB meeting.
It was agreed that we have a mission statement, but this needed to be
phrased in a snappy, PR-friendly way.
ACTION 26.1: TD devise snappy, PR-friendly mission statement.
It is necessary to provide a version of the high-level deliverables
document, with priority tasks. This should tie into the management
instrument discussed below.
3. Issues Affecting Roles
PC reported back on his meeting with Darron Green. The OS want to see in a
place a management instrument; the perception is that we don't have a
management mechanism in place. We need to provide an Executive summary
(containing the goals, risks & issues); explanation of each of the
above goals (worked through as a list with elements needed for the goals
and metrics to measure the achievements). The elements will consist of
pictorial representation listed in priority order. This would be colour
coded to show success or problems; it will also allow to flag whether the
full goals could be achieved by estimating resources needed for each
element.
We need to define 4 levels (of details) of deliverables. It was decided
we should build on our current approach of the high-level deliverables
document. The GANTT chart needs to reflect the dependencies of the expt
deliverables with those of the EDG middleware.
ACTION 26.2 TD build a document from the GANTT chart in the form of
Darron's request.
Take EDG and one experiment to start with and see if we
gain anything extra from the approach we have in place already.
DB presented the analysis tools he has in place to analyse the input from
the returned Excel spreadsheet for the EDG effort. The macros produced
both pictorial representations and pivot tables. DB requested that people
should provide him with info that will be necessary for monitoring the
project.
RM presented a wide range of issues. Discussion returned to the issue of
dissemination (this time to the world outside of HEP). We should provide
press release through PPARC.
ACTION 26.3 SL send news items for the website to NIG and
Julia Maddock to assess suitability for a PPARC press release.
The current travel budget will fall short of the allocation by 50k. This
is planned to carry over to the next financial year, to alleviate
anticipated problems in relation to connected experiments support and
a larger.
ACTION 26.4 RM to discuss with Dave Morrell the carry-forward of
GridPP travel funds.
Five areas of expense for the travel budget were identified: "real"
work; general meetings; collaboration meetings; committee work;
training & tutorials. It was agreed that the cost of large meetings
i.e. collaboration meetings (currently limited to 10k), EDG and GGF
should be isolated and limitations placed on costs
ACTION 26.5 RM determine estimates of travel expenses in each category
based on last year's spends and devise accounting budget codes according
to agreed categories for the next FY.
NB presented the proposed reporting mechanism for the experiments. The
spreadsheet and pro-forma mechanism followed very closely the EDG format.
The spreadsheet format was fine, some defined numbering scheme needs to be
defined for the major expt deliverables. PC made a number of comments on
the pro-forma sheet which will be implemented
JG reported that delivery of the h/w for the Tier 1/A had begun and should
be completed by next week. Discussion pursued about practicalities of the
re-configuration of the worker nodes to meet various expt requirements.
SL noted the ongoing improvements to GridPP web site, with general
approval/thanks from the PMB to SL and Andrew McNab.
JG, RM, DB, SLL at this stage left for train.
Discussion continued about expt reporting mechanism procedures. It was
decided that the best approach would be that the EB & TB would meet on the
same day. In the morning there would be parallel sessions of the EB & TB
to discuss specific issues. In the afternoon there would be a joint
session to discuss the expt reporting/feedback to try & address the
problems particular expts were facing. PC mentioned it was planned to
have bi-weekly testbed rollout meetings via VC/telephone conf. This should
be a discussion forum for expt application builders and technical experts.
Outstanding Actions
-------------------
ACTION 15.2 TD to iterate with OC on understanding of management of Tier2
Centres.
ACTION 17.9 SL with Andrew McNab, improve website.
ACTION 17.14 JG Revise Tier1/A Staffing levels.
ACTION 17.19 DB process spreadsheet from PC and use in reporting.
ACTION 20.1: PC & TD to produce integrated risk assessment document &
GANTT charts for OC meeting on May 15.
ACTION 24.1 RM to get information on recruiting from experiments.
ACTION 25.1: RM collate TB Q5 reports and provide summary document.
ACTION 25.4 ALL to provide input on news each week: SL to select a news
item and put up on the web.
ACTION 25.5 TD to contact WP11 on the NeSC opening.
ACTION 25.6 RB (BaBar), NB (LHCb) and TD (query optimiser) to propose
NeSC opening demonstrators by March 25th.
ACTION 26.1: TD devise snappy, PR-friendly mission statement.
ACTION 26.2 TD build a document from the GANTT chart in the form of
Darron's request.
ACTION 26.3 SL send news items for the website to NIG and
Julia Maddock to assess suitability for a PPARC press release.
ACTION 26.4 RM to discuss with Dave Morrell the carry-forward of
GridPP travel funds.
ACTION 26.5 RM determine estimates of travel expenses in each category
based on last year's spends and devise accounting budget codes according
to agreed categories for the next FY.
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