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. 030903.txt).
Cheers, Tony
________________________________________________________________________
Tony Doyle, GridPP Project Leader Telephone: +44-141-330 5899
Rm 478, 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: 194.36.1.32
________________________________________________________________________
GridPP PMB Minutes 94 - 3rd September 2003
==========================================
Present : Robin Middleton, Dave Britton, Roger Jones, Tony Doyle,
Steve Lloyd, Pete Clarke, Roger Barlow.
Personalia
==========
* Roger Jones was formally welcomed to the board.
* John Gordon has been promoted to Deputy Director of the eScience Centre,
CCLRC. The PMB wished John every success in this high-level appointment.
* Steve Lloyd has been formally re-elected as chair of the GridPP CB.
* We need to consider how we cover JG's roles on the PMB. It is
not clear to what extent he can continue. We need a plan from him on this
before we make lasting changes.
* A representative has been invited to the AstroGrid Collaboration Meeting
on 24/25th September (Tony Doyle volunteered). We have likewise invited a
representative to the GridPP8 meeting. We are also encouraging someone
from the Core eScience programme to attend the EDG final meeting in
Heidelberg meeting starting on the 26th September.
* The JISC Committee for the Support of Research (JCSR) meets next
Thurs-Friday. The UK needs to provide the matching networking, information
services and operations, some middleware and re-engineering and
dissemination posts in the EGEE, and the committee should be asked to
provide some of it. We should concentrate on networking and video
conferencing/collaborative tools (RJ is putting together a collaborative
tools bid into the FP6 second call). TD noted that AstroGrid are
interested in development of both these areas.
* Dissemination Officer: there are 9 applications, and the panel need to
share their ratings to construct the shortlist. Note that the proposed
CERN dissemination officer could help raise the PPARC contribution to the
LCG, and would support the UK officer. The host institute is not yet
decided. If in London, the default hosting would be QMUL.
Other Matters
=============
* The GridPP8 agenda needs to be settled. The EB need to receive their
invitations. The middleware session could be themed around EDG2.1
developments/status reports. It may be a good idea to follow the
middleware groupings in the GridPP2 proposal already.
* How are the new experiments to be handled in the EB? We could have a new
representative for existing experiments and one for proposed experiments.
At some level, the resource requests determine the level of involvement of
a community. The general principle should be to be open, but the overall
resource allocations are set in the bids. Another aspect is the wish to
disseminate between experiments, and to form collaborations. The EB
meeting is probably not appropriate for this, but the EB can try to
organise meeting and processes by which this happens.
* Guy Rickett has requested three sentences for a high-level presentation
of GridPP1. A draft was discussed and approved from TD.
* RJ raised a problem with the funding of Craig Tull at Berkley. This
arises because of the late approval of the US ITR (still pending). While a
precedent cannot be set, we may be able to use money `saved' by the late
start of posts within ATLAS.
* TD noted that Dave Kelsey's input would be needed on the PMB for the
coming months. It was agreed to invite DK on an ad hominem basis to join
the PMB. [DK subsequently agreed to attend on this basis.]
GridPP2 Financial Planning
==========================
* DB circulated a note on an updated financial model prior to the meeting.
* The RAL SLA implications are not yet finalised. The effect of John
Gordon's promotion has to be factored in. The financial implication on
GridPP1 in the GridPP2 era has been quantified, and Dave Britton's
planning accords with Dave Kelsey's. Overheads and London Allowance are
fixed at the current levels (46% for the overheads and fixed-sum for the
London Allowance). There is a 5% inflation assumed per year, which is
generous, but would allow for some increments over the lifetime of the
project.
* The 18 GridPP2 application posts are mapped 1-to-1 to the GridPP1 posts.
The post are therefore not all 3 years, as some remain live into the
GridPP2 era. Similarly, the same is done with the RAL Tier-1 posts. We
then have 13.5 Tier-1 posts, 13.5 Tier-2, 18 applications 16 middleware,
security and networking and 2 posts under operations staff and 4
operations managers. There would be £2.4M for tier-1 hardware, £200k
interface kit at Tier-2 and a reduced travel budget. The total programme
matches current guidance from PPARC. There is some flexibility in that the
Tier-1 hardware purchase at the end of the project can be adjusted.
* After feedback, the assumption for new posts is at SP9. In some cases,
people will be continuing at above this level, and we may need to recruit
at above this level.
* Posts cannot simply roll-over, and we should show that we are extending
the work to new experiments and b) the work is part of a sensible planned
programme, not just work generated by the post-holders. The middleware
posts must address the programme in the proposal. For the applications
area, there is a need for the experiments to specify their programme. The
middleware posts start to end first, on 1 January 2004, so decisions will
need to be made very quickly based on final feedback from Science
Committee and Council.
* There are problems that the posts that will be matching effort under
EGEE are not `signed and sealed' in time for the signing of the EGEE
documents. This is largely for NG to resolve. There are posts that will
have to come from outside of our programme, as discussed above. There are
4 posts proposed for Information Services as opposed to 5 in the EGEE
Technical Annex. It was noted that the final location of posts affects the
number employed.
* It is clear that GridPP2 ends on 31st August 2007, and we are not
planning on continuation, although end effects are included in the PPARC
roadmap beyond 2007.
* The average costs for RAL post need to be factored in with more detail.
* DB presented the underlying detailed spreadsheet. The PMB should examine
given areas of interest in detail, as delivery within this envelope is
difficult.
* The PMB approved the plan in principle. There are quantified losses in
the resource broker area, and the deliverables will be descoped; the
hardware purchases will also be reduced. Some effort may be recovered from
the GridCC bid. The TB will have to discuss the plan in detail and leaders
need to be defined for the GridPP2 programme.
* It is noted that support of middleware activity may meet success with
JCSR. An earlier document on middleware support submitted to JCSR will be
resurrected by Tony Doyle.
Next Meeting
============
* The next face-to-face was scheduled for November 7th in Manchester.
Standing Items
==============
SI-1 : ALL : Continual review/improvement/update of the GridPP
website.
SI-2 : ALL : to provide any News items to SL.
SI-3 : ALL : supply SL/TD with meeting dates for the web page.
SI-4 : EB & TB to improve their areas of the web.
ACTIONS AS AT 3RD SEPTEMBER
===========================
88.1 : JG to update hardware document with disk plot.
90.1 : TC to discuss LCG-2 with NG when the latter returns.
91.2 : JG to make GridPP submissions to All Hands meeting available from
the
GridPP web site.
93.1 : All to send any posters for the All Hands Meeting to SL
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