Hmm.

It doesn't seem this is really a negotiation - or not a very hard one!
The VO provides an rpm to define a particular software environment and
the sysadmin can install it (as part of support for the VO) or not.

The VO doesn't even have to contact the site: ideally this information
should be supplied by a VO from a central webpage where they could be
providing other information (such as who are the software managers, who
to contact if problems arise etc.) that would be useful for sites
supporting their VO...

And if a site really can support 50 different VO's then they probably
have the manpower to install the rpms!  :-)

As for the users, they are allowed to use a site solely because they are
a member of a specific VO.  They don't get to negotiate what environment
is there: they get to use the environment the VO has provided for them,
which they know is there through the rpm and published tag...

The benefit for the VO's is they get to define the environment they want
and don't have to force their software to work on a baseline system.  Of
course, this does require them to be realistic about the environment
they define - don't ask me to install your own version of ssh, for
example! :-) - or sysadmins will not install their VO-rpm.  But they
will still be getting more of their ideal environment than a baseline
system could provide.

I also can't imagine trying to negotiate a baseline agreed between 50
different VO's and acceptable to all sysadmins! ;-)
Which means a lot of the environment VO's want will not be present in
the baseline so they will end up adding this stuff in their experiment
software area again... (and much probably duplicated in different VO's
areas!)

cheers,
Owen.

Burke, S (Stephen) wrote:

> LHC Computer Grid - Rollout
>
>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of owen maroney said:
>>This doesn't require sysadmins to have preinstalled specific
>>packages as
>>a baseline, but if these packages are required by an experiment, then
>>such a missing package can be specified and installed in this
>>way.  And
>>VO's won't have to install missing packages in their own
>>software area!
>
>
> But it does appear to mean that maybe 50 VOs (or 3000 individual users?)
> have to negotiate with each of 200 sysadmins, which is not exactly the
> grid ideal!
>
> Stephen
>

--
=======================================================
Dr O J E Maroney # London Tier 2 Technical Co-ordinator

Tel. (+44)20 759 47802

Imperial College London
High Energy Physics Department
The Blackett Laboratory
Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 2BW
====================================