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/php/pmb/minutes.php?latest
as well as being listed with other minutes at
http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/php/pmb/minutes.php
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 157 - 17th January 2005
=========================================
Present: Tony Doyle, Steve Lloyd, John Gordon, Dave Britton, Tony Cass,
Robin Middleton, Jeremy Coles, Peter Clarke, Dan Tovey (by phone) Dave
Kelsey, Roger Jones (joined later)
0. Case for LCG phase-2 funding to Science Committee
====================================================
TD said he hoped to have a final version of this by Thursday in advance of
the SC meeting on 3rd/4th February. He also intends to circulate the
final version to the OC and copy in the CB as well.
TC said the document should state what will be done in Phase 2 and how the
GridPP money will be used, specifying the breakdown in spending on ARDA
etc. TD suggested including info. from the memo sent in August with a
paragraph stating 'how we got to where we are now' - similar to what was
previously reviewed by the CERN-UK committee in October. TC noted that
parts of the memo should not be included at all as the wording was
inappropriate.
TD asked if it is clear what the request is and the context in which it
sits. He said we should make sure the request from Science Committee to
describe the LCG funding shortfall in terms of what is and is not
currently funded;
describe how CERN hopes to meet the shortfall through additional member
states' voluntary contributions;
justify a level of £1m for an additional UK contribution;
describe how GridPP has specified the way in which the UK
additional contribution would be deployed in LCG;
explain what would be lost in terms of scientific productivity if this and
other additional voluntary contributions are not made.
are addressed in the document and/or associated presentation.
Some further discussion took place about the breakdown in funding.
TD asked that any further comments on the funding draft be sent to himself
and TC by the end of the day.
1. OC feedback and actions
==========================
A short summary of some of the points raised by the OC last Monday were
introduced by TD (to be addressed before the next OC meeting planned for
June 20th:
1. GridPP may be underestimating the difficulty of engaging with each of
the experiment teams.
TD noted that GridPP should address alignment with each of the individual
experiments and document this more fully next time. This probably
requires joint technical summaries of issues arising from Grid use in the
UK.
ACTION: DT - compile a document on experimental engagements and the
difficulties as they currently perceive them
e.g. running jobs on UK resources; application development; people not
responding with useful deliverables etc (in relation to the Grid.)
TD proposed in the first instance that DT send a questionnaire to
the UB asking various questions to identify these problems within each
experiment.
ACTION: RJ - review applications engagement.
(Note: RJ had not yet joined the meeting)
2. A document with a plan to support UK physics analysis community in 2007
is needed.
TD noted that the comment was prompted by the established good
links/working relationships between BaBar and Tier-A, but not yet the LHC
experiments. Computing TDRs help here.
ACTION: RM to speak to Stephen Burke to ask if he could work on this with
RJ.
3. Tier-1 allocation policy - define usage policy.
i.e. what is the absolute scale? Are we under/over-committing from PPARC
perspective? It is clear that there is signinificant contention (see
UB report below)
An agreement needs to be reached with Janet Seed.
CB agreement is a first step towards this.
PMB/UB/Tier-1 Board needs to identify the full scale of the problem and
provide ways to resolve/ameliorate the problem.
Definitive statements need to be provided to LCG by April 2005
ACTION: TD to co-ordinate development of Tier-1 allocation policy.
(via the Tier-1 Board)
4. GridPP2 Risk Register - need to update.
ACTION: DB to co-ordinate development of new risk register.
5. OC requires the LCG funding to be put to them before going to Science
Committee.
ACTION: TD/TC to have release prepared by Tuesday and for OC by Thursday.
Note this was done. The final version is at:
http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/docs/gridpp2/SC_GridPP2_LCG_1.0.doc
6. A Get-fit plan on Production Metrics is needed.
How do we move from 60% to >90%, noting that most problems are currently
associated with site misconfigurations. How will this be effectively
monitored in the UK? This is not yet in a form to be translated into an
action plan. JG said the metrics will need to be re-cast to fully connect
with deployment activities on the ground. RM said the LCG Logbook covers
an experiment point of view and is part of the get-fit plan. TD said each
experiment monitoring their own system should inform the Deployment Team
what the issues are from their perspective.
ACTION: DT to circulate the GridPP engagement questionnaire to the PMB
for further deployment-type questions to be added.
ACTION: DK to liase with JC and members of Deployment Team for this.
(see below)
7. Nail down the metrics - no sensible values yet established. Iterations
are required.
ACTION: DK to liase with JC and members of Deployment Team for this.
8. Clarify probable direction of GridPP in terms of middleware.
GridPP needs to formally state its position w.r.t. adoption of Glite in
order to feed this back to the core programme. A statement of intent is
sufficient. A formal evaluation may be required but the statement can come
earlier.
ACTION: RM to follow this up.
ACTION: JC to report on status of Tier-1 applications w.r.t. middleware
adoption/use
Dissemination
=============
Thanks were expressed by OC for excellent progress in this area.
Tier-1/A Report
===============
The question of oversubscription to the service was not addressed
fully in the report (although the slides did include 2004 outturns of CPU
and disk use).
This needs to be addressed next time.
Pressing need for appointment of the experiment liaison people was picked up.
2. CB report and actions [SL]
=============================
SL said there had been a good turn out of Group Leaders and that TD and DB
had given reports. The sharing of Tier-2 resources were discussed based on
the MoU. He said that DB had given a very good summing up on GridPP2 and
beyond.
Note: the draft minutes are now at
http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/cb/doc/CB_Mins_12_Jan_2005.doc
ACTIONS from the CB Meeting were propagated to the PMB as follows:
CB-06-01 CCLRC to investigate VAT exemption status of hardware at
RAL for provision towards LHC experiments.
ACTION JG to provide info. on VAT exemption criteria
CB-06-02 SL to notify CB of standard template talk for schools.
ACTION SP to provide standard template talk for schools
CB-07-01 SL to collect Form X information from Group Leaders.
ACTION SL to collect Form X information
(This could then be used to anticipate annual anticipated changes in
Tier-1 allocations).
ACTION CB-07-02 KP to calculate shares using resource allocations.
(The issue of whether M&O authors and other cross-checks provided a
consistent picture as a metric for sharing Tier-1 resources was raised)
3. UB report and actions [DT]
=============================
Minutes are available at:
http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/eb/041222/index.html
DT reported briefly on December's User Board's meeting. He said that
BaBar, in particular, were unhappy with current resource Scheduling.
The latest Tier-1/A schedule was now available at
http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/eb/041222/schedule2005Q1.html
4. JPhysG status [SP]
=====================
TD, SL and PC will meet on Wednesday to edit individual chapters.
5. GridPP12 agenda updates [TD]
================================
News from Peter Hobson is that more than 70 people have now registered for
this event. The agenda will need to be re-arranged slightly as one
speaker has to move his talk from Monday to Tuesday. TD recommended that
Jamie Shiers' Service Challenges be incorporated on the Monday agenda.
6. ACTIONS
===========
140.9 RM to finalise LCG Deployment Logbook
ongoing: a meeting with Stephen Burke has been organised
143.1 TC to investigate making existing LCG source RPMs visible at CERN
ongoing: discussion taking place with Ian Bird?
NEW ACTION 157.1: DT - compile a document on experimental engagements
and the difficulties as they currently perceive them.
NEW ACTION 157.2: RJ - review applications engagement.
NEW ACTION 157.3: RM to speak to Stephen Burke to ask if he could work on
a plan to support UK physics analysis community in 2007 with RJ.
NEW ACTION 157.4: TD to co-ordinate development of Tier-1 allocation policy.
NEW ACTION 157.5: DB to co-ordinate development of new risk register.
NEW ACTION 157.6: TD/TC to have LCG funding document prepared by Tuesday
and for OC by Thursday.
Done.
NEW ACTION 157.7: DT to circulate the GridPP engagement questionnaire to
the board for further questions to be added.
Done- directly after the meeting.
NEW ACTION 157.8: DK to liase with members of Deployment Team for
summarising metrics.
NEW ACTION 157.9: RM to report on direction of GridPP in terms of middleware.
NEW ACTION 157.10: JC to report on status of Tier-1 applications w.r.t.
middleware adoption/use.
NEW ACTION 157.11: JG to provide info. on VAT exemption criteria
NEW ACTION 157.12: SP to provide standard template talk for schools
NEW ACTION 157.13: SL to collect Form X information
NEW ACTION 157.14: JG to send a message to sites reminding them not to
delete files on the SE.
(This followed a discussion on storage and where to save files. DK said
there was no clear ruling on this. Currently discussion and agreement was
required between the owners and individual sites. RJ noted that the
scratch area concept was currently missing.)
AOB
===
DK said he would be unable to attend next week's meeting.
An agenda was needed in advance of the face to face on 2nd February.
STANDING ITEMS
==============
SI-1 ALL: to provide any news items and meeting dates for the web page to SP.
An item on BaBar has been put on the website. Tier-0/-1 service challenge
meeting could be reviewed as possible news item.
SI-2 Production Manager's weekly report of issues.
40 people had attended a meeting at CERN last week with their Deployment
Team. JC said Tier-2 staff didn't know enough of the CERN people yet, so
this organised progamme of meetings was needed.
ACTIONS AS AT 17th JANUARY 2004
==============================
140.9 RM to finalise LCG Deployment Logbook
143.1 TC to investigate making existing LCG source RPMs visible at CERN
157.1: DT - compile a document on experimental engagements
and the difficulties as they currently perceive them.
157.2: RJ - review applications engagement.
157.3: RM to speak to Stephen Burke to ask if he could work on
a plan to support UK physics analysis community in 2007 with RJ.
157.4: TD to co-ordinate development of Tier-1 allocation policy.
157.5: DB to co-ordinate development of new risk register.
157.8: DK to liase with members of Deployment Team for summarising
metrics.
157.9: RM to report on direction of GridPP in terms of middleware.
157.10: JC to report on status of Tier-1 applications w.r.t.
middleware adoption/use.
157.11: JG to provide info. on VAT exemption criteria
157.12: SP to provide standard template talk for schools
157.13: SL to collect Form X information
157.14: JG to send a message to sites reminding them not to
delete files on the SE.
STANDING ITEMS
==============
SI-1 ALL: to provide any news items and meeting dates for the web page to
SP.
SI-2 Production Manager's weekly report of issues.
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