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Present: Dave Britton(Chair), Pete Clarke, Jeremy Coles, Tony Doyle, Pete Gronbech, Roger Jones, Dave Kelsey, Steve Lloyd, Andrew McNab, Andrew Sansum, Gareth Smith, Louisa Campbell (Minutes).
Apologies: David Colling, Tony Cass.
1. WLCG Pledges (Delay)
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DB forwarded pledges emails regarding recent proposed changes to the experimental requests in advance of pledge submission. Values have increased c. 20% across the board and there was some discussion on whether this can be met. Tier2 pledges are being worked on and may be achievable, though Tier1 will clearly be difficult.
There was some discussion on allocation of capacity in major Tier2s and caution over pledging resources that may need to be allocated elsewhere. We should be as responsive and flexible as possible given the resources available taking account of the profiling of our funding. The RRB is scheduled (24-26 October) ahead of the OSC, and DB will discuss strategic response with Tony Medland and the OSC in terms of delivery vs pledge. Careful projection on future costs is critical. Guidance may be south from the OSC on whether it is preferable to meet increased levels of pledges taking account of associated risk, or retention of lower pledges with more certainty of achieving them.
Tier2-D sites: total amount of disk required to pledge to LHCb is less than the sum of the 300TB minimum required at the UK LHCb Tier2Ds. It was agreed to pledge the required amount but with an internal understanding in the UK that we would meet the 300TB minimum at the relevant sites.
ACTION 606.1: DB will discuss with Tony Medland and OSC strategy for delivery of pledges against the increased requests.
2. DIRAC data management plan (PC email 5/9/16)
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During a review for DIRAC the data management plan has a commitment to take data from DIRAC as the packet repository of last resort with a long-term commitment indefinitely. This is the data management plan for DIRAC 3 if ultimately funded. This will be covered in more detail at the next PMB to determine our long term commitments in covering this. DIRAC in Durham are enlarging their storage x2.5 to 5PTB and it may be helpful to discuss with them before the DIRAC 3 funding application is formalised. The source of funding any increase in resource required at RAL would need to be understood alongside Oracle tape plans which will also affect this element (this will probably be available by mid-October) – we may advise STFC that some resources were provided temporarily to DIRAC and may require this to be funded or reconsidered.
3. Date for possible f2f to discuss GridPP5 plan in advance of OSC
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As discussed at GridPP37 F2F, this is required primarily to discuss the metrics and risk register for GridPP5 and so that PG could present to the PMB in advance of the OSC in November. Q2 reports are being received and some metrics modifications have been made – these should be available for an October meeting. The meeting would have to take place w/c 24 October due to other PMB commitments (OSC documents must be submitted by 7 November). PG will insert an item for the next PMB and set up a doodle poll for convenient dates for a F2F from 24-28 October, probably in London.
ACTION 606.2: PG will set up a doodle for F2F in advance of OSC.
4. Tier-1 review date
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AS will commence internal discussions on a convenient date for Tier1 review given recent changes and circulate to the PMB for discussion.
ACTION 606.3: AS will propose a convenient date for Tier1 review and circulate to PMB for consideration.
5. AOCB
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None
6. Standing Items
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SI-0 Bi-Weekly Report from Technical Group (DC)
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Nothing of significance to report.
SI-1 Dissemination Report (SL)
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##GridPP Engagement Officer Notes for PMB
### GridPP Support for the MoEDAL experiment?
TW, as part of his STFC Public Engagement Fellow role on the Monopole and Exotics Detector at the LHC (MoEDAL) [E1], CERN@school [E2], and the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS) [E3], has been offered the position of Software Convener for the Collaboration. Previous work with CERN@school and GridPP has revolved around the satellite-based LUCID experiment [E4] through the cernatschool.org VO.
As the IRIS team has expanded, TW has become more focussed on MoEDAL activities relating to both the Timepix detector network in the LHCb cavern and the Nuclear Track Detector (NTD) sub detector. The latter will ultimately involve large-scale processing of high-resolution scans of the NTD plastic used to detect the passage of magnetic monopoles and/or other Highly Ionising Particles (HIPs). Analysis of data from the Magnetic Monopole Trapper (MMT) sub detector, which was the subject of the MoEDAL Collaboration’s first physics results paper earlier this summer [E5], has required (and will require) comparison with simulation results from an adapted version of the LHCb Gauss software.
As one would expect, all of the sub detector systems will require more computing power as the experiment takes more data. To date, the computing resource required has been provided by local university clusters. MoEDAL has not yet used any WLCG resources, though the VO moedal.org has been created and registered with the CERN VOMS.
TW would therefore like to ask – could MoEDAL use GridPP resources? The question is whether MoEDAL counts as an LHC VO. Technically MoEDAL is an LHC experiment. However, the scale of use would be similar to a non-LHC VO such as MICE, SuperNEMO, NA62, etc. – O(5) users, a few TBs of storage, etc. – and IRIS students are members of the MoEDAL Collaboration too (as part of the CERN@school Collaboration).
There would be the additional bonus of synergy between TW’s Software Convener/PEF role and the continued new VO documentation campaign as sites are enabled, software is deployed via CVMFS, etc.
The PMB agreed this should be supported.
[E1] http://moedal.web.cern.ch/
[E2] http://researchinschools.org/CERN/
[E3] http://researchinschools.org/
[E4] https://www.gridpp.ac.uk/users/case-studies/lucid/
[E5] http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2016)067
SI-2 ATLAS Weekly Review and Plans (RJ)
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Nothing significant to report.
SI-3 CMS Weekly Review and Plans (DC)
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DC Not present and no report submitted.
SI-4 LHCb Weekly Review and Plans (PC)
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Nothing significant to report.
SI-5 Production Manager’s report (JC)
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Operationally things are still quiet following the summer vacation. Most UK mail list discussion concerns configuration issues for sites new to using the ARC CE. Some wider things to note:
1. There is a pre-GDB tomorrow looking at Data Management (http://indico.cern.ch/event/394833/). It is mainly focused on Resource Reporting, Current issues and plans to address the ‘Protocol Zoo’.
2. On Wednesday there is a GDB (http://indico.cern.ch/event/394786/). Topics include the WLCG workshop agenda, IPv6 status, NorduGrid review outcomes and an update on Fast Benchmarking.
3. On Thursday there is an EGI Operations Management Board (https://indico.egi.eu/indico/event/2810/). There will be an update on certifying resource centres, approval of an acceptable authentication assurance document, enabling GPGPU resources and plans for the central monitoring (ARGO) including further use of the GOCDB in place of the BDII.
4. News from the WLCG accounting Task Force: The new accounting portal with changes performed for the WLCG view is ready for validation:https://accounting-next.egi.eu/
5. EL7 plans from the experiments were presented at 1st September WLCG ops coordination meeting and summarised in the minutes twiki (https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/LCG/WLCGOpsMinutes160901). Site plans will soon be collected by WLCG Operations. Several GridPP sites are already well advanced in this area. The ops notes also record some T0 news on performance during July and August.
6. As Gareth’s hours at the T1 reduce we are back to 4 contributors for the Regional On-Duty work (i.e. overseeing the UK NGI dashboard and related issue follow-up).
7. Generally slow progress in our ‘Other VOs’ engagements (https://www.gridpp.ac.uk/wiki/GridPP_VO_Incubator). LZ has been running a sizeable production activity – they are enabled at several sites now Lancaster, Imperial, Brunel and Manchester. DUNE are now submitting jobs via the GridPP VO, but only to Sheffield. A workaround for SNO+ Condor submission via the GridPP DIRAC is working, but we have no ability to get it into the production release.
SI-6 Tier-1 Manager’s Report (GS)
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Staffing:
– Tiju Idiculla, a member of the Production Team is leaving at the end of September.
– I have reduced my hours (to just under half time) as of the start of September.
Networking:
– The ‘doubled’ OPN link continues to work well. I have attached usage for the last month for information. (I note a ~24hour period a week ago of saturation outbound – which was unusual).
– I had reported last time (22/8) some periods of high packet loss across our internal Tier1 network. This disappeared when a network transceiver was replaced on the 24th August.
Castor:
– Testing of Castor 2.1.15 is proceeding OK. We anticipate doing the scheduling of the change in the next week or so.
Tape System:
– The ‘preventative maintenance’ on the tape libraries is planned for tomorrow (Tuesday 13th Sep).
– The migration of data from the ‘C’ to ‘D’ media: More ‘D’ tape drives have been ordered and the migration of the LHCb data (the last to be migrated) will take place once those are installed and working OK.
Batch System:
– HPE Worker nodes: The re-cabling is being done by HPE now. Following this these nodes will go into production in the batch system.
RAL Tier 1 Availabilities for September:
Alice: 100%
Atlas: 100%
CMS: 100%
LHCb: 99% (a few individual test failures spread across the month).
OPS: 100%
SI-7 LCG Management Board Report of Issues (DB)
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No MB meeting and nothing to report.
SI-8 External Contexts (PG)
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Nothing to report.
REVIEW OF ACTIONS
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600.1: DC to contact Julia Sedgebeer at Imperial to informally discuss and address SuperNemo’s computing needs and request Daniella and Tom to await outcome of these discussions before progressing further. Ongoing.
602.3: AS will request that Jens make a presentation to the PMB supported by a written report on plans for AAAI project with Dirac as well as proposed reporting. (UPDATE: AS will try to set up date for Jens to present remotely at a PMB soon) Ongoing.
602.4: AS will contact Charlotte to determine how much effort in total STFC funding in the AAAI project so that we can see if there are other contributions we should expect. (UPDATE: Charlotte is running and distributing on behalf of other research councils). Done.
603.1: AS will discuss with Yens and confirm agreement for 150 TB tape storage capacity for the Nuclear Physics request on the provision it can be accessed by existing mechanisms in the GridPP suite of tools. Ongoing.
605.1: DK will investigate costs and timescales of upgrading the OPN Link to 30 and report back to PMB. Ongoing.
605.2: PG will go through data required with PMB members concerned this week to agree inclusion in the project map and reports. Ongoing.
605.3: ALL members to review risks on the register to which their names are attached, and provide interim feedback. Ongoing.
ACTIONS AS OF 12.09.16
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600.1: DC to contact Julia Sedgebeer at Imperial to informally discuss and address SuperNemo’s computing needs and request Daniella and Tom to await outcome of these discussions before progressing further. Ongoing.
602.3: AS will request that Jens make a presentation to the PMB supported by a written report on plans for AAAI project with Dirac as well as proposed reporting. (UPDATE: AS will try to set up date for Jens to present remotely at a PMB soon) Ongoing.
603.1: AS will discuss with Yens and confirm agreement for 150 TB tape storage capacity for the Nuclear Physics request on the provision it can be accessed by existing mechanisms in the GridPP suite of tools. Ongoing.
605.1: DK will investigate costs and timescales of upgrading the OPN Link to 30 and report back to PMB. Ongoing.
605.2: PG will go through data required with PMB members concerned this week to agree inclusion in the project map and reports. Ongoing.
605.3: ALL members to review risks on the register to which their names are attached, and provide interim feedback. Ongoing.
606.1: DB will discuss with Tony Medland an OSC strategy for delivery vs pledges.
606.2: PG will set up a doodle for F2F in advance of OSC
606.3: AS will propose a convenient date for Tier1 review and circulate to PMB for consideration.