GridPP PMB Meeting 629

GridPP PMB Meeting 629 (27.03.17)
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Present: Dave Britton(Chair), Tony Cass, Pete Clarke, Jeremy Coles, David Colling, Tony Doyle, Pete Gronbech, Roger Jones, Steve Lloyd, Andrew McNab, Andrew Sansum, Gareth Smith, Louisa Campbell (Minutes).

Apologies: Dave Kelsey.

1. GridPP38 Agenda
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PG updated – there are not many changes from last week. It had been decided to get non-HEP speaker and LZ and Dune were approached – Anthony from LZ was keen to participate but could only make one of the two days so we may move the session forward to the start of Friday to accommodate his talk. He is the leader of the datacentre for LZ and Imperial and also the spokesman of SOLID, which have very similar computing models so this is a great benefit. RJ responded to the request stating that, although Jaryk is willing to speak, the dates are not convenient.

The Site survey, resources of sites session and Wikipage from AM needs to be finished off – AM is doing the other technical talk and potentially an additional talk so cannot pull all three aspects together. PG can summarise the Wikipage and will discuss what to draw out of that with AM, JC and DC, e.g. what sites can we suggest using particular computing strategy and other sites we can suggest storage needs can be met through caching. There will also be discussion on the day which contributes to this – the questionnaire provides some information but more detail is required.

ACTION 629.1: PG, AM, JC and DC will discuss and finalise the GridPP38 session on site surveys.

2. Tier-2 Evolution paper
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DB has circulated the latest draft and invited suggestions on how best to proceed, i.e. circulate to the CB or more widely. PG will contribute detail to the plots. The manpower section was amended and some suggestions for consideration were made. The figures have captions to indicate they refer to 2016 and are slightly out of date, but that does not detract from the central message. The ALICE requirements need to be completed. It was agreed the report should be circulated to the CB in the first instance for comment then more widely thereafter as this is the appropriate time to consider and plan for post-GridPP5. DB invited further comments before the end of today in advance of him sending it to the CB tomorrow.

3. Security
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AS updated there has been some tension around the Horizon 2020 proposal for EGI funding for GOC, APEL and Security activity. AS went through the details of recent budget negotiations but concluded that while the situation is currently fluid all appears to be moving in a positive direction.

4. Standing Items
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SI-0 Bi-Weekly Report from Technical Group (DC)
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No meeting last week so nothing to report.

SI-1 Dissemination Report (SL)
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Nothing of significance to report.

SI-2 ATLAS Weekly Review and Plans (RJ)
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Nothing of significance to report.

SI-3 CMS Weekly Review and Plans (DC)
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Nothing of significance to report. DB noted low efficiency last week in the low 50s and DC confirmed he is currently investigating this.

SI-4 LHCb Weekly Review and Plans (PC)
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AM reported they have began a stripping campaign. RAL is doing okay and there was a Castor update which provided some fixes. There was nothing further to report.

SI-5 Production Manager’s report (JC)
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1. We are acting on a security advisory related to a service run at several GridPP sites.

2. Matt Doidge is working on the next (CentOS7) release of the WN/UI tarball. This work is still much appreciated by the community.

3. Pete Gronbech and I have been reviewing the work undertaken under the core operations banner. As resources/priorities continue to change we need to rank the importance of tasks undertaken and use that list to set expectations.

4. We are creating a CVMFS area for the GridPP VO. Most likely this will be gridpp.egi.eu.

5. Jobs submitted via GridPP DIRAC cannot currently run at ECDF. This is because the DIRAC service has an lcg-utils dependency not met in CentOS7.

JC will present on issues surrounding manpower for discussion on at the F2F in Sussex then possibly more widely at GridPP38 if appropriate.

SI-6 Tier-1 Manager’s Report (GS)
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General:
– Ongoing work on the chillers. New Chiller1 has now been commissioned and reintegrated into the chilled water ring main. No problems were encountered.

Castor:
– The Atlas SAM SRM tests have been passing OK for the last ten days.
– We continue to fail CMS SRM SAM tests sporadically with timeouts.
– On Thursday of last week (23rd) the LHCb SRMs were upgraded to version 2.1.16-10 and the OS to SL6. The remaining SRMs will follow this week. (Atlas tomorrow, CMS & GEN on Thursday).

ECHO:
– Preparations being made for production service including enabling out of hours callouts.
DB enquired if this means Echo is now available for reduction – DB and AS confirmed they are undertaking a risk review and hope to have a Risk Register by the F2F. ATLAS, CMS and LHCb should also provide a view on what use they have made of it so far.

SI-7 LCG Management Board Report of Issues (DB)
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DB confirmed there was a meeting last week – the service report did not highlight any UK issues. There was a roundtable discussion on Tier-1 tape infrastructure – DB confirmed some sites are unaffected but others are negatively affected as they were dependent on a move to E-drives. Our situation is that we can get through GridPP5 on D-generation and are not forced to make any quick decisions on alternative technology and can await investigations on these alternatives to progress. DB has forwarded some of the talks to AS, one talk from LBL is on the MB website. There was a note on the white paper process and some notes are on the MB website – with links to working Google documents on some of these topics which seem of interested. The Evolution group that Eckhard has put together has some relevance and PC may look at the links.

SI-8 External Contexts (PC)
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Nothing of significance to report.

REVIEW OF ACTIONS
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616.3: DB and SL will discuss how best to progress replacement of TW’s role. (Update: DB and SL have amended and awaiting DB final comments) Done.
620.1 DB to contact DK re the procedure to deal with a security incident and the media. (Update: DK had devised an interim statement which involved TW as dissemination officer and he is no longer in post – there is no prescriptive full response as this would be dependent on circumstances and probably involve an emergency PMB and communication with relevant PR representatives). DK will send the statement to PMB in case required in future – spokesman SL as head of board or DB as project leader. DONE – DK ONGOING!
623.3: DB and AS will discuss how best to summarise the Tier1 review. (Update: a brief summary will be written up and presented). Done.
624.1: AS will rework tape modelling taking account of recent changes. (Update: There are some elements that we cannot understand at this point, e.g. Oracle’s ongoing support of robots or what to do about Castor in the longer term). Done.
628.1: RJ will invite Jaryk Novak to speak at GridPP38. Done.
628.2: PG and DC will discuss the possibility of an LZ talk at GridPP38. Done.
628.3: ALL to offer comments on DB’s Tier-2 Evolution draft paper in the next 2-3 days. Done.

628.4: LC will check availability w/c 25th September at Durham (27-29th) for GridPP39. Ongoing.

ACTIONS AS OF 27.03.17
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620.1 DB to contact DK re the procedure to deal with a security incident and the media. DK will send an interim statement to PMB in case required in future – spokesman SL as head of board or DB as project leader. DB done. DK Ongoing.
628.4: LC will check availability w/c 25th September at Durham (27-29th) for GridPP39. Ongoing.
629.1: PG, AM, JC and DC will discuss and finalise the GridPP38 session on site surveys.

NO PMB next Monday since there is a F2F on 5th April in Sussex.