GridPP PMB Meeting 677

GridPP PMB Meeting 677 (28/08/18) F2F
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Present: Dave Britton (Chair), Tony Cass, Pete Clarke, Jeremy Coles, David Colling, Alastair Dewhurst, Tony Doyle, Pete Gronbech, Roger Jones, Dave Kelsey, Steve Lloyd, Andrew McNab, Andrew Sansum, Louisa Campbell (Minutes).

Apologies:

1. Introduction (DB)
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a) Tier-2 HW monies. DB went over slides he proposes to present at the collaboration meeting summarising usage.

The PMB confirm:

– They have reviewed existing policy on non-LHC CPU usage (10%) clarified individual sites should take care not to exceed 10% usage over 6 months without prior discussion with the PMB. It is recognised some sites use more for good reasons
– They have reviewed the Policy and if a VO uses more that 2% over 6 months but because of increasing number of VOs we will start a discussion by 1.5% to ensure they do not exceed 2%.
– Because of complications by other funding streams such as IRIS they are notifying the collaboration we are not necessarily committed to using the SL metrics as it is challenging to disentangle kit distribution – this will be resolved for GridPP6.

b) Distribution of PG duties – DB summarised the main points that will be covered tomorrow. It is challenging to replace PG with an external candidate as this would be an 18-month position that would take 6 months to get up to speed on.
– PG has agreed to continue as Resource Manager into GridPP6 on a small fraction of his time (HW and funds);
– Quarterly reporting (monitoring milestones and metrics) – Matt from Lancaster has agreed to take on routine tasks to gather reports, transfer metrics, produce summary reports and upload to the website then flag to a member of the PMB anything in or out of spec (c. 3 days per quarter – 5% FTE) – the PMB member (Gareth Roy, see below) will thereafter have ownership for governance;
– Everything else – Indico – GridPP meetings agendas & planning, ResearchFish, OSC documentation, etc. Gareth Roy in Glasgow has the necessary skillset and is extremely efficient – he has agreed to take on these aspects of the role. He will sit on the PMB so that he can formally report to the OSC (@ 25% FTE) as PM for the remainder of GridPP5; and
– For GridPP6 – consideration will be given to the role entitled “Project and Resource Manager”.

c) Primary authors of GridPP6 background documents will give PMB heads-up on anything potentially contentious (see below).

d) AOCB

1. Tier-1 review agenda and attendance –
2. Assign Chairs for GridPP41 (to ensure speakers keep to time and there is adequate time allocated for discussion): RJ – OP session; PC – Security session; AM – Tier-1 session; TD – Tier-2 session; DB – afternoon session; TC – Storage; SL – Experiment Support session.

2. Storage
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JC provided an overview of the proposed content for the Storage document. There was some discussion on whether we will we be using DPM in 4 years time and does it scale – if not, when will we know and what alternatives will there be as this impacts work to be undertaken. There was discussion on tasks associated with specific roles and how these should be defined for GridPP6 in a clear and credible manner based on currently known information, e.g. storage person for each community to optimise storage which is very expensive and must be properly and expertly managed. Lots of information requires to be pared down to plausible and well defined information.

3. Experiment Support Posts
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RJ provided a summary on the proposed content for the Experiment Support document. Bringing people involved in common GridPP projects into the discussion would be very useful. Some posts have been actively engaged in the Physics element of the project in the past as this provided an opportunity to understand the requirements from both perspectives, but that is challenging in the current context. The US and France have people undertaking both roles, there should perhaps be a named contact for each experiment responsible for supporting all clients – mainly (70%) on LHCb, 20% on other experiments and the remainder for others that arise over time. It was noted that there is a difference between whole people doing whole roles and fractions of people undertaking some roles and care should be taken in this regard.

4. Security
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DK provided a summary on the proposed content for the Security document. A figure for the EU-funding captured will be included in the GridPP6 proposal document. We should consider how this relates to IRIS etc.

5. Tier-1
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AD provided a summary on the proposed content for the Tier-1 document. What organisation of Tier-1 is required in order to provide this, also there are questions around what the tape system is moving forward (c £1M), what that will purchase and how that would be best be used for GridPP – should be an STD service and an entire library of storage (GridPP, Echo, fabric, service provision need to be considered and how it can be run with less or more manpower). Other items, e.g. Rucio, require an additional FTE that would be sought via IRIS. Effort required to move to Datalake should be considered and how that may impact our ability to develop new things – this development and how we motivate it needs to be built into GridPP6. GridPP needs to align its activity with others’ activities that may attract support from elsewhere.

6. Tier-2
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SL provided a summary on the proposed content for the Tier-2 document. These roles are skilled research posts and engineers and this should be made clear.

REVIEW OF ACTIONS
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644.4: AD will progress capture of funds for Dirac with Mark Wilkinson. (Update: funding from DIRAC. AS has emailed Mark. They are now using it more heavily. Could use the money for tape, but have to be careful not to buy tape we won’t use. May be better charging later rather than during this FY? AD will now progress). Ongoing.
667.2 ALL Need to do h/w planning before next OC to provide OC with details of shortfall in funds. Ongoing.
671.2: PG and AM to check if there is a common requirement across the Grid that can be negotiated with Dell for a framework agreement (e.g. Storage, Compute, Configurations). Ongoing.
672.3: RJ, DK and AM to draft the Experiment Support background document. Ongoing.
672.4: DK to draft the Security, Trust and Identity background document. Ongoing.
672.5: AD to draft the Tier1 background document. Ongoing.
672.6: JC, SL AM and PG to draft the Tier2 background document. Ongoing.
672.7: PG will consider the agenda for GridPP41 incorporating the GridPP6 Background Documents. Ongoing.
673.2: AD will provide the PMB with an overview of strategy for tapes and drives for the remainder of GridPP5 and GridPP6. Ongoing.
675.1: DC to sign off report on Tier-1 LHC usage. Ongoing.
675.2: RJ to sign off report on Tier-1 LHC usage. Ongoing.

ACTIONS AS OF 28.08.18
======================
644.4: AD will progress capture of funds for Dirac with Mark Wilkinson. (Update: funding from DIRAC. AS has emailed Mark. They are now using it more heavily. Could use the money for tape, but have to be careful not to buy tape we won’t use. May be better charging later rather than during this FY? AD will now progress). Ongoing.
667.2 ALL Need to do h/w planning before next OC to provide OC with details of shortfall in funds. Ongoing.
671.2: PG and AM to check if there is a common requirement across the Grid that can be negotiated with Dell for a framework agreement (e.g. Storage, Compute, Configurations). Ongoing.
672.3: RJ, DK and AM to draft the Experiment Support background document. Ongoing.
672.4: DK to draft the Security, Trust and Identity background document. Ongoing.
672.5: AD to draft the Tier1 background document. Ongoing.
672.6: JC, SL AM and PG to draft the Tier2 background document. Ongoing.
672.7: PG will consider the agenda for GridPP41 incorporating the GridPP6 Background Documents. Ongoing.
673.2: AD will provide the PMB with an overview of strategy for tapes and drives for the remainder of GridPP5 and GridPP6. Ongoing.
675.1: DC to sign off report on Tier-1 LHC usage. Ongoing.
675.2: RJ to sign off report on Tier-1 LHC usage. Ongoing.