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Present: Dave Britton (Chair), Tony Cass, Jeremy Coles, David Colling, Alastair Dewhurst, Tony Doyle, Pete Gronbech, Roger Jones, Dave Kelsey, Steve Lloyd, Gareth Roy (Minutes), Andrew Sansum.
Apologies: Pete Clarke, Jon Hays, Andrew McNab.
1. GridPP42 Update
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GridPP42 will be held at Cosners house, with the PMB face to face on the 23rd and main collaboration meeting 24 & 25th April. An Indico agenda has been created and a cost estimate is approx £7700.
AD is to confirm requirements in respects to STFC and any conflict of interests in regards to sponsorship for collaboration dinner. Some discussion took place in respect to the collaboration dinner location in and around the Abingdon area. Registration to open at the latest end of February, with registration to close March.
2. OsC Feedback
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Two actions from the OsC, 1) to report on LHCb migrations to ECHO and 2) to adjust the financial tables to reflect the actual allocation rather than the projected allocation.
3. LHCb Re-stripping Campaign
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AM reported via email on LHCb’s plans for re-stripping and how this would affect the Tier-1 and the CASTOR system. LHCb believes they can manage with resources available. AD confirms he is aware of their requirements and believes this to be an LHCb problem. PMB to follow up on this early next year.
4. CMS M&O Figures
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DC confirmed the difference between the two sets of M&O figures, the first being from the current period with the numbers DC gave being projected for the next period (1 to 2 years). DB was concerned the RRB figures were not the most up to date and the numbers that need to be used should be consistent across all experiments. DC stated that the numbers should have been presented at the October RRB and is what CMS is expected to pay over the next time period. DB asks for a location to extract these numbers so they can be extracted in a scrutinised fashion.
5. GridPP6 Strategy Document
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DB apologies for late arrival of document, but was awaiting information from STFC which has not been forthcoming. The current document is a work in progress that will likely contain errors and discrepancies. It is intended that the document should be iterated on within the PMB and then presented to the CB to ensure they are consulted on the likely way forward, and that their views are taken into account.
As the initial document is discussed DC queries if DB has taken into account Institutes raising indirect costs which may reduce FTE count, this led to problems with the current CG round. AS asked if there was more scope to capitalise staff against HW, DB has not yet carried out calculations on HW requirements as he is still awaiting information on requirements. DB felt that in the GridPP6 proposal there should be a clear resource/capital line.
AS asked if the direction given by STFC was to “to unify eInfrastructure” what would the outcome be? DB’s initial feeling is if that is the case it should be added as its own work package with costings as at present the document only shows costs for maintaining the present infrastructure and research commitments.
AD ask how extensive a GridPP service to support other VOs should be, and do we want to provide such a service? DB feels this touches on things that the PMB is unaware of at present as we have not yet received a brief. This could be added as an additional WP.
6. AOCB
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None.
7. Standing Items
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SI-0 Bi-Weekly Report from Technical Group (DC)
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No meeting
SI-1 ATLAS Weekly Review and Plans (RJ)
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Nothing significant to report.
SI-2 CMS Weekly Review and Plans (DC)
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Nothing significant to report.
SI-3 LHCb Weekly Review and Plans (PC)
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Nothing significant to report.
SI-4 Production Manager’s report (JC)
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Nothing significant to report.
SI-5 Tier-1 Manager’s Report (AD)
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Operations:
– Docker containers were updated with latest version of singularity to patch against CVE-2018-19295
– Previous week we had large number of gridFTP errors into Echo with: “Address already in useÕÓ. We found NIS was using a large number of ports (> 10000) on all external gateways. We disabled this on Monday and the errors have gone.
– There have been problems with the Tape robot. One handbot and one tape drive is broken. On Friday 14th an Oracle engineer attended site to fix the problems. He discovered another minor issue which will probably be fixed next year now.
Procurement:
– CPU direct award with XMA has been approved.
– We are finishing the Tender evaluation for the Disk. Aiming to issue procurement over the next couple of days.
SI-6 LCG Management Board Report of Issues (DB)
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No MB.
SI-7 External Contexts (PC)
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Nothing to report.
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. 08/10/18 – Leicester are producing a PO for tapes and will send to AD to produce an invoice). Ongoing.
678.3: AD to finalise the Tier1 background document, including tape strategy by end September. (Update: Almost complete and will circulate current iteration for comment). Ongoing.
678.5: JC to finalise the Storage background document by end September.
(UPDATE: 17 October meeting with Tony Medland & DB and PC will attend. This is almost complete and awaiting a few minor elements to be worked in – GR will upload into Googledocs for info). Ongoing.
690.1: DC to get confirm CMS M&O numbers and identify any mismatch due to inclusion of PhD students. (DC to follow up and provide a location where information can be extracted from). Ongoing
690.2: JH to follow up with BBC contacts on further potential collaboration in regards to Video Encoding proposal. Ongoing.
690.3: AD to formally respond to EOSC-HUB on behalf of GridPP and express a willingness to provide resources for the Video Encoding Proposal. Done.
690.4: AD to check availability of Cosners House for the dates of 24, 25, 26 April to host GridPP42 and to book if appropriate. Done.
690.5: AM to discuss with LHCb and identify requirements for Tape recall at RAL, as well as start dates and durations of the reprocessing campaign. (To be re-raised Janauary/February 2019). Ongoing.
ACTIONS AS OF 17.10.12
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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 wonÕt use. May be better charging later rather than during this FY? AD will now progress. 08/10/18 – Leicester are producing a PO for tapes and will send to AD to produce an invoice). Ongoing.
678.3: AD to finalise the Tier1 background document, including tape strategy by end September. (Update: Almost complete and will circulate current iteration for comment). Ongoing.
678.5: JC to finalise the Storage background document by end September.
(UPDATE: 17 October meeting with Tony Medland & DB and PC will attend. This is almost complete and awaiting a few minor elements to be worked in – GR will upload into Googledocs for info). Ongoing.
690.1: DC to get confirm CMS M&O numbers and identify any mismatch due to inclusion of PhD students. (DC to follow up and provide a location where information can be extracted from). Ongoing
690.2: JH to follow up with BBC contacts on further potential collaboration in regards to Video Encoding proposal. Ongoing.
690.5: AM to discuss with LHCb and identify requirements for Tape recall at RAL, as well as start dates and durations of the reprocessing campaign. (To be re-raised Janauary/February 2019). Ongoing.