ALMA Integrated Computing Team

Coordination & Planning Meeting #3 Socorro, 17-19 June 2014

Resource Conflict

Masao Saito (JAO)Daniel Espada (JAO)

Neil Phillips (JAO)Denis Barkats (JAO)

Catherine Vlahakis (JAO)

ICT-CPM3 17-19 June 2014

Resource Conflict between two Subsystems EOC-ES ticket coordination

Discussion Points

ICT-CPM3 17-19 June 2014

Schedule vs Data Capture Plan

Data Capture developer (50% schedule 50% data capture: DC) completely moved to Scheduling (100 %)

New developer focus on data capture (100%) Reality

So many issues on DC. It increased from 33 bugs in 2013 Dec to 44 bugs in 2014 May

Not much progress on dynamic scheduling as expected. 77 features in a queue.

Resource Conflict

ICT-CPM3 17-19 June 2014

DC is highly technical and needs much more software knowledge than astronomy knowledge so having someone dedicated to it for longer term developpment/maintenanance is pretty important.

Because of the above, we MUST always expect more bug associated to DC than we really plan for.

For example, the last two blocker level bugs of 201404-CYCLE2-ON are DC related (ICT-2911, ICT-1818).

We have not yet seen all bugs linked with scaling issues in DataCaputure.

Data Capture

ICT-CPM3 17-19 June 2014

All things being equal, I think it's still true that it would be easier to train a new developer on working with Scheduling than to train a new developer in working with DataCapturer.

Another complexity of subarray feature is coming probably causing many issues. One person may not be sufficient.

Dynamic scheduling is a key to automated observation reducing astronomers load.

How can we solve this resource conflict?

Concern

ICT-CPM3 17-19 June 2014

Plan until end August 2014 Two out of 4 daily top tickets reserved for EOC/ES

during ES/EOC week, on request, as long as no blockers Hold a handover meeting between EOC/ES at change of

shift Weekly assessment by Science of all open tickets and

the creation of a “top 10” list Items from this list should be put forward to ADC for the daily

top 4 as long as no higher priority items have arisen on a given night

EOC-ES ticket coordination

ICT-CPM3 17-19 June 2014

Scientists will be asked to initially give a priority to PR tickets they create – they should not all be “Normal”

Critical tickets should not be closed if no activity after 4 weeks.

More scientists will receive diagnostic training (EOC and DSO)

Suggestions for dealing with current backlog are under discussion

A longer-term plan needs to be formulated starting December 2014

EOC-ES ticket coordination