stephen burke - wp8 status - 14/2/2002 partner logo wp8 status stephen burke, pparc/ral

Stephen Burke - WP8 Status - 14/2/2002

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WP8 Status

Stephen Burke, PPARC/RAL

Stephen Burke - WP8 Status - 14/02/2002 - 2/11

What is WP8?

HEP applications workpackage

Link between experiment software and EDG middleware

Works with WP9 (Earth Observation) and WP10 (Biomedical)

Applications Technical Working Group (ATWG) is a forum to define application requirements for the EDG middleware


“Loose Cannons”

WP8 has 1 EU-funded experiment-independent person for each main contractor:

Ingo Augustin (CERN)

Jean-Jacques Blaising (CNRS)

Stephen Burke (PPARC)

Mario Reale (INFN)

Jeff Templon (NIKHEF)

First-line contacts for HEP application developers


Virtual Organisations

Each experiment constitutes one VO

Members are defined by a VO LDAP server at NIKHEF, entries are made by an administrator (http://datagrid-wp8.web.cern.ch/DataGrid-WP8/Testbed1/virtual_organisation_administrat.htm)

Each VO has a Replica Catalogue, and an area on Storage Elements to store files

Eventually VOs will also have their own Resource Brokers and Information Indices

Members of a VO will be mapped to a VO-based Unix group at each site


Testing the Testbed

The plan was for each experiment to run a series of validation tests on Testbed 1 between October and December 2001, and write a document (D8.2) with the results

The testbed started late and was unstable, hence application tests have been limited so far

Loose Cannons did basic functionality testing and helped with the testbed configuration

D8.2 contains the test plans, and results so far

D8.2 is part of the EU review on March 1st


Test Results So Far

Review of documentation by LCs has led to an improvement in the quality and amount of documentation

Basic testing has verified middleware functionality, and in some cases (e.g. Storage Elements) has revealed configuration problems which have now been solved

Experiments have run basic tests, including submission of simulation jobs


Current Problems

Job submission works, but has been unstable, with jobs failing for various reasons from time to time.

It isn’t yet fully defined how to set up an application environment (where to find compilers, experiment software etc) at each site.

The original plan for Storage Elements did not allow for use by more than one Virtual Organisation. A scheme has now been developed to allow this.


Current Problems (2)

GDMP is somewhat awkward to use. There are now user instructions with examples (see http://cmsdoc.cern.ch/cms/grid/)

There is no Replica Manager yet, files must be replicated by hand using GDMP

The testbed only includes a few sites so far, so there is no experience with a large system


Current Status

Testbed 1.1 released this week, which should fix many outstanding problems

Experiments will continue with their planned validation tests as described in D8.2

Hope to have a “production” testbed once the functionality has been validated

Experiments have each defined a list of sites they would most like to see in the testbed (Table 2 in D8.2) - UK sites are Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lancaster, Liverpool, Oxford, RAL


Other Activity

ATWG is trying to define common needs of all applications. The aim is to have a common software layer between the experiment software and the Grid middleware.

ATWG meeting today, WP8 plenary tomorrow, hence I (SB) am not in Cambridge!


UK Involvement in WP8

Limited so far (mainly FH and SB)

UK application developers are encouraged to get involved, either directly or through their experiment

ATWG meeting are once a month, WP8 plenary meetings every 4 months

Please contact me (SB) if you need help. I may not know the answer, but I should know a man (or woman) who does!

stephen burke - wp8 status - 14/2/2002 partner logo wp8 status stephen burke, pparc/ral

Documents