Proposal for an LHCb batch facility at CERN (Entire LHCb collaboration)
From: John.Harvey@cern.ch
Date: 5/18/99
Time: 5:03:46 PM
Remote Name: 137.138.115.156
Remote User:
Comments
Proposal to COCOTIME to establish an LHCb batch computing facility (SHIFT)
based on 4 dual processor PCs running Linux
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would like to inform the collaboration that we are submitting a request to COCOTIME
asking that a dedicated batch computing facility be established at CERN for LHCb. Up
until now we have relied almost exclusively on the RSPLUS public facility (AIX service).
However a number of developments since August '98 have made continued use of
AIX services rather impractical.
1. Over recent weeks our cpu usage has peaked and exceeded our expected use
of the public service by a factor of at least 2. It is clear that our needs will increase
over the coming months and years. In fact we had been preparing to make a bid for
a private SHIFT facility at the next COCOTIME round this summer, but discussions
with IT people have resulted in a proposal to put this plan into operation with
immediate effect.
2. A move away from AIX is needed to facilitate the use of software components
within GAUDI, our new OO framework for data processing applications. The AIX
compiler does not support the latest language constructs and is not compatible with
many software products.
3. In general there is a lack of support for AIX e.g. poor support for GNU products
such as gmake. Also several collaborators are using ROOT, which is not supported by
the ROOT team on AIX, as it is impossible to debug on AIX.
The medium term policy at CERN, as established at a recent FOCUS meeting, is
to standardise on PCs running either Linux or NT. It is therefore proposed to purchase
4 dual-processor PC systems running Linux to construct a batch processing facility for
LHCb now. The CPU power is such that this would be able to satisy twice the average
CPU load we had been granted on RSPLUS in 1999. We would then plan to add more
machines to accommodate our increasing needs in future years. In addition IT will provide
a public Linux facility for interactive work which will be of use to those not having a Linux
PC on their desktop.
The consequence of this proposal would be that we should plan to migrate our work
away from AIX based public services by the end of 1999. We are told users will see
the same environment that they have at the moment. In particular AFS will be accessible
and passwords will not change.
This proposal has been prepared rather quickly in anticipation of a COCOTIME meeting
this Friday. This makes extensive discussion within the collaboration rather impractical.
However if there are any worries, comments or suggestions please send them to me
as soon as possible. In addition, a discussion on this will also be scheduled at the regular
computing meeting at CERN this Thursday. There will be further opportunity to have
detailed discussion during the next LHCb Software week (June 3rd).
John Harvey
|
