Minutes of the Computing meeting held on 23 June 1999

Present: M.Cattaneo, M.Frank, P.Maley, G.Corti, E.Van Herwijnen, F.Harris, B.Joost, J.Harvey 
              P.Binko, G.Gracia, J.Closier, T.Cass, F.Hemmer, F.Ranjard

Minutes : Florence Ranjard

      1. Current status of the LHCb NT cluster (J.Closier)(ppt)

• The cluster is made of 2 machines but only one is ON to avoid problems.
• 35 users, 26 active
• web server
• print server
• disks:  web 9Gb,users+packages 25Gb, NICE 25Gb.
• backup facility.

2. User requirements (M.Cattaneo)(ppt)

Marco 's conclusion is :

• quality of service is better on ALNTS but cannot scale to ~ 400 users.
• Production server for 400 users best provided on centrally maintained server, but requires major changes
  in NICE to allow:
  • experiment specific services
  • experiment specific service configuration.

 

3. Future of the NICE cluster at CERN (F.Hemmer)(ppt)

Frederic has proposed a restructuration of the servers:

• today servers are Division servers :SRV_EST\users\Jim
• tomorrow serves would be Group servers: SRV_LHCB\users\Jim

the advantages would be:

• isolation from global servers failures.
• Software stays under group control,
• local structure under group control,
• allow for easier local administation: delegation.

the restructuration could be done by the end of the year.

Beat could provide a machine to be the new NT LHCb server, IT should provide disk space.

In the same time prototype  a Windows 2000 service architecture

The long term is:

• stable service for a wide community with all tools needed.

==> Beat, Marco, Tony will follow the project with Frederic.

        4. LCB status report (J.Harvey)(ppt)

          John made a review of what was presented and said at the LCB meeting held on 22 June 1999.

• 2 main topics: Video Conference (C.Isnard) and MONARC (H.Newman)
• but H.Hoffman and R.Cashmore introduced another topic : the LCB future.
  • that could be discussed at the LCB workshop in Marseille in Septembre.

Look at John's report for full details.

5. A.O.B

1. In order to prepare the LCB architecture session in Marseille, John Harvey has invited few "architects",
   such as P.Mato, R.Brun, RD Schaffer, L.Tuura, V.Innocenti, D.Duellman, J.Apostolakis, A.Aimar, to
   participate to some Thursday lunchtime meetings in August.

      2.  Joel Closier has attended the Linux user group meeting (~ 30 people):

• redhat 6 is required by some groups (NA48),
• asis is tested with redhat 6 but not at all complete, needs user feedback.
• user community ready to accept a new release every year, stable between releases.
• window manager: 2 solutions are on test, adopt one after 2-3 months.

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no meeting on Wenesday 30 June 1999.

next meeting:  Wenesday 7 July 1999 at 9:00   blg 60 /1-B  (near the Council Chamber)