Present : J.Harvey, P.Mato, F.Ranjard, F.Harris, B.Jost, A.Cass, M.Cattaneo
Apologies : C.Gaspar, I. Videau
Minutes: J.Harvey
LHCb’s representatives in this JWG are Tony Cass (CERN) and Vanya Belyaev (Russia). The first meeting attended by our representatives was on July 11th. The goal is to establish cooperation, enable improvements in infrastructure (particularly network connections to CERN) and to give political weight.
It is clear that there will be many Russian colleagues wanting to do analysis and is therefore important that this heavy load can be sustained in Russia as far as possible.
Tony will make the minutes of these minutes available via web - ACTION Tony
Migration to central webserver is complete. Several issues concerning the web need to be studied and improvements made :
- structure and layout of web pages : contents of Home Page (current one should become the site map), use of borders, length of navigation paths (current ones too long), search facility now in context of whole CERN (not just LHCb), new tools needed for managing meeting agendas and photo gallery.
- File organization : organize directories by content and not filetype, reorganize folders for scalability (minutes for each year in different folder).
- Security : need ability to protect pages
- Software distribution
- Procedures for controlling who manages web structure, who adds pages etc.
Joel has agreed to start to look into this. He
should make a proposal before carrying out any changes. ACTION Joel
A first outline of the format for the plan was shown by
John. There was a discussion concerning the relation between WBS and
milestones. John will make a first high level WBS and circulate for comment and
update by all project leaders. ACTION : John
As the financial year is drawing quickly to a close we have to make purchases quickly. Items to be bought include :
-
disk server and tower for the test beam – cost of
server plus 1.5 TB is ~30 kSFr. ACTION Beat
- Florence needs a more convenient way to access NT and Linux. A VMWARE license would be most convenient solution. VMWARE does not appear to be supported at CERN (needs two IP numbers ). To be resolved.
- Some group members requested a portable computer.
- Pere suggested to get a new portable projector. Action Pere.
- We should get a conference phone for the meeting room.
- We need better chairs for meeting room.
- Some offices will be refurbished and we need a solution for air conditioning.
- Beat suggested getting a scope for the lab (already ordered by Muon group)
- John to order 3 Palm Pilots ASAP. Action John
- Tony : W von Rueden has taken over as PDP group leader. David Myers is the new CO group leader. Sverre Jarp leads the LHC testbed project. Platform support is to be debated at Focus. Proposal is Linux (including production), and Solaris (interactive use only). NT not supported for physics applications. LHCb policy is to use Linux and NT. Tony suggests that tests can be made of network bandwidth RAL to CERN. Contact Olivier Martin for insights into how to optimize. Action John to talk to Eric to chase up. (done)
- Florence : There will be a GEANT4 workshop in Orsay later in October. Florence and Gonzalo will attend. During the week a complete example (Space Telescope) will be constructed.
-
Beat : 1. Beat has organized a workshop (DAQ2000) at
the NSS conference in Lyon. It takes place on Friday October 20th.
2. He has had discussions with CISCO on Gbit Ethernet switches…collaboration
envisaged.. 3. Memory upgrades to PCs can still be made (some memory SIMs still
left). 4. Need to organize another FEE/DAQ/ECS workshop with Jorgen and Clara. Action Beat
- Beat (for Clara) : 1. SCADA tendering has been completed (PVSS selected). 2. Clara working on framework and is giving presentations to CMS and ATLAS, she gives a demo to the JCOP project meeting in ~2 weeks.
- Frank : There is a DataGrid Project Technical Board meeting tomorrow where Frank represents LHCb. The signing of the EU project is due to take place on Oct 25th. Several posts have been advertised at CERN, one for an architect, another for someone to work in WP8 (the applications package where we are working).
- Pere : Following Pavel’s departure, Pere will act as LHCb contact to API group activities (ANAPHNE, RD45 etc.). He notes there have been no meetings recently. Defining a thesis project for Sebastien, discussions with supervisor in Lausanne on-going. Choice of project needs to reflect our needs Action Pere
- Marco – has been asked by J.May to attend DTF meetings in his capacity as FOCUS secretary.
Next meeting will be November 9th to avoid clash with the next Software Week.