1. GridPP: Executive Summary
Tony Doyle
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

2. Exec2 Summary
The GridPP Project is now underway and has met 21% of its original targets with 86% of the metrics within specification. This summary highlights various issues with respect to resource monitoring and project management, where the status of GridPP2 planning is described in the context of the “get fit” plan requested by the Oversight Committee. gLite 1 was released in April as planned but components have not yet been deployed or their robustness tested by the experiments. Service Challenge (SC) 2 addressing networking was a success at CERN and the Tier-1 and SC3 addressing file transfers for the experiments is about to commence. Hardware levels at the Tier-1 in and the deployment of Tier-2 resources are current concerns although these are mitigated by the present under-utilisation of resources.
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

3. RAL joins labs worldwide in successful Service Challenge 2
The GridPP team at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire recently joined computing centres around the world in a networking challenge that saw RAL transfer 60 terabytes of data over a ten-day period. A home user with a 512 kilobit per second broadband connection would be waiting 30 years to complete a download of the same size.
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

4. gLite 1
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

5. 100 green sites sitting on a grid
Thu 16 Jun 2005
Last week the UK CIC-on-duty team celebrated the milestone of having 100 sites passing the Sites Functional Test. Thanks to all the sites who acted promptly to trouble tickets raised by the UK team during their shift.
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

6. Current concern 1. under-utilisation
Under -utilisation of existing Tier-1/A resources
improving overall and w.r.t. Grid fraction from 2004 to 2005
Non-Grid
Grid
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

7. Current concern 2. under-delivery
The current situation is somewhat better than these 2005 Q1 numbers indicate
Some late procurements (OK given under-utilisation)
Technical problems (being overcome)
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

8. GridPP Deployment Status 30/6/05 (9/1/05)
Measurable Improvements
totalCPU
freeCPU
runJob
waitJob
seAvail TB
seUsed TB
maxCPU
avgCPU
Total
2966
(2029)
1666 (1402)
843 (95)
31 (480)
74.28 (8.69)
16.54 (4.55)
3145 (2549)
2802 (1994)
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

9. Actions
GridPP to submit the proposal for LCG phase 2 funding to the Committee prior to its submission to Science Committee (minute 4.9).
Done. 27 page report inc. input from OC at unfunded
GridPP to clarify the situation with regard to ATLAS production run tests for the next physics workshop (minute 5.3).
See News Item
(and slide)
GridPP to provide an update on progress resolving problems caused by mismatches between local batch systems and the capabilities of the grid Resource broker (minute 6.3).
(See slide)
GridPP to more fully document its alignment with each of the individual experiments (minute 15.2).
An experiment engagement questionnaire has been used (initial input in February and further [updated] input in June). See
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

10. ATLAS steps up Grid production
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

11. RB Action
GridPP to provide an update on progress resolving problems caused by mismatches between local batch systems and the capabilities of the grid Resource broker (minute 6.3).
The problem of connecting the local CE to a batch queue is largely overcome – many (all shared) sites now do this.
There were problems subsequently deploying the accounting system (APEL) to point to the local batch system.
Overcome (13 ex 18 sites), but not as straightforward as it could be.
The JDL from the job is not passed to the local system. Hence there is no way for the local scheduler to use info from the Grid scheduler.
This is a limitation from a (shared) site viewpoint (attempting to balance Grid and local jobs).
The short term solution is to set up separate batch queues.
It is not a limitation for the experiments (affects efficiency).
It is noted as a requirement and it is intended that this will be delivered in Year 2 of JRA1 for the WMS.
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

12. Actions
GridPP to define its usage policy with respect to Tier-1 allocations (minute 15.4).
See and documents within (“fair shares” using PPARC Form X information)
GridPP to produce an updated risk register (minute 15.5).
Incorporated in the new Project Map at (with 7 “high” risks)
GridPP to produce a “get-fit” plan for production metrics (minute 15.6).
See Metrics and Deployment document and its incorporation into the Project Map
GridPP to define its metrics for job success (minute 15.7).
Adopted EGEE-wide definition at
(See slides)
GridPP to produce a statement of intent regarding its adoption of gLite (minute 15.8).
See Middleware Selection document
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

13. Metrics Action
GridPP to define its metrics for job success (minute 15.7).
GridPP adopts the EGEE-wide definition at
The (web-based) QA system accounts for Workload Management System registered job successes (that can then be categorised by Virtual Organisation or Resource Broker)
Before introducing the figures it should be understood that there are caveats:
It only measures what the WMS “sees”
doesn't catch failure of WMS to register job in the first place (but this is a rare occurrence)
if a job half way through the script fails (for example tries but fails to copy a file) but the script completes successfully then WMS sees everything as OK.
If a VO (e.g. LHCb) deploys an agent then the WMS only registers the success of the initial (python) script: strategy enables higher overall LHCb performance (combined push-PULL model). (This currently leads to other problems in overall accounting should contention become an issue).
Overall: an end user may see either:
1. a worse efficiency
failed job for other hidden e.g. data management problems
2. a better efficiency by
choosing selected sites according to the Site Functional Test performance index;
deploying an agent to initiate real jobs at sites where the agent succeeded.
Physicists are “smart” and now “see” > 90% efficiency but the definition here is one defined within a given VO adopting their own methods (and from informed input from people currently submitting jobs to the system).
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

14. Overview Integrated over all VOs and RBs for first half of 2005
Successes/Day
Success % %
Key point: Improving from 42% to 78% during 2005
[For the UK RB (lcgrb01.gridpp.rl.ac.uk)
Successes/Day
Success % % ]
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

15. LHC VOs ALICE ATLAS CMS LHCb 1 July 2005 Oversight Committee
Successes/Day N/A
Success % 42% % % %
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

16. Other VOs BaBar CDF D0 BioMed 1 July 2005 Oversight Committee
Successes/Day
Success % 76% % % 76%
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

17. The “Get Fit” Plan
Set SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-phased) Goals
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

18. “I take it plea bargaining is out of the question?”
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

19. Our problems…
0.104: Number of LCG/EGEE job slots published by the UK. The current total is 2477 and the target was 3000.
0.106: GridPP KSI2K available: By the end of March 2005 the combined Tier-1 and Tier-2 CPU power was expected to be 5184 KSI2K compared to 2277 KSI2K achieved. This number is dominated by the 4397 KSI2K expected from the Tier-2s which has been slowly becoming available.
0.108: GridPP disk storage available: Similar to above. Only 280TB available compared to 968TB anticipated but the situation is improving.
0.111: GridPP tape storage made available to LCG/EGEE. At present the tape storage is being used but not really via the Grid route.
0.112: Fraction of available KSI2K used in quarter: at present a rough estimate shows about 42% of the available CPU was used compared to a target value of 70%.
0.113: Fraction of available disk used in quarter: This is estimated at 64% compared to the target of 70%.
0.114: Fraction of available Tape used in quarter: This is estimated at 61% compared to the target of 70%.
0.131: Tier-1 service disaster recovery plans up to date: This has not been updated within the last 6 months.
0.143: Accumulated scheduled downtime in the last quarter: The current value of 418 days is almost identical to the current) target of 411 days. The metric expects the 25% figure to reduce to 5% by the third year.
3.6.3: LCG Deployment evaluation reports: first report due in March 05 was delayed to the second quarter.
Tier-2 Hardware realisation: This flags the same issue as and above. Tier-2 hardware has been delayed but the situation is improving.
5.2.7 Quarterly reports received within 1 month of the end of the quarter: The 05Q1 reports were received late. Some of the delay was due to the unfortunate timing of EGEE meetings.
6.2.11: Non-HEP applications tested on the GridPP Grid (submitted via the NGS submission mechanism). The NGS submission mechanism is not yet adequate.
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

20. The “Get Fit” Plan … not (yet) “The Final Solution”
We hope this drives the right behaviour
Plea bargaining is (probably) OK..
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

21. Some Problem Solving Strategies
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee

22. Problem Solving and Improved Communication
“Communication, in essence, is the shift of a particle from one part of space to another part of space. A particle is the thing being communicated. It can be an object, a written message, a spoken word or an idea. In its crudest definition, this is communication.
This simple view of communication leads to the full definition:
Communication is the consideration and action of impelling an impulse or particle from source-point across a distance to receipt-point, with the intention of bringing into being at the receipt-point a duplication and understanding of that which emanated from the source-point..”
from The Scientology Handbook
This may be a clue to how we will overcome our problems
But we can always improve this..
1 July 2005
Oversight Committee