1. STAR C OMPUTING STAR Computing Status and Plans Torre Wenaus BNL STAR Collaboration Meeting BNL Jan 31, 1999

2. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Recent Arrivals New members of the core BNL computing team:  Jeff Porter, head of databases; online/offline developer l Started Nov ‘98; joined us from the LBNL group l Working in calibration database development and content definition, online DB development, GC-ROOT integration, Objectivity, Sun system management,...  Mei-Li Chen, online developer l Starts Feb 16, 1999; from U Maryland (Super-K, Milagro) l Very experienced online/DAQ expert; will be a strong contributor to online integration and commissioning l Has to come up to speed on C++ No new hires foreseen! I hope (and expect!) the existing team will be in place for years to come…  There’s lots of work to do  Support is foreseen in operations budget

3. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Recent Arrivals (2) Postdoc/student involvement is clearly improving  Examples of key new core computing contributions: l Dan Russ, CMU: PSC simulation production l Gene Van Buren: ROOT tutorials, online help, migration  And continuing contributions: l David Zimmerman, LBNL: GC, TagDB, simu production l Brian Lasiuk, Yale: TRS, C++ infrastructure  … and many others working on offline software l We encourage regular BNL visits for close coupling to the software effort, face-to-face help, and greater visibility; come to the center of the action!  But we’ve lost the postdoc targeted for MDC2 production help; we need a new source of help  We look forward to a continuing influx! l Eg. Very glad to have Dave Hardtke relocated to BNL from LBNL

4. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Outstanding Personnel issues Online software in need of additional personnel  Online systems/infrastructure support; solution being sought at BNL  New EMC rep: Wayne State  New TPC rep (must be BNL-resident): LBNL is working on it Biggest staffing hole is dedicated database/event store effort  Existing low level of effort is resulting in delay, compromise and greater risk l We are late in deploying and exercising a full event store solution; our Objectivity and ROOT usage modes need to be stress tested in real production/public use  Essentially no prospect of getting a new hire; have to do the best with what we have l Greater and longer-term use of interim flat-file solutions l Expanding ROOT I/O capabilities means more viable ROOT-based solutions, leveraging the community We need SVT and EMC software coordinators!

5. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Departures  Nathan Stone left the BNL group for a software professional job at the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center  Mark Gilkes left Purdue for a new life in California l but continues to be productive from home in Santa Barbara where he is still participating in online system development (at least until March; possibly longer)  Mark Pollack left PHENIX for a software professional job in NYC; not a STAR departure, but an unfortunate loss for all of RHIC  Best of luck to them all, and to us in trying to overcome their absence!

6. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Major Events Since July Collaboration meeting (July):  ROOT framework deployed; call for 3mos of user & MDC1 trials T3E production (late August):  T3E GSTAR production and RCF-HPSS transfer operational MDC1 (Sep-Oct):  Yr1 & Yr2 detector configurations; EMC, FTPC not in reco/DST  Production stable by second production release; exceeded `official’ goal of 100k Au-Au events through the production chain  Primary (~95%) production in STAF; remainder in ROOT  Simulated data:1.7TB of 200GeV/n Au-Au HIJING (217k events)  Reconstructed DSTs: 600GB XDF files (168k events)  Objectivity event store: 50GB, stopped when disk space exhausted  Grand Challenge: managed HPSS access, queries, CAS integration

7. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Major Events (2) Software workshops and PWG/Computing meetings (Nov)  SW decisions: scope of ROOT use; C++ data model Online review (Dec 8):  Rapid progress and effective design commended, but loss of personnel must be addressed by STAR and system integration/performance needs to be demonstrated (no report issued yet) DAQ/offline interface API for TPC ADC data established (mid Dec)  First application as interface between TRS and TPC clustering code l TRS interface exists; TPC code interface in progress  Still to be exercised, completed and finalized Transient data model design milestone (Dec 15)  Thomas’ design led to much interesting discussion! Start of simulation production for MDC2 (early Jan)  Field map, RICH & other geometry updates; production already well advanced

8. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Major Events (3) Calibration database definition and implementation effort begun in earnest (Dec-Jan) Transient data model implementation milestone (Jan 15)  basic StEvent coded up by the 15th; then extended to load content from MDC1 DST tables  StEventReaderMaker now loading StEvent from MDC1 DSTs via standard ROOT chain  Usable now in ‘guinea pig’ mode; should be ‘end user’ available in at most a week Full production chain migration to ROOT before MDC2 … and now MDC2 is almost upon us.

9. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 MDC2: Feb 22 - Mar 8 Principal MDC2 goals:  Full production exercise with ROOT-based chain  TPC production chain including detailed response simu (TRS?) & clustering  Better subsystem coverage on DST: EMC, FTPC, trigger,...  Testing and evaluating CRS production systems to finalize effective operations scheme  Integration of QA evaluation into reconstruction production  ‘Exercising our options’ for event store in production to make an informed Year 1 decision  Greater analysis activity; definition and generation of analysis tags; uDSTs  OO transient data model in place and in use  GC architecture in production use for managed HPSS retrieval in DST analysis, query index selection, multiple & non-Objy event components

10. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 After MDC2 Goal was to have infrastructure stabilized & turn to other things  Realizable, I hope, in some areas… l ROOT framework, Maker/Chain infrastructure, transient data model infrastructure  … but much work still to do in others l Event store, conditions database, real data handling, online integration With lessening of infrastructure load, ramp-up of activity in other areas (particularly in the BNL group)  Reconstruction, physics analysis Reconstruction meeting Feb 21 is to  review subsystem software status -- particularly reconstruction, including global reconstruction -- relative to year 1 requirements  establish priority areas for new work and improvement l establish strategies in these areas: new vs. upgraded software; parallel vs. fully unified efforts  at least begin to define new/expanded efforts and deliverables

11. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Will There Be an MDC3? No! (I hope not, at least.) Focus after MDC2 shifts to real data and detector-driven milestones But, what about a ‘Mock Physics Challenge?’  Original idea of Mock Data Challenges included hiding physics signal in the simulation and testing analysis by trying to extract it blind  Not done in MDC1 and probably not done in MDC2  An important test of computing+analysis capability  Possible milestone for Thomas and the PWGs? l Circa September? l Drawing on computing of course, but not a computing milestone Just a suggestion the PWGs may want to consider

12. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 After MDC2: Get Real! Real data is coming soon... Online integration with DAQ/trigger/FEE will deliver (starting March?) pseudo-real (simu data in DAQ) and real data to offline in real software environment Many items to complete to make this work  Complete and finalize DAQ-offline interface  Integration of DAQ raw data in event store  Initiation of event store (event collections, online/DAQ/trigger tags) in online, and its propagation to offline  Integration of offline event store effort with online event pool; online event delivery to offline-environment monitors  Database integration: online DB including slow control; offline conditions/calibrations  Define DAQ/online/offline/RCF communication/data paths; security configuration  Subsystem definition/creation of online monitors

13. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Documentation and Help Immediate call after Nov ROOT decisions… ROOT documentation!  Expand existing documentation/tutorial work by Valery, Yuri to include contributions with an ‘end user’ perspective l Akio Ogawa’s ROOT diary l Gene Van Buren developing and accumulating tutorial, how-to, FAQ material in a ‘ROOT help desk’ function l Herb Ward and other ROOT users also contributing how-tos and examples  Tutorial page is clearing-house for all this  Many offline tutorials updated to reflect ROOT environment  SOFI postings and/or bug reports remain the preferred question/help mechanism l Please do not use personal email to experts for questions, help; give us the ability to spread the response load around and monitor what sort of questions are being asked Monthly (1st Friday) tutorials, tutorials/C++ next week, OOAD course in Mar

14. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Software Usability Environment has been relatively quiet, from which we conclude things are reasonably functional? (Real work does seem to be getting done) New ‘new’ coming out imminently after a period of intensive development  Should provide a stable and capable ‘MDC2 prep’ release If you have problems or concerns, make them public, or at least make them known; mumbling and rumbling privately (especially to people other than computing principals) is less likely to help

15. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Offsite Computing RCF is foreseeing a need for offsite data export via tape, of at least two flavors  Bulk export to large remote centers (eg. LBNL)  Self-serve tape export (a physicist carrying a uDST sample home) But we need to understand the plans, needs, constraints of the institutes better  Local computer, disk, tape resources and how you expect to use them  What central services (especially any beyond those already available) you need from STAR and/or RCF Still have to get my survey out! Offsite computing meeting, chaired by Peter Jacobs, tomorrow 7pm at Brookhaven Center South Room  Will be able to carry in pitchers of beer from the pub

16. STAR C OMPUTING Torre Wenaus, BNL Collaboration meeting 31/1/99 Conclusions Basically good progress along the expected lines, with no nasty surprises  MDC1 experience good  Migration of reconstruction production chain to ROOT proceeded well; good participation  Simulation Some MDC2 elements coming in late but hopefully ‘just in time’:  DST available via StEvent  ROOT, Objectivity event store for MDC2 Other elements need a lot of work, and have felt the effect of personnel losses and shortfalls  Databases: conditions, calibrations, online  Online integration and real data readiness We rely on the wider involvement of the collaboration -- which has been growing -- to continue to grow