USAG @ EGEE'09 summary 

Prepared by session convenor Maria Dimou

20090923

1. Agenda http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=68477
2. Previous meeting minutes were approved.
3. The candidates for the TPM service for the rest of EGEE III presented their understanding of the new model
http://edms.cern.ch/document/1000210.

The USAG being an advisory group, the following conclusions are given to SA1 management for decsion making at the 20090924 f2f meeting:

a. All candidate ROCs now understand that reducing the number of TPM teams from autumn 2009 till the end of EGEE III 
is not related with the EGI bids  in this area covering Global tasks.

b. Despite the fact that the new TPM strategy, possible TPM models and the plan for the selected model prototype service was discussed at every USAG 
meeting since 20090402, with info sent to the ROC managers and TPM teams, ROC_CE representative complained that the information
came late to them. ROC_SWE said that this is not a good time for changes given other areas of work become very busy now (LHC start-up).
People were reminded of the planning steps and decisions taken, namely the 20090609 SA1 f2f meeting where the model in favour of
very few TPM teams was selected. They were also reminded that in EGEE III all ROCs are funded and committed to provide TPM effort.

c. ROC_SWE reminded that GGUS and TPM duty is one of the user support services they provide. Many other questions from VO members or site admins
are answered by email. We decided to look into a GGUS development solution for opening a ticket on behalf of a 3rd party and for a given submitter
to assign to a given person.

d. ROC_IT recommended a TPM companion book shorter than the existing documentation https://gus.fzk.de/pages/support.php
They also expressed concern about TPM workload increase when more middleware stacks will be supported in EGI.
They recommended that FAQ production by the TPMs be monitored.This is being done via monthly escalation reports in 
https://gus.fzk.de/pages/metrics/download_escalation_reports_faq.php

e. The meaning of our SA1-given mandate on increased automation: https://savannah.cern.ch/support/?108496 and https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/EGEE/SA1ActionItemsDB#000521
was clarified.
Automation is 'increase the number of automatically assigned tickets, hence bypassing the TPMs' like:
https://savannah.cern.ch/support/?105819 for Direct Site notification and 
https://savannah.cern.ch/support/?108708 automatic assignment to the ROC under certain conditions.

f. ROC_IT and ROC_CE suggested to remain in the current scheme (15 teams https://gus.fzk.de/pages/tpm.php) until year-end when the EGI bids 
will have been decided and then participate in the EGEE prototyping of the new model IF they win the EGI bid. 
Else, they withdraw the EGEE reduced TPM teams' candidature.

4. Master/slave ticket discussion decision written in https://savannah.cern.ch/support/?108668#comment6