WLCG Management Board #338

Tuesday 17 Mar 2026, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Zurich

513/R-068 (CERN)

16:00 CERN/10:00 EDT/09:00 CDT

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Email Distribution List: worldwide-lcg-management-board@cern.ch
Email List Archive: worldwide-lcg-management-board (requires CERN authentication)
Minutes: Management Board Meeting Minutes
Action List: MbActionList
See also the: WLCG Document Repository,  WLCG Web Site

16:00 → 16:15 Minutes and Matters Arising

• We had the LHCC on March 2nd-5th – an open session talk, a generator specific focus session and the  usual WLCG session (link: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1645247/) 

• We thank the speakers of the WLCG session. On top of the experiments' talks, we had a review of ROOT status and plans by Danilo.

• All quite smooth, the only real excitations are about the recent price increase for IT resources; we have proposed to collect info & report at the next LHCC in June – accepted in the LHCC draft minutes. So, please remember to inform A. Sciaba' of any info you obtain!

• A note: we consider neither possible (lack of info) nor appropriate to rush for a remodelling of the needs. But the pressure might increase fast and we need to be prepared to face it.

• Draft minutes have been circulated for fact checking; as far as we know they are not public atm, but there is nothing unexpected / on which the presenter asked for corrections.

• The closed session with CERN DRC present was pretty uneventful.

• Last week the experiments had their closed sessions with C-RSG team. The report expected early in April (but there is Easter..). The RRB is scheduked at the end of April.

• Regarding the same RRB, all contributions have arrived. Cath is assembling them, thanks!

• WLCG/HSF WS preparation: first meeting happened, second next week

• Today we have, in the last part of the MB, a guest presentation from the Darkside experiment (dark matter, @ GranSasso labs), which had expressed potential interest in becoming associated to WLCG.

• No news on connections with Russia as far, as we are aware – we keep operating as is.

• AndreaS has created MB agendas for the rest of 2026 with the usual algorithm.

16:15 → 16:20 Action List Review

16:20 → 16:30 WLCG Service Report

Speakers: Panos Paparrigopoulos (CERN), Maarten Litmaath (CERN)

WLCG-svc-report-260317-v10.pdf

WLCG-svc-report-260317-v10.pptx

16:30 → 16:40 TCB Report

Speakers: Alessandro Di Girolamo (CERN), James Letts (Univ. of California San Diego (US))

Report to WLCG MB #338 on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 at 16:00 (CERN)

The Program Committee has accepted that the TCB give a plenary presentation at CHEP26, though we were asked to revise the abstract to give more concrete information about the various topics and focus less on the process, which we have done and are soliciting comments from the TCB before forwarding it to the CHEP PC. We have also asked whether the former computing coordinators wish to continue active involvement in the TCB and as co-authors of the CHEP presentation:

WLCG Technical Evolution: Preparing for HL-LHC with a Community-Driven Roadmap

Authors: The WLCG Technical Coordination Board: J. Andreeva, D. Benjamin, L. Betev, C. Bozzi, D. Britton, I. Chakaberia, B. Couturier, A, De Salvo, A. Dewhurst, A. Di Girolamo, K. Ellis, J. Elmsheuser, J. Flix, J. C. Luna, M. Litmaath, S. Lammel, J. Letts, M. Mascheroni, S. McKee, A. Melo, E. Moyse, I. Osborne, P. Paparrigopoulos, S. Piano, E. Sexton‑Kennedy, O. Smirnova, D. South, N. Srimanobhas, F. Stagni, and J. van Eldik

With the end of Run 3 of the LHC approaching, the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) is entering an important transition toward the HL-LHC era. To meet the substantial increase in data volume, computational requirements, and resource heterogeneity, while preserving reliability, sustainability, and community cohesion, we have launched the development of the WLCG Technical Roadmap 2026-2030. The Roadmap is a consensus-driven, community-owned actionable plan that identifies key gaps and defines concrete milestones across the infrastructure and services landscape. It is organized into nine chapters each outlining a major area of evolution. Planning for WLCG facilities evolution, data management, networking, workflow management, authorization and authentication (tokens), security, WLCG services, heterogeneous resources and new infrastructures (for example, leveraging GPUs) are presented, taking into account that experimental requirements are still evolving. By presenting this roadmap at CHEP, we seek to engage the broader HEP community to gather feedback, foster collaboration, and build collective awareness. As one of the pillars of LHC physics and a cornerstone for data-intensive science even beyond the LHC, WLCG’s future relies on coordinated innovation and active community participation.

The TCB met on February 24th to discuss the timeline for delivery of chapter drafts in anticipation of this presentation. Many chapters are well-advanced or have plans to make solid progress on writing and socialization during the next several weeks, including facility evolution (to be discussed at OTF#10 at the HEPiX Spring Workshop in Lisbon in April), data management and network management evolution (which are already quite advanced drafts), workflow management, security and authentication & authorization infrastructure (token transition), services (to be discussed at OTF#9 on Tuesday, March 24th & 25th), and a fresh effort for new architectures and infrastructures e.g., GPUs, building on the success of the WLCG Workshop on Heterogeneous Architectures in December 2025.

The WLCG LHCC Referees met on Tuesday, March 3rd with the WLCG (including the TCB) and the experiments [Indico, restricted]. There was a presentation on ROOT development plans e.g., RNTuple in ROOT7. There was a question from the Referees about progress on the WLCG Technical Roadmap for HL-LHC.

16:40 → 17:05 Computing for the Darkside collaboration

Speaker: Dr Valerio Ippolito (INFN Sezione di Roma (IT))

20260317_WLCG_DS20k.pdf

17:05 → 17:10 AOB