Analysis Facility Pilot (Weekly Discussion )

Friday 21 Nov 2025, 14:00 → 16:40 Europe/Zurich

513/R-068 (CERN)

Useful information and links:

e-mail list: cern-analysis-facility@cern.ch

Overall description and useful information

Mattermost Channel

Workbook

Minutes

We now try to maintain a list of topics to be discussed/tracked over the next couple of meetings. The order isn't fixed and we will not discuss all in the same session. Feel free to send me additional topics.

 

 

14:00 → 14:20 To CHEP or not to CHEP?

The time for sending abstracts for CHEP 2026 to the internal review process.
Do we have enough new material, experience, and plans to come up with a meaningful contribution?

14:20 → 14:40 Integration of Rucio in SWAN QA: update and next steps

14:40 → 15:00 VRE + SWAN Helm Charts: bi-directional integration and a possible way forward

15:00 → 15:20 How to browse CVMFS through a catalog-like view

15:20 → 15:40 What to do with ML.CERN.CH ?

It looks like there are plans on the SWAN side to do something, it’d be useful to discuss.

15:40 → 16:00 How to get more and more complex examples of the use of the AF?

We have heard from the experiments that we can't expect a Phd student to move the workflow of a physics working group to the AF. The complexity would require substantial time and effort, which student's can't invest.

One approach could be to find a supervisor who is willing to offer one or two "split" topics. A somewhat lightweight analysis and a technical part.
This could be porting the workflow used for the analysis to the AF and comparing the results. The main outcome would be a better, documented, understanding of the stumbling blocks and how to proceed best.

Robin (robin.hofsaess@cern.ch) did a Phd like this. The "technical" part was related to techniques for enabling HEP workload on HPC systems.

Which role can ATLAS OpenMagic play in this?

Speaker: Markus Schulz (CERN)

15:55 → 16:15 The Analysis Facility Pilot and the new IT management

The current management was somewhat "passive" or indifferent to the activity. How can we instill some enthusiasm in the new management?

Reviving the idea of Phd students working on this.
Attached are the two DESY proposals.
These are not a 100% fit...

AnalysisEnvironment.pdf

ColumnarWorkflowDataFormats.pdf

Giovanni's modified proposal

Giovanni's prop

Jakob-Blomer.PhD Thesis Proposal.pdf