HEP Software Collaboration meeting

3 Apr 2014, 08:00 → 4 Apr 2014, 18:00 Europe/Zurich

503/1-001 - Council Chamber (CERN)

Ian Bird (CERN), John Harvey (CERN)

Current HEP software is the result of 20 years of development and now must evolve to meet the challenges posed by new experimental programmes, including future upgrades of the LHC. In addition, the computing landscape is evolving rapidly and we need to exploit all the expertise available in our community, and in other scientific disciplines, in order to meet the technical challenges we are facing. During the last 2 years, a Concurrency Forum has been meeting to promote discussions within the HEP community regarding various independent R&D efforts. Formalising this activity into a Collaboration would be a natural next step to eventually transform the R&D efforts into joint projects to build software libraries of general interest. A formal Collaboration would also provide a framework for attracting effort and external funding, as well as providing a structure for the community to set priorities and goals for the work. This should be a HEP community-wide effort, but should be open enough that eventually it could form the basis for collaboration with other sciences. The short note attached describes some of the thinking behind this initiative. The current agenda is still very preliminary. VIDEO CONFERENCE: see under "Video Services" Vidyo public room ongoing until Fri 4/Apr at 18:00 : HEP_Software_Collaboration_meeting Extension 9297652

Background information Open_Scientific_Software_Collaboration.pdf

Thursday 3 April

Morning session

1 Welcome from CERN Director of Research

Speaker: Sergio Bertolucci (CERN)

2 Vision behind the HEP Software Collaboration Initiative initiative

- stakeholders and what each expects from such a collaboration (users, developers, management, funding agencies) - added value that a collaboration would bring to HEP development activities - challenges posed by experimental programmes and changing computing landscape; - goals include clean-up of existing software and improving its performance by large factors; fostering new projects - engage community to exploit expertise and effort available; seek new funding opportunities; - promote the use of external software and collaboration with other scientific software domains

Speaker: Dr Richard Philip Mount (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US))

Slides Mount-Software-Collaboration-Apr2014.pdf

3 Recent HEP experience developing common software packages

- inventories of packages that are currently used in HEP experimental programmes - how packages typically appear through recent examples - connections with other fields - options and benefits of (re-)organising activities as either large or small scale projects

Speaker: Dr Peter Elmer (Princeton University (US))

CHEP07 Life Cycle http://indico.cern.ch/event/3580/session/28/contribution/351/material/slides/0.pdf

CHEP13 Taxonomy https://indico.cern.ch/event/214784/session/7/contribution/41/material/slides/0.pdf

LCGAA Blueprint RTAG http://lcgapp.cern.ch/project/blueprint/BlueprintReport-final.doc

notes taxonomy.pdf

Slides 20140403-elmer-hepcollab.pdf

10:45 Coffee break

4 Model for organising and supporting development activities

- establish an architectural blueprint and common language of terms - define ways to ensure interoperability of components developed in the context of the collaboration - establish guidelines for software processes and tools - outlook for technologies that need to be embraced and existing software domains that need attention - adoption of standards to ensure quality and performance - identify synergies between existing HEP projects and prospects for collaboration outside HEP

Speaker: Dr Pere Mato Vila (CERN)

Slides HEPSC-Development.pdf

12:30 Lunch break

Afternoon session

5 Governance Model

- leverage experience of managing existing collaborations to establish a governance that is effective but not overly burdensome - propose leadership roles (spokesperson(s), Chief Technology Officer, ...) - propose bodies needed for: + managing technical work on a day to day basis (Technical Board) + monitoring progress and ensuring scientific mission is carried out (Scientific Advisory Panel) - roles for managing development infrastructure (librarian, documentation,release management, ..) - roles that need to be filled to ensure high standards are maintained (QA, performance ..) - propose viable way(s) of launching the collaboration and identifying follow-up steps

Speaker: Dr Panagiotis Spentzouris (Fermilab)

Slides HEPCollaborationGovernance.pdf

15:00 Tea break

6 Funding Opportunities for new software proposals

One of the collaboration’s goals should be fostering proposals for new software initiatives, bringing together people from different labs, HEP programmes etc. to work together on new projects. Contributions are invited in order to review prospects of using new funding programmes to facilitate this e.g. o EU Horizon 2020 o US DOE and NSF o Asia: Japan, Korea, India, …. o …

7 Discussion

Friday 4 April

Morning session

8 Discussion Session

Discuss basic roadmaps and priorities. Contributions from the floor are invited, either prepared or spontaneous.

Speaker: Mr Federico Carminati (CERN)

Slides ConclusionsPlans.pdf

10:30 Coffee break

9 Wrap-up and conclusions

Summary will be given of what was discussed and agreed during the meeting. This session should identify action items and agree next steps to be followed.

Speaker: Mr Federico Carminati (CERN)