WLCG Resource Reporting Task Force

Tuesday 10 Feb 2015, 16:00 → 17:00 Europe/Zurich

CERN

Discussion points from the email: 1. Does everyone agree with using APEL for time-based accounting? 2. Where should be the authoritative source (URL) for WLCG for time-based accounting information? 3. How to ensure that WLCG sites providing cloud resources are publishing accounting information. 4. How to verify (automate if possible) the reported accounting metrics. 4. Is it possible to provide a normalization factor for cloud resources? 5. Where should be the location for normalization factors (URL). 6. How do we obtain the normalization factor? 7. Do we report cloud resource usage separately or merge them earlier in the chain? 8. Define and document the information flow. Plus quotas from Tim Bell and comments from Andrew McNab http://accounting-devel.egi.eu/cloud.php

Slides apel_accounting.pdf

Attendance: Laurence Field, Domenico Giordano, Daniele Spiga, Ulrich Schwickerath, John Gordon, Stuart Pullinger, Felix Lee

1. There were no objections to the use of APEL for accounting?

2. The EGI accounting portal can be the source for information. A WLCG specific cloud view will need to be provided for the Teir 0/1 and Teir2

Action: John will enquire into support for the necessary changes.

3. SAM tests are existing/can be used to check that records have been published. This requires a list of expected cloud sites which is/could be a service type in the GOC DB.

Action: John to send a URL for the SAM tests
Action: Laurence to check the service type in the GOC DB

4. A sync test verifies that information is correctly trasported from the publisher to the accounting DB. Checks are still needed to verify the accuracy of the metrics provided. The Ganglia-based consumer-side accounting can be used but the possbility of using VO metrics should also be investigated.

5. There seemed to be consenses that it would be possible to provide normilization metrics

6. The normalization factors should be in a lookup table that is avaialbe to the accounting publisher. The normatlization factor will then be provideded for each accounding record. Such a mechansim should be standardized to simplify system integration.

7. A general dicussion on how to benchmark machines. (see attached slides for more details). A guide should be produced to instruct providers how to benchmark their resources and produce the lookup table.

8. It was suggested to report cloud resources seperatlty as such information would be useful to know at the management level.

A.O.B: short dicussion on accounting long running VMs
Action: John to make a proposal.