LHC Computing Grid Project

Project Execution Board

Notes of the meeting of Friday 23 November

CERN,   40-R-D10

Present: Philippe Charpentier, Chris Eck, Fabrizio Gagliardi, Miguel Marquina, Alberto Masoni, Gilbert Poulard, Les Robertson, Lucas Taylor, Wolfgang von Rueden, Torre Wenaus

News and information on the current state of the project

Les summarised the current status of the project (see foils which include notes on other items in the agenda). 

Phase 1 of the project was approved by the CERN Council on 20 September 2001 as part of the Basic Programme of the Organisation, as defined in the paper CERN/2379/Rev (5 September 2001) for the three-year period 2002-2004. The CERN part of the second phase of the project, construction of the initial production grid, is also described in the Council paper. The Council requested that the costs for Phase 2 be included in the CERN budget. The Director General has included the full cost estimates for the CERN part, materials and personnel, in the papers he has subsequently presented to Council on the "cost to completion" of the LHC. There is an ongoing discussion about how to cover these costs,  and it may be some time before there is agreement, but at least realistic estimates of the full costs to CERN of LHC computing to the end of 2007 are now formally defined.

The costs for Phase 1 not covered by the current CERN budget (about 40% of the total materials and personnel costs) will be funded by voluntary contributions from member states and other countries. Chris Eck summarised the state of these contributions. So far 13 states have pledged to provide resources: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Chris is in the process of making a formal agreement with each country to establish more precisely the amount and timing of their contribution. See the foils for the current status. It was noted that Germany has recently decided to contribute DM 5M in materials in addition to the 10 FTEs that they had already pledged. There is also the possibility that further contributions may be made by Canada and India.

Les had made a status report to the open session of the LHC on 19 November. The chairman, Mario Calvetti, suggested that a formal "letter of intent" or "TDR" should be prepared rapidly to enable the LHCC to examine the project in more detail. So far no feedback from the closed session has been received.

The first SC2 meeting has been scheduled for 7 December.

Role of and Membership of the PEB

There was a discussion on the role of the PEB and of the core members, who form the Project Management Team responsible for the day to day management of the project.

• four area project managers - 
      --  applications (Torre Wenaus - subject to confirmation)
      --  grid technology (Fabrizio Gagliardi)
      --  computing systems (Wolfgang von Rüden)
      --   grid deployment, data challenge operation and Regional Centres - to be appointed
• one person from each experiment, mandated to represent the experiment but also take a pro-active role in the management of the project
• resource manager (Chris Eck)
• administration and planning officer (Miguel Marquina)
• project architect / CTO - to be appointed
• the project leader (:Les Robertson)

The area of Regional Centre coordination and grid deployment may have to be separated into the higher level policy issues involving senior management of the RCs and the practical deployment of grids for data challenges.

The Project Management Team will meet weekly. It is foreseen that the full PEB may include additional members representing the management of external resources that are working on the project but do not come under its direct management. After some discussion it was decided that we should make proposals to the POB to coopt managers of significant external resources as they emerge. 

Initial work programme

At the next meeting a start will be made on defining the high level goals and schedule for the project. There is a formal difficulty in that the SC2 should define these things. It is hoped to organise a meeting with Matthias Kasemann, chair of the SC2, prior to the next meeting. This has now been scheduled for 10 December at 15:00.

Next meeting

The second meeting is scheduled for 12 December at 15:00, room to be announced.

Agenda:

1. Administrative details - minutes, mailing lists, offices, video conferencing, meeting frequency & timing
2. High level goals and priorities of the collaborations - each collaboration member to make a short presentation (15 minutes).
3. AOB