1. RAL Site Report John Gordon IT Department, CLRC/RAL HEPiX Meeting, JLAB, October 2000

2. July 2000EU DataGrid Outline NT Farm Linux Farm and servers Data Storage Networking Other Facilities G***

3. July 2000EU DataGrid NT Farm System –LSF Batch CPUs: 18 (450MHz) + 9 (200MHz) –MS Terminal Server front-end - dual 450MHz Use - LHCb Simulation –Event generation & reconstruction –500k + assorted events already generated –Feb 2001 targets: Generation - 250k B-Bbar inclusive + 250k minimum-bias Reconstruction with min-bias event overlay Future LHCb work –GRID/Globus emphasis –use Linux facilities at CERN, RAL (CSF) + others

4. July 2000EU DataGrid Linux Production Farm 60 dual 450 and 600MHz –add another 40 duals before end of 2000 (>2x) PBS Kickstart installation autorpm Hardware health monitoring No network boot disk and memory an issue no racked systems - boxes of shelves

5. July 2000EU DataGrid Level of Operating System All RH6.1 but BaBar want RH6.2 and CDF want FNAL Linux No problem yet but creates more work

6. July 2000EU DataGrid Kickstart very good for installation but results in many kickstart files –maintenance problem need a configuration tool –remembers changes and produces kickstart file –applies new changes to multiple kickstart files.

7. July 2000EU DataGrid Memory & Disk Allocation Memory (256MB/dual) –Starting to get jobs that use more than 50% of this. Local Disk (10GB and 20GB scratch space) –Some jobs starting to need >5GB Both of these are easily solved by new machines –but we don’t scrap or upgrade the old machines Need a batch environment that matches jobs to capability of machines - PBS?

8. July 2000EU DataGrid Data Storage Currently IBM 3590 tapes in 3494 Looking at capacity increase –for new experiments (BaBar, CDF, SNO) –for LHC and Datagrid Have considered IBM, STK, and ADIC No conclusions yet

9. July 2000EU DataGrid Networking WAN - SuperJANET 4 - 2Gb backbone1Q2001 –10Gb in 2003 or sooner –622Mb to RAL LAN - upgrade from FDDI to support above –grid of interconnected switches with multiple Gb –Gb ethernet for servers and switches. –Fibre and copper

10. July 2000EU DataGrid Special Services BaBar –6TB of disk at RAL + more at 9 UK univs(1999) –4xSun420R (16 cpus) at RAL, farms at Univs(2000) CDF –Disk (RAL & univs) and farms at universities –Ian McArthur’s talk Friday

11. July 2000EU DataGrid Grid Issues Certification –UK CA for HEP Datastore Access –Access to Atlas Datastore via Globus tools Network Performance –QoS and performance Metadata - resources & data –projects with BaBar and CDF and others and working with many other areas of science

12. July 2000EU DataGrid UK HEP Grid 4 or 5 sites will define themselves as a Grid today authentication via common CA at RAL GIIS - information service storing resource metadata from all sites user account database for easy registration and group authorisation Form basis of UK testbed for Datagrid

13. July 2000EU DataGrid Finally A year ago the problem seemed to be managing large numbers of roughly homogenous systems for cpu and storage –tools like kickstart seemed to offer hope In the last six months demand has risen for numbers of administratively distinct systems –Datagrid testbed, grid development systems, LDAP servers, data portals, user database servers, network monitors, QoS testbeds –They may all have Linux in common but they have many different software and management requirements All increasing demands on staff