1. HEPiX Trip Report Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 10 - 14 October 2005 http://www.slac.stanford.edu/conf/hepix05/index.html Martin Bly – RAL Tier1 HEPSysMan – Oxford 5 December 2005

2. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Overview Collaborative Tools SIG HEPiX Machine Room Issues SIG

3. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Collaborative Tools SIG Why? LCG RTAG notes: very big modern experiments have very many people needing to collaborate, complexity of modern experiments needs collaboration. Lots of technologies: –Electronic mail, including mailing lists –Document management –Agenda management and calendaring –Instant messaging –blogs –Shared whiteboards –Web casting –Phone and Video conferencing –Etc, etc.

4. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Wikki / Web Several groups reported on their Wikki systems –Twikki @ GSI: web-based groupware applications such as minutes, holiday notifications, IT documentation. –FZK: Configuration and change management portal. FormFactory (DESY) –FormFactory is a work in progress to ease the building of web forms for non experts. Based on state of the art perl modules. Template-based - separation of program flow (CGI::Application), layout (using CSS) and content (Templates). Indico (CERN): –Event management software – born out of a need for something to manage CHEP 2004

5. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Conferencing VoIP: Alf Wachsmann –features of Skype, costs, security issues AccessGRID: JCG –multipoint video conferencing designed mainly for dedicated conference rooms VRVS/EVO –Big increase in use –EVO: new generation Unicast, single port Lots of work on codecs

6. Messenger -SIP H.323 MCU AG H.323 EVO EVO: End-to-End Self Managed and Secure RTC Infrastructure

7. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Desktop systems NICE @ CERN –Windows desktop environment –Use of Office tools: File sharing Sharing information in Outlook Workflow with Office and mail Instant Messenger

8. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford HEPiX

9. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Site Reports – Highlights I SLAC –Peta-cache project: 30TB RAM under xrootd RAL –New tape robot December CERN –IRC/P2P banned, VPN now biggest route for mal-ware into CERN –200 dual Nocona systems, 116 disk servers (900TB) BNL/RHIC –Evaluating dual-core systems: 20% less power idle of full compared to Xeon 3.4GHz SPECint/watt -> Opteron best INFN –Widespread use of SANs Oxford –Gb/s to campus, new firewall TRIUMF –Mini-Google site document index

10. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Site Reports – Highlights II IN2P3 –K4 to K5 and TransARC to OpenAFS planned GSI –Work on 64bit Debian –3ware 9550 very reliable GridKa –dCache @ 40TB using GPFS to overcome terrible write performance of ext3 DAPNIA –Developing a ‘federal T2’ JLAB –10Gb/s WAN. Secure wireless using WPA, works with XP2, RHEL ¾ DESY –New exchange cluster NERSC –LSF -> SGE, looking at SL4. –USB serial console

11. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford (In)Security Bob Cowles talk on security issues –Large set of sniffed password at the meeting –Tools now very sophisticated – Cain & Abel –New phishing and pharming scams –Rainbow tables - crack passwords in minutes

12. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Scientific Linux Distribution: –3.0.X levelling off, 4.N increasing markedly. UK top download after US, Taiwan next SL 3.0.5: July 05, i386, ia64, x86_64 SL 4.1: August 05, i386, ia64, x86_64 Bugfix repository –Next releases: SL 4.2 in preparation –(Released 2 December) SL 3.0.6 (RHEL 3 U6) –Will do after SL 4.2 –At least a bugfix repository SL 5: depends on RH schedules –Will attempt to get it out asap after RH make it available. –RHEL 5 maybe 2Q06 –Looking for volunteers to coordinate science applications, other applications –Looking to expend support for SL3 security patches as far as RH

13. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Linux @ CERN SLC4 –Certification starting October, complete end 05 –Use only in CC – not for wide deployment –Fallback if SL5 not available in time for LHC –Modern hardware support useful for disk servers 64bit –Working on it. Can’t stay 32bit only much longer. Some uses will want/need 64bit. No difference between SL and SLC –Binary compatible

14. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Storage Resource Managers –Xrootd – SLAC/IN2P3 Design philosophy and implementation –dCache – USATLAS Detail view of dCache at BNL –SRB – IN2P3/SLAC Data replication control between SLAC and IN2P3 –Panassas – Brookhaven View of 100TB installation –DPM - T2s Lightweight Disk Pool Manager designed for implementation at T2 sites – focus on manageability

15. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Infrastructure and Machine Room issues Other than cooling, power and space…

16. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford Machine Room SIG Testing high performance tape drives –CERN testing of various new high spec tape units Hardware Procurement –How CERN buys capacity hardware 36 weeks from initiation to preliminary acceptance! Benchmarking at GridKa –Detailed view of benchmarking and how to address the issues 4 jobs on Opteron dual-core 3% less than sum of 4 single jobs Cost of power for 3 years ~ 50% of purchase price

17. 5th December 2005 HEPiX Trip Report - HEPSysMan, Oxford And finally: The 100ft tree vs the payroll –The tail of how the SLAC computer folk rose to the challenge of a 100ft tree cutting their power – and how they got the payroll run done. http://www.slac.stanford.edu/conf/hepix05/talks/friday/boeheim.pdf