From j.p.emerson@qmul.ac.uk Fri Jun 27 14:06:00 2003 Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 13:52:57 +0100 From: Jim Emerson To: Malcolm Stewart , Richard McMahon , Mike Irwin Subject: WFAU SA weekly meeting minutes: 27 June 2003 dear VDFS mgt team WFAU Minutes for comment -----Original Message----- From: Nigel Hambly [mailto:nch@roe.ac.uk] Sent: 27 June 2003 13:00 To: WFCAM Science Archive Team -- Clive Davenhall; Eckhard Sutorius; Harvey MacGillivray; Ian Bond; Mike Read; Nigel Hambly; Bob Mann Cc: Andrew Lawrence; Peredur Williams; Andy Adamson; Jim Emerson Subject: WFAU WSA weekly meeting minutes: 27 June 2003 Minutes of WFCAM Science Archive meeting: 27 June 2003 ----------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------- Present: IAB, NCH, ETWS, PMW, AL Apologies: JMS, RGM, MAR, HMG Actions discharged: ------------------- - all done and discharged (thanks to all concerned!) Actions partly discharged but continuing: ----------------------------------------- ACTION: PMW to draft an action plan in the light of the review panel report. ACTION: ALL to review risk register and think of any new internal or external risks that should be documented in the risk register. - continuing; thanks for progressing these. Actions carried forward from 20/06/03 meeting: ---------------------------------------------- ACTION: IAB to check the SSA HTM code into the CVS under SSA/src/scos2htm/... ACTION: PMW to liaise with AL to make sure that Compute Support are made aware, from the highest "official" level, of our requirements, re. 100 Gbyte/day transfer from CASU, and to impress on them that the 1 Gbit/s FW should be their highest priority. - CONTINUES Specific points and new actions: -------------------------------- Project management: PMW went through the quarterly deliverables for the next quarterly report (face-to-face meeting at CASU, probably on the 4th July). This is been produced in tandem with the action plan from the CDR. Good progress is being made on most of the 2003 Q2 deliverables. NCH reported further contacts with CASU concerning interface control. A new issue of the ICD is being produced, containing new information about the metadata associated with the FITS files being transfered from CASU. Hardware: HMG reported (via NCH) that Eclipse are experiencing some delivery problems with the rack mount cabs for the first tranche of hardware. Delivery will commence today (LTO2 drive is already here) and it is anticipated that all the ordered kit will arrive within the next two weeks. In the meantime, a few final tests on software RAID configurations will be done using the catalogue server and 12 SCSI disks available. AL reported that due to a SRIF1 underspend, up to 50K may be available through the department for WSA hardware to supplement RG monies. An itemised wish list has been prepared that asks for i) extra 16 SCSI disks plus rack; ii) UPSs for the various servers; iii) an extra catalogue server, in order of priority. Results of the bid will be known on a timescale of weeks. ACTION: PMW to communicate SRIF1 wish list to Arthur Trew. RGM reported (via NCH) that a Compusys Initiative bid has been put in for 25K worth of datamining cluster hardware and support from Compusys. Software: NCH pointed out that the SuperCOS HTM codes had been checked into the WSA not the SSA, and emphasised the need to exercise a certain amount of discipline and thought when using the CVS. ACTION: IAB to recheck the scos2htm codes into the appropriate module in the CVS repository, and NCH to move the WSA ones into the attic. IAB reported: "I have been looking at Python as an alternative to Perl for implementing the curation uses cases. Python seems like the more attractive option because of: syntactictly cleaner, clearer error tracking using exceptions, seems fairly straightforward to write Python bindings to existing C/C++ code. The latter is a very important point I think. I have implemented CU2 using Python. Also I have tested basic FITS i/o using the pyfits module and MS SQL connectivitiy using the pymsssql module. Both check out OK." The team discussed the general philosophy of use of the CVS, and it was suggested that although it may not seem necessary to import underdeveloped code into the CVS if only one developer is working on it, in general we should use the CVS in case the developer suddenly disappears (and also as proof of progress on coding!) ACTION: IAB to check CU codes into the CVS (under WSA!) as they are being developed. In the light of the experience of IAB and ETWS with Python, it has been decided to use this (as opposed to Perl or any other scripting language) to implement the curation use cases for the WSA. ETWS/RGM have suggested that a GUI for the curation tasks would be good, but it was felt that it is too early to be expending effort on this kind of polished system interfaces at this stage. NCH reported initial progress on CU16, using the experience of the SSA to look at SQL script implementation of the curation use cases needing DB manipulation. Much more work is need on this (no progress is likely next week owing to the "VO as a DataGrid" meeting at NeSC and the associated visit of Jim Gray & Alex Szalay. MAR has been on leave over the preceeding week, so no news to report on user interface software. Networking: No new progress to report; need new hardware with Gb/s net cards to do further experiments (and some help from the CASU end). ACTION: NCH to talk to Guy Rixon at next week's NeSC meeting re: gridFTP and further transfer tests. Miscellaneous: ACTION: NCH to type up and circulate these minutes. DoNM: 10am, Friday 4th July, plate library.