From nch@roe.ac.uk Fri Aug 27 17:56:24 2004 Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 11:18:29 +0100 (BST) From: Nigel Hambly To: WFCAM Science Archive Team -- Eckhard Sutorius , Harvey MacGillivray , Ian Bond , Mike Read , Nigel Hambly , Bob Mann Cc: CCs for WSA weekly meeting minutes distribution -- Clive Davenhall , Andrew Lawrence , Andy Adamson , Peter Shillan , John Taylor , Jim Emerson , Malcolm Stewart , Martin Hill , Mike Irwin , Peredur Williams Subject: WFAU WSA weekly meeting minutes: 27 August 2004 Minutes of WFCAM Science Archive meeting: 27th August 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ Present: NCH, MAR, ETWS, JDT, HMG, PMW Apologies: JPE, AL, MCH, RGM, JMS, GPS DONM: 10am, Friday 3rd September, plate library Actions discharged: ------------------- ACTION: NCH to create a new SQL Server login "palro" for the Astrogrid application codes. Discharged. Actions partly discharged but continuing: ----------------------------------------- ACTION: PMW to apply a little pressure to the premises team to solve the continuing problem of heat overload in C1. PMW reported bringing this up at the site services meeting this week; a quote has been obtained for additional airconditioning; action continues. ACTION: ALL to review risk register and think of any new internal or external risks that should be documented in the risk register. Defered until top level plan is explicitly defined. PMW tabled the VISTA risk register as an example. ACTION: JPE to design and set up centralised VDFS web pages. Progressing. (there is now a link to it from our WSA Twiki). - continuing; thanks for progressing these. Actions carried forward from 20/08/04 meeting: ----------------------------------------------- ACTION: NCH to remember to action a team programmer to implement range checking in the low-level ingest codes. CONTINUES Specific points and new actions: -------------------------------- Project management: NCH reported that he, PMW and JMS had attended the VEGA project meeting at the IoA in Cambridge on Tuesday. NCH gave a short presentation on prototype science archive testing feedback so far; the meeting suggested a gentle reminder to the community would be no bad thing at this stage. JMS gave a presentation on Earned Value Analysis which was generally well received; but there was some concern that a simplified picture that does not take into account external dependencies is open to misinterpretation by external review bodies as poor performance within the project. PMW reported that shortlisting for the software developer position has taken place and that interview are to take place on Thurs 23rd September; JDT has been invited onto the interview panel. PMW pointed out that the next VDMT monthly telecon is next Friday; he will fill out the usual progress chart while NCH is to produce the narrative and present it to the meeting. Comments and issues arising from CASU fortnightly minutes: No new minutes as of this week. Networking: Nothing this week. Hardware: NCH reported that the new 16 disk JBOD is now attached to the load server "amenhotep" but we are experiencing teething problems still with the existing RAID array in the server chassis (this is wired in 4x4 backplanes as opposed to the JBOD's 2x 8-disk backplanes - problems could be something to do with this). Software: MAR reported: "Set up a small test users table on SQL server and configured my own Tomcat installation to authenticate against it. The set-up for thoth's version of Tomcat is slightly different but should work the same if we go this route. Will probably write the online html access forms as jsp pages so that users will know if they are "logged in" i.e. querying against the public or private database before submitting the query. Still refactoring Java servlet code and associated classes. Also building in more sensible logging so that user access can be better recorded (less reliance on server logs) this will then be repackaged into a more sensible hierarchy." ETWS reported: "After finishing CU4 as far as possible, I've started to look into the development of a GUI and decided to give wxPython a try. It looks quite powerful and I'm now trying to install and test it. NCH has asked CASU to provide more up-to-date FITS files to test as far as possible the ingest procedure. This will mean a comprehensive test of CU1-4 will be possible. NCH also reported continuing sporadic development of the source merging software. SSA: NCH reported that a gentel reminder has been sent to the community to give as much feedback as possible, as soon as possible based on testing the prototype SSA system. Astrogrid deployment: NCH noted that the Astrogrid PAL application software was now up and running on several WFAU datasets, including the SSA. Some questions remain as to functionality and content (eg. UCDs in VOTables) and also how to test the system. NCH suggested that a full off-site test within the Astrogrid system would be nice, to test out the functionality of all web services. JDT agreed to liaise with MCH on this. ACTION: JDT to liaise with MCH concerning an end-to-end test of the PAL deployment. Miscellaneous: NCH reported that following last week's discussion concerning user registration, authentication and data access policy, AA at JAC is co-ordinating discussions between the WSA team, UKIDSS and the UKIRT Board with a view to presenting a proposal to the Board at the next (November) meeting. JDT and MAR discussed some implementation issues and it seems that there are existing tools for administering encrypted, user-supplied passwords on an individual basis that should enable individual registration and authentication via a database of user login names and encrypted passwords.