Report on the HEPIX HEPNT Meeting. Catania, Italy.

Barry Saunders

Gareth Smithhttp://www.ts.infn.it/conferences/hepix2002/index.shtml

INFN Southern Laboratory

INFN – 2

INFN – Auditorium

Agenda (5 days)

• HEP Windows 2000 Co-ordination Group Meeting.

• HEPNT Windows 2000 Issues• Site Reports – with excursion and dinner.• UNIX issues• GRID issues

Windows 2000 Co-ordination Group

• Site reports – Notable points:– Saclay – due to a reorganisation have to migrate W2000

domains. Looking at MS ADMT.– IN2P3 looking at a W2K AD across all sites. – CERN >3500 desktops now on W2K. Pilot rollout of MS

Exchange.– SLAC – re-implementing SMS.– Note New version of SMS better co-existing with Group

Policies and Intellimirror.– Jefferson Lab – use Jpassword to synchronise Unix &

Windows passwords.

Brainstorming

• Repository for MSI files– This has been set-up but not used yet. http://cern.ch/w2k-

msi

• Web folders– Possibly very important (replace AFS ?)– Confusion between WebDAV and FrontPage Extensions.

• Office XP– CERN tests, general agreement – no problems with

OfficeXP. Outlook XP can have MAPI and IMAP/POP connections at same time.

Windows 2000 Issues

• Several Sites Reported on Windows 2000 migrations:– SLAC (Dennis Wisinski); FermiLAB (Jack Schmidt), DESY

(Reinhard Baltrusch)– All are migrating (slowly) to a new single Windows 2000

domain. (SLAC migrating to Exchange 2000 in the same way)

– All report significant costs. (e.g. DESY group will be increased 3 of 4 people).

• Kerberos – Talks by Jack Schmidt (Fermilab); Enrico Fasanelli (INFN) – concentrating on Unix/Windows co-existence.

Windows Issues Contd.

• Web Services– Alberto Pace (CERN) – demonstration of creating

a web service using Visual Studio .net. – MS Passport.

• Storage (Brian Scott – SLAC) Reviewed costs – DAS (Direct attach): $0.04/MByte.– SAN - $0.15/MB for initial purchase. Can expand

at $0.04/MByte.– Have seen report that TCO is 10 times cost/MB of

hardware!

Site Reports

• CERN (Maria Dimou)– Last release of CERNLIB this year (?)

Replacement is Anaphe (formerly LHC++).– Problems with Objectivity Licence. Looking at

Oracle.– Open AFS being evaluated for servers.– (Note OpenAFS – generally favourable reports

where tried/used.)

• Other– VMS turned off at FermiLab & Triumf !

Site Reports (contd)

• Triumf (Corrie Kost)– Have money for (GRID)?) hardware – but very little for

manpower. Need to buy quality and ensure vendor takes responsibility for may things.

• DAPNIA (Saclay), NIKHEF (Paul Kuipers) – moving from McAffee to Norton AV. RAL probably moving from Network Associates to Sophos.

• SLAC – HPSS will soon reach 1 Petabyte.• General Use of Red Hat LINUX – Except DESY

which uses SUSE.

UNIX Systems

• Linux mainly RH 6 going to 7-SLAC VA linux, -DESY SUSE-- Kernel differences

• Solaris 7 to 8• Windows/Linux integration

- authentication, single sign-on, remove clear text passwords, with kerberos

• MOSIX – INFN Pisa openMosix clusters

CERN Scientific Computing

• Cernlib –bug fix only, anaphe (LHC++) – OO out, XML in

• ASIS + rpm - rpm backend rpmt (transactions)

• Central CVS service• Printing – CERN solution used at other sites- Upgrading 7.2

UNIX Purchasing

• SLAC experiences (3 eval. boxes)• RAL CPU/Storage• Jlab cpu, LBL storage• CASPUR – Storage lab• Sharing information

AFS

• Clients - OpenAFS• Servers – Transarc moving to OpenAFS

- Big labs FNAL, SLAC, CERN, - Casper in production

• Open AFS support• Server Management - perl management framework

from CERN

• Other file systems GSF, /grid

Centre Operations

• CERN shutdown/start-up• CERN PVSS (from EMT) - projects to replace SURE

– automatic actions – links to WP4 • FNAL NGOP – distributed monitoring and logging

Problem Areas

• Large Clusters SIG (Alan Silverman)– Procedings of Cluster Builders Workshop – a useful

resource.– Problem of Software Certification. Too many modules (700-

ish ?) Need a co-operative effort propose a network of people.

– IBM have dropped support for AFS. Is OpenAFS OK for us. Should we be supporting it ?

– HEPiX to be a forum for technical exchange of information for GRID.

• John Gordon RAL– Need for wider participation in HEPiX – especially in light of

GRID involvement.