SFT in 2013 Draft proposal – Feedback Welcome John Harvey

1. SFT in 2013Draft proposal – Feedback WelcomeJohn Harvey

2. Personnel Changes • 1.1. 2013: Predrag becomes ALICE Computing Coordinator • 1.1.2013: Federico Carminati joins SFT • 1.3.2013: Sandro Wenzel starts his Fellowship in SFT (COFUND – 3 years) • Felice, Gabriel and Petya will finish their TECH studentships during Spring 2013

3. Results of TSC November 2012 • George LESTARIS, TECH • starts Jan 1st 2013 • Design, development, testing, running of Physics Validation system on the grid • Supervisor Witek • Bianca-Cristina CRISTESCU, TECH • Bianca starts July 1st 2013 • Support of experiments’ migration to use cling, ensure backward compatibility in generation of dictionaries • Supervisor Axel • SFT quota in 2012 is 30 months (we used 34) • SFT quota in 2013 has been increased to 36months • N.B. Our allocation in 2013 is 45 months

4. News from TSC minutes • Next meetings (NB move in dates): • 23 Apr 2013, 1 Oct 2013 • 28 Jan 2014 and 24 Jun 2014 • Candidates not to be contacted beforehand • Provide example projects beforehand so students can indicate type of work they are interested in • Application form will be updated (computer section) so students can better describe ALL their skills • DOCT: contract will initially be for 6 months (~probation), extendable up to a maximum of 3 years • TECH: Assembly to foster contact between students and better inform them of full range of activities at CERN • Competition for best video of work done – can be used for outreach • Was organised in the past and will be repeated in 2013 • DOCT: Assembly held each year, mainly organised around posters

5. Goals of Group Re-structuring • Until this year the group was organised in 4 teams • SPI, CernVM, Simulation and ROOT • some group members work on projects directly for the experiments. • Goals of new structure: • take account of personnel changes, strengthen teams low in effort • R&D work on concurrency established as a baseline activity • all group members should have opportunities to contribute to development project work • Continue to look for synergies between projects • All group members are invited to share in common cross-project activities e.g. • developing expertise in techniques and tool • becoming contact persons with the experiments • etc. • Continue to seek ways of interacting with our clients through regular contacts

6. Cross Project Activities Projects

7. Cross Project Activities Development Projects

8. Offices

9. Cross-Project Tasks • Everyoneis also invited to contribute to cross-project tasks • this is the area where we look for synergies between projects • Services typically run on machines in IT but are still managed by SFT • Services include the central Build Service, Electric Commander, Web, Coverity, CDash, Savannah etc. • Tasks to be done involve : licensing, user support, monitoring, managing interventions etc. • Benedikt has responsibility for managing the configuration of all machines and is the SFT contact person with IT • Other service tasks involve the system administration of machines run for SFT purposes e.g. Geant4, CernVM, Mac service • For example, contributions are welcome for: • completing the migration of web infrastructure to IT Drupal service i.e. we need an SFT Drupal expert • taking overall responsibility for some services e.g. Electric Commander, CDash • In 2013 we should continue to evolve towards a common infrastructure • e.g. expand the common build cluster and reduce the number of machines we maintain • Benedikt will review the status and set goals for 2013 in the near future

10. Group Meeting • There have been 30 group meetings so far in 2012 • Planning of work programme (JIRA) • Project status reports • Trip reports • Invited talks (IT, Atlas, FP, …) • Dissemination of information (TL, ITUM, ITSR, C5, ….) • Proposal to shift start time to 9.30 am on Mondays • This will allow Predrag to attend • Proposal to ban use of laptops • Suggestions and feedback on all the above is welcome • Many thanks to Pere for organising and chairing • JH will chair the meeting in 2013

11. Status of Group Budget • 33500 (SFT) • Budget 390k; Balance today is 15k; 95.96% spent • 260k subsistence, 70k Travel, 60k investments • Remaining commitments means we will overspend • Acquisition of some equipment postponed until next year • 34301 (EU7-AIDA) • Budget 6k; Balance today 1.6k; 72% spent • SFT budget request in 2013 – 400k • I would like Project Leaders to provide a plan for 2013 that prioritises: • Attendance at conferences and collaboration meetings • Support of colleagues through subsistence

12. PH IT and R&D Concurrency Forum Demonstrators Openlab ATLAS CMS ALICE ROOT LCG ArchitectsForum+LIM LHCb Geant4 CernVM Externals CORAL/COOL Experiments Projects EOS Panda/Crab Workshops ROOT G4 CP LPCC WLCG

13. Xmas Xmas Party Curling Club de Genève, Petit-Lancy Tuesday December 11th at 18.30 We will be 31 participants for curling ….and 33 people for dinner Please contact Tania ASAP if you have not already registered. NB the cost will be born as far as we can by the group See Doodle poll page for more details, public transport etc. The rules of curling and how to play: http://www.fuzilogik.com/Sports-Library/Curling/Curling-Rules-and-How-Curling-is-Played.html