FTS Profiles, Just Load Balancing To Go

Really getting some where now with the FTS CDB profiles. The three clusters are now nicely abstracted from the template layout and there are no longer bits of similar configuration dotted about the different files. However there is still one of configuration still dotted about which is the load balancing magic. This is quite CERN specific and so finding out how it works is going to take a bit of hunting I suspect. The real problem for me though is that the load balance configuration is currently active and live on the real production system, I could really mess things up if not careful.

Tutorials at CERN

Asked a couple of people if they would give talks with positive responses from one. The other one is my favorite though. Also asked at the WLCG operations meeting for ideas and offers of talks. Of course everyone was quiet as is always the case at the OPS meeting. Must now get in touch Ale' to see if she can help out as well.

ROC On Duty

Very little happening for the CERN ROC this week though it looks we will be taking on three or four US sites. I've dealt with IOWA before and know they have a quite different setup. For instance GPBOX is deployed and used there. There was some real confusion earlier in the year with them advertising support for the MINOS VO not accepting jobs for them.

Deputy GMOD and CERN ROC on Duty

This week I have two roles which move around the group within rotation. The GMOD is meant to coordinate between the grid services for the group and dispatch tickets of to the rest of the group. The ROC on duty just deals with GGUS tickets assigned to the CERN ROC. Apart from that my other plans for the week are to look at tutorial session for the LCG meeting and get some concrete decisions from people to give talks.

Learning PAN

Tried some more complicated things in PAN today in the process of trying to rationalize the templates for FTS service. In particular conditionals and nested nlists are quite cool. What I was pleased to find out was that having come up with a plan of sensible way to handle multiple sub-clusters and nodetypes I looked for some examples to build up my idea. It looks like the CASTOR team is doing exactly the same thing. The CASTOR templates look to be in a much better state than some of the other ones.

Tutorials at LCG Workshop

I have been given the task of chairing and planning the tutorial portion for the LCG workshop in January at CERN. In fact this looks to be good thing to do, there are several good ideas and plans that have been given to me or I can think off. There are even some volunteers to give presentations which is just great.

CDB is Way Too Slow

Spent about 30 minutes today putting in an update to CDB. It failed which is fine but it took over an hour to find out. Need to find out what can be done to waste less time when I make trivial mistakes.