Minutes of the Activity Leader Meeting from Jan 27, 2011 on the status of EMI-1 for Data components

Participants : Oliver, Jean-Philippe, Fabrizio, Jon, Christian, Riccardo, Paul and Patrick

EMI-1 related work

GLUE 2.0

Remark : As described in the DoW, the information provided by the new info providers, will be identical to the information provided by GLUE 1.3.

Status : The development for the GLUE 2.0 info provider is essentially finished for all three storage elements. The endpoint for DPM, StoRM and dCache will be available in the test-bed either end of next week or the week after

SRM over SSL/X509 (Paul)

• Agreement (Milestone) between EMI, CASTOR and BeStMAN done.
• DoW : For EMI-1 we have to provide at least one storage element and one SRM client with SSL/X509 instead of GSI without delegation.
• Status :
  • dCache : Ready for EMI-1
  • DPM :  Evaluation phase. Still some final design issues have to be decided. The code will not be in EMI-1 (DPM 1.8.0) but is expected for a minor release in July.
  • StoRM : The StoRM storage element is migrating from its C++ front-end to a Java one. Only the Java front-end will allow SRM over SSL. Therefor this feature will not be available in EMI-1 but certainly in EMI-2. Making the Java front-end optionally available in an EMI-1 minor release end of this year is considered.

NFS 4.1 / pNFS

• dCache : Production Ready in EMI-1 with Kerberos Authenticaion.
• DPM : READ is ready with security, WRITE still needs some final investigation. Excepted to be in a minor release for EMI-1 about September
• StoRM : pNFS for StoRM will be provided by the storage backend (e.g. GPFS). Although we know that IBM developed a pNFS for GPFS there is no information yet on when that will be made available. Riccardo will update EMI-Data on any new information on that topic.
• Linux Kernel with pNFS : First (of 2) bit of pNFS are already in the official kernel (2.6.37). Within 3 month the last piece will be included into 2.6.38. From that on RH6.1 is expected to provide pNFS. dCache.org is already massivly testing the pNFS patches and the results are more than promising. Shortly after RH provides the kernel, SL will follow. However neither CERN nor FERMIlab is offering any help to get pNFS patches into SL5. (That's a pitty)

WebDav

• dCache : Done for EMI-1
• DPM : As agreed, WebDAV will not be part of EMI-1. Next week a desicion will be made when we can expect that feature to become part of DPM in EMI.
• StoRM : In EMI-1, StoRM is offering http(s). The same server component could offer WebDAV. However, as the StoRM team will not be able to test this feature sufficiently, WebDAV won't be officially part of EMI. There is a chance that WebDAV can be provided in a minor EMI-1 release.

Might be interesting for EMI-1

Catalogue Synchronization

Although catalogue synchronization is not required for EMI-1, Fabrizio will be able to provide beta versions of the feature.

• The Cat-Sync deamon is ready and pluggins for DPM and LFC are provided.
• The security mechanisms will be discussed within EMI-Data starting next week. (e.g. ACL's) Farbizio is providing a document on which discussion will be based.
• A tool will be provided which allows SE sysadmins to declare files to be 'temporarily unavailable'. Fabrizio will add the revers operation as well.
• Packaging and ETICS magic are done.
• Fabrizio will prepare a demonstration.

ARGUS Integration for (dCache, DPM, StoRM, ..)

• gLite : LFC/DPM According to JP, DPM/LFC backlisting through ARGUS needs different libraries depending on whether it is packaged with gLite or EMI. There is an ongoing discussion between Christoph, Oliver and JP.
• StoRM : The ARGUS integration is only available for the new StoRM/SRM frontend (java). See discussion above (on SRM over SSL). NO ARGUS in EMI-1.
• dCache : In EMI-1, dCache will provide two different authentication/authorization modules (gPlazma). Only the new gPlazma (gPlazma2) provides ARGUS blacklisting. The default, for EMI-1, is still gPlazma-1. However the modules can be easilty switched.

Other activities and upcoming.

Delegation Working Group (Paul)

• The current agreement (EMI plus BeStMan) is to use the grid site delegation service initially. (subject to particular problems).
• Milestone :
  • DPM : we have just tried (test). Still have to decide on one or two daemons. Not in EMI-1. Will be in one of the minor EMI-1 minor releases. (July, 2011).
  • StoRM : Not yet in EMI-1. Requires the new Java Frontend. Some small steps already done. EMI-2 positive.
  • Test Instance from dCache as for GLUE and SRM over SSL and GSI. Will be made available for public testing. Timescale in sync with StoRM and DPM.

SRM Spec (Patrick)

Nothing done. Nothing planed.

Consolidation of Data Client Libraries (Jon)

• The document on how the consolidation should be done has to be provided in April (2011).
• The consolidation working group (coordinated by Jon) will meet (f2f) February 11 at CERN

Storage Accounting Record (Jon)

• Status of the Document.
• The document is done. Only final (beauty) modifications are ongoing.
• Final document will be sent to OGF. (WG)

Integration of LFC and SRM client into UNICORE : (Christian)

• Status of LFC interface : Christian is in contact with Jérôme Revillard from "MAAT France". They are willing to provide an existing Java LFC Library. Christian is investigating if the library covers the UNICORE requirements.
• Status of SRM clients : Christian plans to do the LFC integration first.

This and that

The Vilnius meeting : Not much to say. Impressive contribution by EMI-Data. Thanks to the authors. Please come to Vilnius.

Command line interface

As a result of EMI-EGI negotiations in the Technical Coordination Board (TCB), our Technical Director is asking EMI-Data (and the other areas) to provide a list of all command line commands. (Full description). This can be commands like 'lcg-cr, srmcp, ' as well as admin commands of DPM, dCache, StoRM, FTS etc. Please don't tell me that this is silly. I know.

-- PatrickFuhrmann - 28-Jan-2011