Gridview Related Links:

1. Gridview Twiki Page
2. Gridview Service Dash Board Notes
3. Gridview Deployment at CERN
4. Gridview Admin Guide
5. Quattor Installation of Gridview
6. Gridview Software Release Status
7. Installation and Configuration of Gridview Publisher
8. Installation and Configuration of Gridview Web Service Clients
9. Using Gridview XML Interface
10. URL for Excel Report generation
11. Downloads
12. New Gridview Interface
13. Gridview Monthly Availabilities and Reports

This is the main Twiki page for the Gridview project. The URL for accessing the Gridview's production page is as follows:

http://gridview.cern.ch/

This is the contact email address for the developers of Gridview: gridview-admin @ cern.ch

What is Gridview

Gridview is a monitoring and visualization tool being developed to provide a high level view of various functional aspects of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (LCG). Currently it shows the statistics of data transfers, FTS file transfers, jobs running and service availability information for the WLCG.

Documents and Papers

1. Paper on Gridview presented in CHEP 2006
2. Gridview Service Availability Computation Algorithm
3. Ace_Service_Availability_Computation.pdf

Presentations

1. Gridview presentation in CHEP 2006
2. Presentation on SAM and Gridview in ISGC 2007
3. Presentation on new Service Availability Computation Algorithm in Gridview

Gridview FAQ

General

1. What is Gridview ?
2. What information can I see in Gridview ?
3. How do I access Gridview ?
4. Do I need a certificate to access Gridview ?
5. My browser blocks Gridview pages
6. Can I bookmark Gridview pages

Data Transfer

1. What do you display in Data Transfer ?
2. I am using X protocol to transfer a file from one machine to another. Does this show up in Gridview ?
3. My site's gridftp transfers are not reported in Gridview. Why is this so ?
4. What do you mean by 'Other' sites or VOs ?
5. What are the 'UNREGD' sites or VOs ?
6. What should I do to register my site or VO ?
7. The name of my site is shown differently in Gridview. Why ?
8. My host belongs to site X. But Gridview shows this host in site Y. Why ?

FTS

1. What do you display in FTS ?
2. What is the difference between Data Transfer and FTS reports ?
3. What do you mean by 12 Hours Peak report ?
4. What do you mean by 7 Days Peak report ?

Job Status

...

Service Availability

...

What is Gridview ?

Gridview is a monitoring and visualization tool being developed to provide a high level view of various functional aspects of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (LCG). Currently it shows the statistics of data transfers, jobs running and service availability information for the WLCG. This tool is being developed under a collaboration between CERN and BARC, India.

What information can I see in Gridview ?

To describe broadly, you can see three types of information viz., Data Transfer, Job status, FTS file transfers and Service Availability. In each of these categories, we are showing large number of metrics such as averages and cumulative results. These results are displayed classified into various ways such as VO-wise, Site-wise, Host-wise and so on and different periodicities such as hourly, daily, weekly and so on.

How do I access Gridview ?

All you need to access Gridview is a web browser with Javascript enabled. Gridview is not fussy about web browsers and we have accessed it with many common browsers such as IE, Netscape, Firefox and Opera without any problems.

Do I need a certificate to access Gridview ?

Well, the answer is yes and no. You do not need certificates to use Gridview normally. Certificates are required in order to save your preferences in the Gridview's Service Availability monitor display. Gridview identifies you by your certificate and when you come next time, it retrieves the saved preferences and brings up the display you are interested in. Any valid certificate is OK; Gridview does not restrict you to only LCG recognized certificates.

My Browser blocks Gridview Pages!

When you access Gridview from your browser, the Gridview web server presents its host certificate to your browser. The Host certificates for GridView host machines are issued by "CERN CA". Your browser might not recognize this CA and give you a warning asking whether to accept this CA or not. Clicking on 'Accept' usually solves the problem. But in some new browser versions, esp. in IE7, the browser simply refuses to display the Gridview page. In order to enable the browser to verify the certificates you must download the certificate for "CERN CA" and include it in the list of trusted root CA in your browser. The certificate for "CERN CA" could be downloaded from the URL

http://service-grid-ca.web.cern.ch/service-grid-ca/crt/root_crt.html

Can I bookmark Gridview pages ?

Gridview pages consist of multiple frames, mainly the controller or GUI frame (left) and the View frame (Right). The View changes according to the options you select in the controller. The URL in the browser is for the collective page and bookmarking it does not bookmark the particular view displayed in the page. We tried to modify the main URL to reflect the View, but this reloads both the controller and View Frame on every click (Ideally the controller should not be reloaded, only View should be refreshed), which is not a desirable behaviour. Hence we decided not to modify the main URL and retain the page structure as it is.

In order to keep the bookmark for the particular view, one has to bookmark the contents in the View (Right) Frame. For bookmarking the frame, in IE you have to right click on the frame and select "Add to Favourites". In Firefox you have to right click in the main (right) Frame, select "This Frame" and then say "Bookmark this Frame". Obviously, bookmarking the View Frame does not include the GUI Frame.

If you like to see the whole page (both the Frames), you have the option of saving your preferences and you will directly see your preferred page. The preferences are saved based on your certificate. This feature of saving preferences is currently available in Service Availability Displays and will be added to "Data Transfer" and "Job Status" displays as well.

What do you display in Data Transfer ?

In the Data Transfer page of Gridview, we display statistics about average throughput and aggregate data transferred between Grid sites. This data is classified VO-wise and site-wise and also computed for different periodicities like hourly, daily, weekly and monthly. You can see the statistics of data transfer for each VO, between specific sites and all kinds of combinations.

I am using X protocol to transfer a file from one machine to another. Does this show up in Gridview ?

Gridview shows figures of data transferred by Gridftp only.

My site's gridftp transfers are not reported in Gridview. Why is this so ?

It is possible that your site's data transfers are not reported to gridview. This task is performed by the lcg-mon-gridftp service. Please check with your site administrator whether the service is running or not.

What do you mean by 'Other' sites or VOs ?

Gridview shows different coloured bars for different sites or VOs in its graphs. But sites or VOs which contribute less than 1% of the total throughput/aggregate are all combined into one bar called 'others'. This is to reduce the number of different colours in a Gridview graph.

What are the 'UNREGD' sites or VOs ?

'UNREGD' stands for Unregistered. UNREGD sites are those grid sites that are not registered in the GOCDB.

The issue with UNREGD VOs is a bit complex. Gridview makes an intelligent guess from the user name (who transferred the file) as to which VO the user belongs. This is done because the gridftp log files presently do not contain information about the VO under which the file transfer was done. The guess is done by means of a set of pattern matches which works most of the time. But sometimes Gridview is unable to make the guess and such transfers are added to the UNREGD VO bar.

What should I do to register my site or VO ?

A site needs to be registered in the GOCDB for it to be removed from the UNREGD list. As far as the UNREGD VO problem, there is no proper solution at present. You may please contact us if you have any particular request regarding this.

The name of my site is shown differently in Gridview. Why ?

Generally Gridview displays the friendly name of the site as registered in the GOCDB. But sometimes when the names are quite lengthy, we have a different abbreviation for the site so as to make it fit into Gridview's graph legends. The list of Gridview's abbreviations for sites are available on the left side frame at the bottom.

We are also in the process of giving option to the user to switch the view from abbreviations to full site names and back. So if a user wants to have graphs with full site names instead of abbreviations, this option comes in handy. Currently it is in production for Gridftp module.

My host belongs to site X. But Gridview shows this host in site Y. Why ?

Gridview deduces the site in which a host belongs by looking at its domainname. For example, if the hostname is xyz.cern.ch, then the host must belong to CERN site. The domainname information for each site is taken from the GOCDB. But many times, sites do not update their correct information in the GOCDB. Another similar case happens when a site contains both a T1 and a T2 centre, both with the same domainnames! In such cases, we have no other option than to make hacks in Gridview for mapping a host properly.

What do you display in FTS ?

In the FTS page of Gridview, we display statistics about average throughput and aggregate data transferred between Grid sites, which are done using File Transfer service. FTS supports many other protocols besides gridftp for file transfers. Like Data Transfer page, here also data transfer is classified VO-wise and site-wise and also computed for different periodicities like hourly, daily, weekly and monthly. You can see the statistics of data transfer for each VO, between specific sites and all kinds of combinations.

What is the difference between Data Transfer and FTS reports ?

The graphical reports shown on Data Transfer pages are generated using the data which is read from the gridftp logs on the gridftp servers deployed at various LCG sites. The reports shown on FTS pages are generated using the data which is read from File-Transfer logs on FTS nodes. Currently, the FTS node is setup at CERN only, therefore, the data transfer reports shown in FTS are reporting transfers between CERN and Tier1 sites only. Deployment of FTS nodes on other LCG sites is under progress.

What do you mean by 12 Hours Peak report ?

The 12 Hours Peak report shows the data transfer for those twelve hours during which the average of transfer rates for the 12 hours was maximum. Here, the graphical reports are generated for the transfers from a particular Source site to a particular Destination site under a particular VO. In this case Aggregate Data Movement is not calculated, therefore, the 'Aggregate Data X-fer' option is kept disabled.

What do you mean by 7 Days Peak report ?

The 7 Days Peak report shows the data transfer for those seven days during which the average of transfer rates for the 7 days was maximum. Here, the graphical reports are generated for the transfers from a particular Source site to a particular Destination site and for a particular VO. In this case Aggregate Data Movement is not calculated, therefore, the 'Aggregate Data X-fer' option is kept disabled.