User Interfaces

MAPPER – PRACE – EGI Task Force (MTF)

Introduction

1.1This EGI Wiki Page constitutes a working document through which MAPPER, PRACE and EGI InSPIRE projects will coordinate the activities of a jointly formed MAPPER-PRACE-EGI Task Force (MTF). The page will be administered on a day to day basis by EGI - Richard McLennan. All MTF members have a responsibility to contribute to the information recorded in these pages so as to help compile as full a picture as possible.

1.2The MAPPER project (Multiscale APPlications on EuRopean e-infrastructures) aims to deploy a computational science environment for distributed multiscale computing, on and across European e-infrastructures. In order to further the project’s aim, MAPPER has initiated a collaboration with PRACE (PaRtnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) and with EGI InSPIRE (Integrated Sustainable Pan-European Infrastructure for Researchers in Europe). During an initial meeting between the 3 project teams held in May 2011 (Appendix 1), it was determined that as a first step, 2 applications should be integrated over the forthcoming 6 months to perform distributed multiscale computing and thus be used to promote the projects; the selected applications cover instent restenosis and nano material science. The coordination of activities relevant to this collaboration will be performed via an expressly formed ‘Task Force’ comprising specialists from each of the 3 organisations.

2.Aims

2.1At a practical level, the MAPPER Project Aim is for the MTF to deliver 2 distributed multiscale computing applications as sustainable ‘services’ to ??which customers?? by 1 Dec 2011.

2.2Perhaps more importantly, there is an implicit desired strategic effect of this work which is to further ‘Promote’ the ‘sustainable services’ that are collectively delivered by the 3 participating projects.

3.Timeframe

3.1The MTF has been resourced for 6 months, ie the MTF should conclude its work by the end of November. Key dates are set out beneath:

Serial	Date	Activity	Remarks
1	13 May 11	Initial meeting of partners	MAPPER/PRACE/EGI
2	1 Jun 11	Formation of Task Force
		Agree desired outcome/effect – Activity Aim
		Agree Statement of Requirements
		Report initial findings
	4-6 Jul 11	??? Meeting in Cracow	What meeting?
		Implementation
		Evaluation phase starts
		Report further recommendations
	30 Nov 11	Task Force concludes
		Present MAPPER application requirements to PRACE & EGI InSPIRE
	May 2012	potential PRACE User Forum	Derek Groen (UCL-MAPPER) to represent.

4.Composition of MTF – Roles and Responsibilities:

4.1The activity to be undertaken via the MTF will ultimately have a wide impact throughout the communities of computation and scientific research and as such, there will need to be a clear understanding of a number of organisational issues: who defines what is required, who provides the budget/resources, who authorises changes, who manages day to day work and who defines the standards to be met. Answers to these questions will emerge as planning progresses.

4.2 In the first instance, the MTF is to be made up from members of each of the 3 participating Projects and will also include expert representatives from the 2 selected Applications. During the course of the investigation the MTF will necessarily call on additional support from within each of the Projects but this should be merely for the provision of expert technical information and clarification. Details of MTF members together with their roles are at Annex A. Key personnel from the 3 projects are listed at Annex B.

5.Outline Description of Work

5.1MAPPER Task Force. A Task Force normally carries out an initial assessment of an existing situation, identifying relevant problem issues such that they can be prioritised and so that potential solutions and courses of action can be appropriately formulated. The initial MAPPER/PRACE/EGI InSPIRE inter-project meeting minuted at Appendix 1 identified, in broad terms, the area that is to be focussed on and the need for a MAPPER Task Force to take the work forwards. The area to focus on was stated to be the integration of 2 specific applications that will demonstrate ‘distributed multiscale computing’ through the coupling of ‘PRACE-type systems’ with an ‘EGI type machine’ and a ‘local’ machine. Four general areas of activity were defined – these can be considered parallel activities rather than sequential though there are likely to be dependencies:

• Initial investigation and planning
• Identification of Requirements and data exchange
• Services and Technology Synchronisation
• Mid-term activities
• Dissemination, Outreach & Promotion
• Other related activities

==Investigation of what can be done and formulation of possible options.==

• Activity Team:

• Lead: Chris Kurowski (MAPPER)
• PRACE members: Axel Berg, Giuseppe Fiameni (Technology), Gabriele Carteni (Service deployment)
• EGI members: Steve Brewer, Tiziana Ferrari, Gergely Sipos, Richard McLennan
• Coordination & publishing via EGI Wiki – Richard McLennan

• Tasks:

• Agree desired outcome/effect
• Agree roles and responsibilities
• Specify & document list and dates of Deliverables and milestones
• Develop & agree activity/stage plan
• Agree resources and level of effort
  • Budget
  • Level of Effort
• Identify “customers” – involve customers and users; confirm their requirements
• Produce and gain approval of Statement of Requirements (SOR) – approval to be gained from Project Directors
• Report initial findings; recommend courses of action; select option, detail risks, detail quality standards.
• Identify target users within user communities
  • Training
  • Support
• Execution:
  • Management of Change
    • Who authorises?
    • Impact on other systems/users
  • Configuration Control
  • Risk Management
  • Quality Management
  • Dissemination Plan – Promotion & Advertising
  • Training Plan
  • Support Plan
  • Measure of Success????

5.3Identification of Requirements and data exchange:

• Activity Team:

• Lead: - Derek Groen (driving this activity),
• MAPPER members: Bastien Chopard (MAPPER WP7 –Applications – leader), Alfons Hoekstra
• PRACE members: Giueseppe Fiameni, Giovanni Erbacci
• EGI member: Steve Brewer

• Tasks:

• Specify & document list and dates of Deliverables and milestones
• Document application data exchange requirements and PRACE Tier 0 issues.
• …..

5.4Services and Technology Synchronisation

• Activity Team:

• Lead: Chris Kurowski (MAPPER)
• MAPPER members: Ilya Saverchenko, Stefan Zasada,
• PRACE Members: Giuseppe Fiameni, Gabriele Carteni
• EGI:

• Tasks:

• Specify & document list and dates of Deliverables and milestones
• Document details of Scheduling, Monitoring systems
• ….

5.5 Mid-term activities

• Activity Team:

• Lead:
• MAPPER members: Eric Lorenz, Carles Bona Casas
• PRACE members: Alan Simpson, Giuseppe Fiameni

• Tasks:

• Specify & document list and dates of Deliverables and milestones
• Investigate requirement for Petascaling
• Start preparation for selected application access to Tier 1 and Tier 0
• Create prioritised list of single scale applications codes
• Document relevant requirements – expand SOR as required
• ???Event Title?? meeting in Cracow – 4-6 Jul 2011
  • PRACE members to join.
  • Selected application developers to attend

5.6Dissemination, Outreach & Promotion.

• Activity Team:

• Lead: EGI ????
• MAPPER members: ????
• PRACE Members: ?????

• Tasks:

• Specify & document list and dates of Deliverables and milestones
• …..

5.7Other related activities. There are likely to be a number of other related activities that will emerge as work progresses. Some such activities are already clear to the MTF and need to be considered:

• Activity Team:

• Lead: Chris Kurowski
• Members: all

• Tasks:

• Add MAPPER questions to future PRACE / EGI User Surveys
  • Identify breadth and depth of reqt for MAPPER proposed Distributed Multiscale Computing
• Confirm details of PRACE User Forum (May 2012??)
  • Derek Groen from UCL to take initial lead

6.Statement of Requirements.

• Who owns the Project
• Chris Kurowski owns Activity
• Who are the suppliers MAPPER, PRACE, EGI.eu, Application developers (x2)
• Who are the customers? (ie, who will judge our success)
• Who are the users?
• Full SOR to be included as separate section.

7.Activity Plan. To be developed and included as subsection/Annex. Will include Execution plan, evaluation phase and details of ‘closure.

• Execution – roll-out and change
• Evaluation phase – procedures
• Training
• Support task – help desk etc
• Activity closure

Annex A – MAPPER Task Force Composition

Name		E-mail	Affiliation	Project	Role in Task Force
Project Owner?????		??????	??????	??????	Project Owner
Chris Kurowski, SA2		krzysztof.kurowski@man.poznan.pl	PSNC	MAPPER	Task Force Leader
Derek Groen, SA1		d.groen@ucl.ac.uk	UCL	MAPPER	MAPPER/PRACE info exchange
Stefan Zasada, SA1		stefan.zasada@ucl.ac.uk	LMU	MAPPER
Ilya Saverchenko, SA3		Ilya.Saverchenko@lrz.de	LRZ/LMU	MAPPER
James Suter, WP7		j.suter@ucl.ac.uk	LMU	MAPPER
Katarzyna Rycerz, WP8		kzajac@agh.edu.pl	Cyfronet	MAPPER
Mariusz Mamoński, SA2		mamonski@man.poznan.pl	PSNC	MAPPER
Joris Borgdorff, WP7		J.Borgdorff@uva.nl	UvA	MAPPER
Richard McLennan		richard.mclennan@egi.eu	EGI.eu	EGI-InSPIRE	Coordination
??Axel Berg				PRACE
??				PRACE
??				PRACE
??				PRACE
??				PRACE

Annex B - MAPPER Task Force Interested Parties

Name		E-mai	Affiliation	Project	Role in Projects
Lilit	Axner	lilit@kth.se	KTH	PRACE
Axel	Berg	Axel@sara.nl	SARA	PRACE
Carles	Bona Casas	c.bonacasas@uva.nl	UvA	MAPPER
Gabriele	Carteni	gabriele.carteni@bsc.es	BSC	PRACE
John	Donners	john.donners@sara.nl	SARA	PRACE
Giovanni	Erbacci	g.erbacci@cineca.it	Cineca	PRACE
Giuseppe	Fiameni	g.fiameni@cineca.it	Cineca	PRACE
Derek	Groen	d.groen@ucl.ac.uk	UCL	MAPPER
Alfons	Hoekstra	a.g.hoekstra@uva.nl	UvA	MAPPER	Project Director
Chris	Kurowski	krzysztof.kurowski@man.poznan.pl	PSNC	MAPPER
Eric	Lorenz	E.Lorenz@uva.nl	UvA	MAPPER
Peter	Michielse	p.michielse@nwo.nl	NWO	PRACE
Alan	Simpson	a.simpson@epcc.ed.ac.uk	EPCC	PRACE
Steve	Brewer	steve.brewer@egi.eu	EGI.eu	EGI-Inspire	Chief Community Officer
Gergely	Sipos	gergely.sipos@egi.eu	EGI.eu	EGI-Inspire	Senior User Community Support Officer

Appendix 1

Action points following from the MAPPER – PRACE meeting

June 13, 2011

This document summarizes the final discussion of the PRACE – MAPPER meeting on June 13, 2011, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

First collaborative action over Summer

MAPPER proposed two applications (in-stent restenosis and nano material science) as first candidates to demonstrate distributed multiscale computing, also in an interoperable mode, coupling ‘prace-type’ systems (e.g. a Tier-1 system, with the same software stacks as PRACE machines, LRZ, SARA) with a ‘egi-type’ machine (being resources from PL-Grid at PSNC) and a local machine (e.g. from UCL).

The idea is to form a small team for two pilot demonstration (next 6 months):

Mapper – Chris Kurowski (driving this activity) + colleagues in the MAPPER services and operations activities and representatives from the two selected applications.

PRACE – Axel Berg, Giuseppi Fiameni (Technology), Gabriele Carteni (Service deployment)

EGI - Steve Brewer, Tiziana Ferrari, Gergely Sipos

This team will investigate what should be done, what can be done, set up a plan, and execute.

Requirements list

This activity is related to getting more information on the MAPPER applications and their requirements, and to get feedback from the PRACE (Tier-0) point of view.

This activity involves:

MAPPER - Derek Groen (driving this activity), Bastien Chopard (MAPPER WP7 –Applications – leader), Alfons Hoekstra

PRACE – Giueseppe Fiameni, Giovanni Erbacci

EGI, Steve Brewer

Derek will select relevant (technical) MAPPER deliverables, maybe summarize, and share these with PRACE and EGI. They will go through these deliverable, and get some feedback from the Tier 0 point of view.

Services and Technology synchronization

The idea of this activity would be to zoom in to more detail on the technology, to provide more information on details of scheduling, monitoring systems, etc. The proposal is to postpone this activity to after the first summer activity and once the two pilot demonstration projects are finished. Chris Kurowski will share MAPPER deliverable 6.1 with relevant persons (the summer activity team). Kris, Ilya and Stefan from MAPPER, Giusepe and Gabriele from PRACE.

Mid Term activities

After review of MAPPER deliverables, application requirements can be made more precise, and we can investigate if petascaling for selected applications is required, and how this could be established. Also the preparatory access could be a good way to prepare MAPPER applications for access to PRACE Tier-1 or Tier-0 systems. We could also directly work with PRACE (with Alan Simpson and Giuseppe)

For other applications, prep. Acces

==> We could also collaborate with Alan and Giuseppe Fiameni for some of the single scale codes used in MAPPER.

MAPPER colleagues Eric Lorenz and Carles Bona Casas (both from UvA) will create a prioritized list of real single scale applications codes and work directly with Alan and Giuseppe on these codes.

MAPPER WP7 on applications will meet in Cracow, on July 4-6, 2011. This seems like a perfect occasion for PRACE representatives to join this technical meeting, and work with selected application developers from MAPPER.

Other Activities

If another PRACE User survey is planned, the suggestion would be that one or two MAPPER related questions could be included, with the goal to identify the breadth and depth of the Distributed Multiscale Computing as proposed by MAPPER.

There may be a PRACE user forum meeting in May next year. Derek Groen from UCL, also a MAPPER colleague, is in this loop and will facilitate MAPPER presence at this meeting.