HSF Coordination Meeting #222, 3 February 2022
Present/Contributing: Graeme Stewart, Michel Jouvin, Andrea Valassi, Benedikt Hegner, David Lange, Dorothea Vom Bruch, Eduardo Rodrigues, Kevin Pedro, Ben Morgan, Kyle Knoepfel, Wouter Deconinck, Alexander Moreno, Matti Kortelainen, Markus Diefenthaler, Nicole Skidmore, Oksana Shadura, Krzysztof Genser, Marc Paterno, Liz Sexton-Kennedy, Stephan Hageboeck, Paul Laycock, Michael Wilkinson, Mark Neubauer, Pere Mato, Simone Campana, Alessandra Forti, Kevin Pedro, Matti Kortelainen, Stefan Roiser, Stephan Hageboeck, Markus Schulz
News, general matters, announcements
Analysis Facilities Activity Proposal
We received a proposal for a new activity area:
With the email, we put forward a proposal for a new HSF Activity Area on the topic of analysis facilities called the “Analysis Facilities (AF) Forum.” Please see the google doc at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UHlNmoGIG4nKp41yzZT19UN4Wwu7Nypf7pVdDorMdgc/edit?usp=sharing
for a description of the activity, which would also serve as a draft version of the AF Forum web page to be added to
https://hepsoftwarefoundation.org/what_are_activities.html
if approved by HSF Coordination.
Diego Ciangottini (INFN, Perugia U, CMS) Lukas Heinrich (TUM, ATLAS) Nicole Skidmore (Manchester, LHCb)
(in CC) have kindly agreed to coordinate the AF Forum activity. We hope that this initiative to create a community platform to discuss analysis facilities is well received by the coordination team and we can proceed with next steps in planning as an HSF Activity.
best regards, Mark, Oksana, Alex, Diego, Lukas and Nicole
Notes/Elaboration:
- IRIS-HEP plans to help the Forum get started by organizing a Blueprint Meeting with the AF Forum coordinators as a kickoff
- Chats with WLCG/DOMA team recognize that the activity would benefit from a liaison between the HSF AF Forum and the WLCG/DOMA
- Plan a HSF/WLCG community white paper on Analysis Facilities by the end of 2022 as a specific goal for the Forum activities
-
ATLAS computing coordinators have expressed concern about the duplication of effort and meetings that could be implied by a new activity area (they favour existing bodies)
- Mark introduced the proposal:
- Want to fill an empty space in the community by connecting all the efforts, no intent to duplicate existing efforts
- Refresh ideas with a document after a year, to be defined during the startup forum
- Liz supportive of this effort, it should be mindful of reducing duplication. Given the people volunteering, there would be natural organisational points of contact with the HSF working groups that should allow us to avoid duplication
- The activity would straddle software and facilities, going a bit beyond HSF traditional area
- Simone, can look at the ecosystem of tools and services, so it does cross boundaries; should have a strong link to GDB (liaison person); what’s the overlap with the Analysis WG in forming the problem statement?
- Q. Should WLCG be directly represented directly?
- Alessandra was keen on the liaison position to take forward ideas that were being discussed already in GDB/DOMA; the new activity seems a very useful place to help define the issues and involve everyone
- Andrea, we should think beyond “boundaries” of software vs. computing and think software and computing; we do have too many meetings and want to avoid dispersion and duplication
- Nicole, yes this activity does straddle groups, in the DAWG group we don’t feel that we can provide this holistic view and this activity would involve other people in a useful way
- Pere, facilities are very tangible things (which cost money), Analysis WG can develop inputs that can go to the GDB, which acquires the resources - so where does this activity sit?
- Paul, DAWG did have one meeting with DOMA in the past: https://indico.cern.ch/event/890991/
- We also had a meeting on “Computing Infrastructure for Analysis”: https://indico.cern.ch/event/835581/
- Graeme, HSF is a do-ocracy and we have people who would like to do, so I think we should let this activity move forward and let its proponents make it a success
- David, are there aspirations to become a WG?
- Mark, no, it has its goal as an activity
- Okasana, our aim is also to provide useful input to other groups
Meeting agreed to approve the formation of this group and, like all HSF activities, to review later to see if it is still the optimal way to organise our efforts. We wish the proponents every success!
Workshops in 2022
Analysis Ecosystems
Had a first meeting last week (https://indico.cern.ch/event/1120577/) of organisers. Started to gather ideas for the format of the workshop and topics to cover.
Proposed dates are narrowed to 23-25 May at IJCLab in Orsay. Covid means f2f cannot be assured even then. Need to gauge community sentiment on this, so we are also going to have a short survey.
Second organisers meeting today at 17h. Aim to get an announcement out very soon!
Simulation on GPU
Dates have been fixed to 3-7 May, virtual format nominally taking place 15-19h each day in European TZ.
Review progress in two R&D activities, AdePT and Celeritas, try to find future directions and synergies.
Indico: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1123314/
HSF Input to Software Communities Paper
Dan Katz invited Graeme, for the HSF, to contribute to a paper on experiences forming scientific software communities.
Draft text has been prepared as a Google Doc, to which a number of people already gave feedback - thanks! Covers the motivation and formation of the HSF, our activities, what challenges still remain.
If you have comments please let Graeme know or make them directly in the Google Doc this week.
Snowmass Input
There is a proposal that has been put forward to write a concise document for Snowmass via the WLCG, to which the HSF can contribute - this would be a high-level summary of computing and software issues that highlights key messages. Liz, Heidi and Graeme have been involved in discussing this and an abstract has been proposed to the WLCG MB.
Propose a small writing team who will work on the first draft, then circulate the text.
Google Summer of Code
HSF call for proposals was sent a few weeks ago. Deadline for project proposals is Feb 21.
Working Group Updates
Detector Simulation
No update since last time, other than planning for this year. May will be taken up by the “Simulation on GPU” meeting mentioned above.
Reconstruction and Software Triggers
Topical meeting on 4D reco algorithms likely on February 23rd (to be confirmed with second speaker)
Software Tools and Packaging
We have a meeting planned for Feb 8 to begin discussion of how we (the ST&P WG) can beneficially cooperate with the HSF Training WG.
Event Generators
Working on Snowmass submission.
Frameworks
No report since last time. First order of business is settling on meeting schedule.
Software Training
HEP C++ Course and Hands-on Training
Next course planned for 15-17 March, https://indico.cern.ch/event/1119339/. The course content has been split into two parts now. This course will teach “the Essentials”. An “Advanced” course is planned for later this year.
Teaching will be done this time by Stephan Hageboeck (IT/SC) and Bernhard Gruber (EP/SFT)
Registration opens on 14 Febrary 9am CET. As usual we offer 75 places.
Other Interest and Activity Areas
General
There are some slides posted that give a general overview of some of our other HSF activities (delayed from last week).
Compute Accelerator Forum
Meeting next week, with an update from the HEP-CCE project:
- Fine-Grained I/O and Storage on HPC Platforms, Peter Van Gemmeren (Argonne National Laboratory (US)), Saba Sehrish (Fermilab)
- Portable Parellization Strategies, Charles Leggett (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (US))
Software and Computing Roundtable
Meeting next week, discussion on “Programming Languages”:
- History and Adoption of Programming Languages in NHEP, Jim Pivarski (Princeton University)
- Modern C++ and its Software Ecosystem, Dr Attila Krasznahorkay (CERN)
- Julia for NHEP, Dr Philippe Gras (Paris-Saclay)
Licensing
We still need to conclude on the HepMC3 re-licensing!
Conditions Databases
We now have a new page for this new activity on the HSF website! Kick-off meeting to follow.
Differentiable Computing
This group has come back to life a bit - they will have one of their informal “campfire” meetings tomorrow at 16h CERN time: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1123051/
We can put back the HSF Activity page in this case.
AOB
2022 Planning Summary
Based on the discussions and presentations that we had, there is a summary prepared for the HSF website as a draft PR. Please take a look and suggested changes, additions, etc.
Next Meeting
Next coordination meeting is scheduled for 17 February.