Meeting was set to discuss on was to converge with the TPC voltage issue. This is the first of a serie of meetings with the diverse experts.

 Minutes

Attendees: Kefeng, Wayne B., Leve H., Gene V.B., Dmitry A.

ShiftLog [Leve]:

• Manual changes have been reviewed (by Jerome) and committed
• Re-deployed

Databases [Dmitry]:

• cdev enabled (by C-AD), so parameter propagation has begun
  • Some data is still empty (e.g. beam species) and may not be filled for several weeks (when beams actually start)
    • Might be possible to enter some default values for now
  • Numbers are meaningless, so not useful for FastOffline testing
• Testing new hardware nodes now (2 are available)
  • Configuration of new nodes in discussion

Online Infrastructure [Wayne]:

• STAR login environment needs to be able to handle SL5.5 (which was installed on some nodes)
  • Will follow up with Jerome
• Online linux pool is losing roughly 1 node a day (rebooting)
  • Hit a few with network scans, but response was OK, so no clues
• Spin request (for Pibero):
  • User has access to the nodes and is waiting for directory structures and mount points
    • Expect to complete within a few days
• Condor installation on for rterm-like access to online pool from gateway
  • Installed on the gateway
  • Components for the pool nodes is to be done
• Slowness on evp
  • Only occurred yesterday (Dec. 16)
  • Nothing obvious, but suspicious of AFS, and coincided with mock data transfer challenge from counting house to HPSS
  • Paths forward discussed:
    • Remove outside AFS dependence using an online repository
    • Remove AFS dependence using local codes on evp
    • Write a new tool better identify AFS issues (i.e. more proactive than 'fs checkservers')
  • Problem doesn't seem to persist, not a priority for now (no action)
• Yury G. requested networking support for the east FPD/FMS rack
  • Just extends the starp network geographically
  • Needs to be a fiber connection for proper grounding
• Webserver replacement
  • Two redhat 5 machines given the ITD thumbs up
  • Shared filespaces in progress
  • No services started yet
  • Request for an account to test tomcat (Leve)

QA [Gene]:

• Demo of the Offline QA with reference histogram comparison
  • Missing some features for flexibly defining reference histogram sets (will work on over the holidays)
  • Minor suggestion made for improving the "waiting..." display

Attendees: Leve H., Dmitry A., Jérôme L., Wayne B., Gene V.B., Jeff L.

Minutes:

Databases [Dmitry]:

• Conditions collectors started (all except beam information related ones)
  • Everything running appears to be OK and status can be checked from web
  • Beam info needs cdev, provided by C-AD once their operations get going for the Run (also includes magnetic field setting; expect data around the time we turn on the STAR magnet)
    • Absence of this data means RunLog does not finalize runs and information is not migrated to Offline, but this is expected to be OK for now for anyone doing online-only tests (requested to post a note to rts-hn about this)
  • No migration issues expected, but TPC anode voltage recording practices need to be ironed out in the context of the Run 11 data (discuss with Maxim)
• Online DBs flushed
  • As expected, a few failed links and missing web pages were noted (by users too) and fixed
• Once cdev is running, will be ready for turn on / testing of FastOffline

ShiftLog [Leve]:

• As expected, excluded from and not affected by DB flush
• Manual updated for instructions on changing run status (may receive further review & changes from Jerome)

Online nodes [Wayne]:

• AFS has been stable on the newer evp machine since last Friday
  • Jeff's been using the machine (and AFS) without incident
  • Will likely switch OnlinePlots back to this machine (from evp2, the older machine) next week
    • Documentation requested for switching between these machines
• Replacement of dean at the stage of OS installation on new hardware
  • Timeline for replacement should be well before Run starts, as disk space on the new machine has been requested for online use
• Trigger commissioning is a high priority part of the request for online node resources (Wayne will contact Pibero directly)
• Nothing to report on OS upgrades

Online QA - jevp demo [Jeff]:

• Code
  • Subsystems have an xxxBuilder class (e.g. tpcBuilder, eemcBuilder, etc.) which inherits from a jevp base class for plots
  • Plot objects can have multiple histograms added to them, as well as other graphical objects like lines and circles (as long as they are of some "component" type?)
• Configuration
  • Editor allows hierarchical arrangement of plots into tabs and sub-tabs, under larger Sets (e.g. Shift, 2009, ESMD)
    • Features drag & drop for re-arrangement
  • Tabs can have collective properties for all plots underneath (such as setting all to have the same maximum)
  • Plots can have individual properties (such as log y scale)
• Running
  • One server starts up several builders as separate processes
  • Data is sent to the builders from a file or an event pool
  • Presenter runs separately to display plots
    • Similar basic look & feel to current OnlinePlots presenter
    • Clicking on a plot brings up a reference side-by-side
      • Drag & drop to add new reference, or select a different reference from panel of choices
      • Suggested: tag references with run from which they're made, and timestamp (already includes a comment)
      • Deleting references is simple, but not so simple as to be done accidentally
      • Mild concerns to be wary of reference bloat and organization as things evolve at the experiment (including collision species/energies change)
  • PDFs generated and uploaded to RunLog DB for each Set
    • Include table of contents
    • Concerns of space this will consume on the onldb server and redundancy of plots
      • Run 10 PDFs used more than half the available disk space, and it is reasonable to expect a doubling (or more) of the required space for Run 11
      • Wayne & Dmitry will assess the current storage on onldb [post-meeting statement that space may be fine; follow up next week]
      • Requirements still need to be more accurately defined
        • Will depend on what gets axed/kept from review by subsystems & trigger board
        • Would be helped by real data, but that's a bit late

Next week: demo of Offline QA for AutoQA with reference histograms [Gene]