# Presentation: 125912

## STAR Computing Status and Plans 

- Torre Wenaus
- BNL
- STAR Collaboration Meeting
- BNL
- Jan 31, 1999

## Recent Arrivals 

- New members of the core BNL computing team:
**Jeff Porter**, head of databases; online/offline developer
- Started Nov ‘98; joined us from the LBNL group
- Working in calibration database development and content definition, online DB development, GC-ROOT integration, Objectivity, Sun system management,...
**Mei-Li Chen**, online developer
- Starts Feb 16, 1999; from U Maryland  (Super-K, Milagro)
- Very experienced online/DAQ expert; will be a strong contributor to online integration and commissioning
- Has to come up to speed on C++
- No new hires foreseen!
- I hope (and expect!) the existing team will be in place for years to come...
- There’s **lots** of work to do
- Support is foreseen in operations budget

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Recent Arrivals (2)

- Postdoc/student involvement is clearly improving
- Examples of key new core computing contributions:
- Dan Russ, CMU: PSC simulation production
- Gene Van Buren: ROOT tutorials, online help, migration
- And continuing contributions:
- David Zimmerman, LBNL: GC, TagDB, simu production
- Brian Lasiuk, Yale: TRS, C++ infrastructure
- ... and many others working on offline software
- We encourage regular BNL visits for close coupling to the software effort, face-to-face help, and greater visibility; come to the center of the action!
- But we’ve lost the postdoc targeted for MDC2 production help; we need a new source of help
- We look forward to a continuing influx!
- Eg. Very glad to have Dave Hardtke relocated to BNL from LBNL

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Outstanding Personnel issues

*Online software in need of additional personnel*
- Online systems/infrastructure support; solution being sought at BNL
- New EMC rep: Wayne State
- New TPC rep (must be BNL-resident): LBNL is working on it
*Biggest staffing hole is dedicated database/event store effort*
- Existing low level of effort is resulting in delay, compromise and greater risk
- We are late in deploying and exercising a full event store solution; our Objectivity and ROOT usage modes need to be stress tested in real production/public use
- Essentially no prospect of getting a new hire; have to do the best with what we have
- Greater and longer-term use of interim flat-file solutions
- Expanding ROOT I/O capabilities means more viable ROOT-based solutions, leveraging the community
*We need SVT and EMC software coordinators!*

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Departures

- Nathan Stone left the BNL group for a software professional job at the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center
- Mark Gilkes left Purdue for a new life in California
- but continues to be productive from home in Santa Barbara where he is still participating in online system development (at least until March; possibly longer)
- Mark Pollack left PHENIX for a software professional job in NYC; not a STAR departure, but an unfortunate loss for all of RHIC
- Best of luck to them all, and to us in trying to overcome their absence!

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Major Events Since July

- Collaboration meeting (July):
- ROOT framework deployed; call for 3mos of user & MDC1 trials
- T3E production (late August):
- T3E GSTAR production and RCF-HPSS transfer operational
- MDC1 (Sep-Oct):
- Yr1 & Yr2 detector configurations; EMC, FTPC not in reco/DST
- Production stable by second production release; exceeded `official’ goal of 100k Au-Au events through the production chain
- Primary (~95%) production in STAF; remainder in ROOT
- Simulated data:1.7TB of 200GeV/n Au-Au HIJING (217k events)
- Reconstructed DSTs: 600GB XDF files (168k events)
- Objectivity event store: 50GB, stopped when disk space exhausted
- Grand Challenge: managed HPSS access, queries, CAS integration

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Major Events (2)

- Software workshops and PWG/Computing meetings (Nov)
- SW decisions: scope of ROOT use; C++ data model
- Online review (Dec 8):
- Rapid progress and effective design commended, but *loss of personnel must be addressed by STAR *and system integration/performance needs to be demonstrated* *(**no report issued yet)**
- DAQ/offline interface API for TPC ADC data established (mid Dec)
- First application as interface between TRS and TPC clustering code
- TRS interface exists; TPC code interface in progress
- Still to be exercised, completed and finalized
- Transient data model design milestone (Dec 15)
- Thomas’ design led to much interesting discussion!
- Start of simulation production for MDC2 (early Jan)
- Field map, RICH & other geometry updates; production already well advanced

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Major Events (3)

- Calibration database definition and implementation effort begun in earnest (Dec-Jan)
- Transient data model implementation milestone (Jan 15)
- basic StEvent coded up by the 15th; then extended to load content from MDC1 DST tables
- StEventReaderMaker now loading StEvent from MDC1 DSTs via standard ROOT chain
- Usable now in ‘guinea pig’ mode; should be ‘end user’ available in at most a week
- Full production chain migration to ROOT before MDC2
- ... and now MDC2 is almost upon us.

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## MDC2: Feb 22 - Mar 8

- Principal MDC2 goals:
- Full production exercise with ROOT-based chain
- TPC production chain including detailed response simu (TRS?) & clustering
- Better subsystem coverage on DST: EMC, FTPC, trigger, ...
- Testing and evaluating CRS production systems to finalize effective operations scheme
- Integration of QA evaluation into reconstruction production
- ‘Exercising our options’ for event store in production to make an informed Year 1 decision
- Greater analysis activity; definition and generation of analysis tags; uDSTs
- OO transient data model in place and in use
- GC architecture in production use for managed HPSS retrieval in DST analysis, query index selection, multiple & non-Objy event components

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## After MDC2

- Goal was to have infrastructure stabilized & turn to other things
- Realizable, I hope, in some areas...
- ROOT framework, Maker/Chain infrastructure, transient data model infrastructure
- ... but much work still to do in others
- Event store, conditions database, real data handling, online integration
- With lessening of infrastructure load, ramp-up of activity in other areas (particularly in the BNL group)
- Reconstruction, physics analysis
- Reconstruction meeting Feb 21 is to
- review subsystem software status -- particularly reconstruction, including global reconstruction -- relative to year 1 requirements
- establish priority areas for new work and improvement
- establish strategies in these areas: new vs. upgraded software; parallel vs. fully unified efforts
- at least begin to define new/expanded efforts and deliverables

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Will There Be an MDC3? No!

- (I hope not, at least.)
- Focus after MDC2 shifts to real data and detector-driven milestones
- But, what about a ‘Mock Physics Challenge?’
- Original idea of Mock Data Challenges included hiding physics signal in the simulation and testing analysis by trying to extract it blind
- Not done in MDC1 and probably not done in MDC2
- An important test of computing+analysis capability
- Possible milestone for Thomas and the PWGs?
- Circa September?
- Drawing on computing of course, but not a computing milestone
- Just a suggestion the PWGs may want to consider

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## After MDC2: Get Real!

**Real data is coming soon...**
- Online integration with DAQ/trigger/FEE will deliver (starting March?) pseudo-real (simu data in DAQ) and real data to offline in real software environment
- Many items to complete to make this work
- Complete and finalize DAQ-offline interface
- Integration of DAQ raw data in event store
- Initiation of event store (event collections, online/DAQ/trigger tags) in online, and its propagation to offline
- Integration of offline event store effort with online event pool; online event delivery to offline-environment monitors
- Database integration: online DB including slow control; offline conditions/calibrations
- Define DAQ/online/offline/RCF communication/data paths; security configuration
- Subsystem definition/creation of online monitors

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Documentation and Help

- Immediate call after Nov ROOT decisions... ROOT documentation!
- Expand existing documentation/tutorial work by Valery, Yuri to include contributions with an ‘end user’ perspective
- Akio Ogawa’s ROOT diary
- Gene Van Buren developing and accumulating tutorial, how-to, FAQ material in a ‘ROOT help desk’ function
- Herb Ward and other ROOT users also contributing how-tos and examples
- Tutorial page is clearing-house for all this
- Many offline tutorials updated to reflect ROOT environment
- SOFI postings and/or bug reports remain the preferred question/help mechanism
- Please *do not* use personal email to experts for questions, help; give us the ability to spread the response load around and monitor what sort of questions are being asked
- Monthly (1st Friday) tutorials, tutorials/C++ next week, OOAD course in Mar

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Software Usability

- Environment has been relatively quiet, from which we conclude things are reasonably functional? (Real work does seem to be getting done)
- New ‘new’ coming out imminently after a period of intensive development
- Should provide a stable and capable ‘MDC2 prep’ release
- If you have problems or concerns, make them public, or at least make them known; mumbling and rumbling privately (especially to people other than computing principals) is less likely to help

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Offsite Computing

- RCF is foreseeing a need for offsite data export via tape, of at least two flavors
- Bulk export to large remote centers (eg. LBNL)
- Self-serve tape export (a physicist carrying a uDST sample home)
- But we need to understand the plans, needs, constraints of the institutes better
- Local computer, disk, tape resources and how you expect to use them
- What central services (especially any beyond those already available) you need from STAR and/or RCF
- Still have to get my survey out!
- Offsite computing meeting, chaired by Peter Jacobs, tomorrow 7pm at Brookhaven Center South Room
- Will be able to carry in pitchers of beer from the pub

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL

## Conclusions

- Basically good progress along the expected lines, with no nasty surprises
- MDC1 experience good
- Migration of reconstruction production chain to ROOT proceeded well; good participation
- Simulation
- Some MDC2 elements coming in late but hopefully ‘just in time’:
- DST available via StEvent
- ROOT, Objectivity event store for MDC2
- Other elements need a lot of work, and have felt the effect of personnel losses and shortfalls
- Databases: conditions, calibrations, online
- Online integration and real data readiness
- We rely on the wider involvement of the collaboration -- which has been growing -- to continue to grow

- Collaboration meeting 31/1/99

- Torre Wenaus, BNL