Quattor-Day @ CNAF

1. Quattor-Day @ CNAF Davide Salomoni Luca dell’Agnello • October 17, 2005

2. Agenda • 10:30 • Introduction (D.Salomoni) • 10:45 • Quattor at the INFN Tier1 (A.Italiano) • 11:15 • Software Installation & Distribution in INFNGrid (E.Ferro/L.Carota) • 11:45 • Quattor Developments and Use at CERN (G.Cancio) • 12:30 • Lunch • Afternoon • Discussion

3. Introduction • Why this meeting? • The INFN Tier1 (located at CNAF, Bologna) makes extensive (although not exclusive) use of Quattor. • Hence, Quattor is a key software for us. We recognize it is both powerful and complex; we need to minimize the impact of its complexity on operations, while retaining its flexibility and power. • Other INFNGrid sites are clearly interested in software tools automating/simplifying software installation. These sites are smaller than the INFN Tier1. • Hence, they certainly can’t afford a solution to the problem of software installation that is too complex, or is not flexible enough to cater to their requirements, or requires too much expertise to make it work.

4. INFNGrid • About 40 sites nation-wide running a consistent set of middleware (LCG + some additional features), certified and released by a Central Management Team.

5. The INFN Tier1 • The computing facility for the INFN HENP community • A fairly new enterprise: project started in 2001, start-up phase ended in 2004. • Partecipating to the LCG, EGEE, INFNGrid projects. • A Multi-Experiment Tier1 • Some of the currently supported experiments: LHC (Alice, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb), Virgo, CDF, BaBar, AMS, Magic, Argo, Pamela. • Resources are in principle assigned to the experiments on a yearly basis, but reconfigurations are part of our daily job. • Some examples: node failures, hardware or software upgrades, new acquisitions, change of purpose, new activities starting up, old activities ending, configuration tuning, etc.

6. Tier1: Hardware Resources • CPU • Currently, ~ 1100 nodes (all of them dual-CPU), for a total of ~1600 KSi2K. Expansion planned to ~2400 KSi2K before Summer 2006. • Disk • FC, IDE, SCSI, NAS technologies. • 470 TB raw (~430 TB FC-SATA). Expansion planned to ~830 TB before Summer 2006. • Tape • STK L180 18 TB • STK 5500 with 6xLTO-2 & 2000 tapes (400 TB), plus 2 x 9940b & 800 tapes (160 TB) • Networking • 50 x 48-port switches (one per rack). • 2 x core switches (~230 ports). • 1 Gbps and 10 Gpbs WAN links.

7. Tier1: Software Installation • With these figures, an automated tool for software installation is mandatory. Quattor is our current choice for deployment & configuration of both OS, and LCG middleware. • LCG middleware supported mainly via the templates provided by Cal Loomis. • Won’t delve into details about Quattor at CNAF right now (see Alessandro’s presentation), but…

8. Published CPU slots LCG Upgrade! AC problems Switch issues

9. The Holy Grail… • We are all looking and striving for a software installation & configuration tool that: • Works! • Does not require an inordinate amount of FTEs. • Is well-documented, understandable, flexible and extendable in all its components, and is never a one-man show. • Can integrate with other, existing tools. (e.g. monitoring, internal databases, etc.) • Problems like those shown in the previous slide are simply not acceptable. • We are building a testing facility to try and anticipate upgrade issues. • We need and want to: • organize internal resources, and • work with external institutes (CERN et al.) so that we have more direct involvement in the development, early deployment and testing of the tool suite(s). • Hopefully, this mini-workshop will help us to better understand how to work toward these goals.