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LBNE

What are these pages?

This is the provisional location for documentation created and used by the LBNE group at BNL. These pages are created and maintained using Mediawiki.

Getting started with Mediawiki

• Formatting text in Mediawiki (markup)
• MediaWiki FAQ
• User's Guide - information on using the wiki software.

Useful links

• Official LBNE page at FNAL
• LBNE Document Database at FNAL (a.k.a. DocDB). Password is required. There are many ways to query the system, and the most widely used is by the unique ID number assigned to the document by DocDB.
• "Redmine". An integrated project and content management system used at FNAL.
• FIFE - Fabric for Frontier Experiments. A project at FNAL aiming to implement collaborative and shared solutions, mainly for the Intensity Frontier Experiments.

LBNE Computing

Introduction

Design, development, testing, commissioning, and operational support of software and systems for the LBNE experiment represent an immense undertaking. It consists of many individual pieces, some independent and some closely related to each other, as well as challenging integration tasks. The resources for creation and maintenance of the software and services for the experiment are limited and are expected to be so for the lifetime of the project and of the experiment. In that regard, the primary limiting resource is personnel, both scientific and professional.

On the other hand, modern software frameworks, tools, and methodologies allow a variety of software and computing tasks (infrastructure, science software tools, etc) to be optimally divided among collaborators at multiple locations. Improved quality and efficiency of the software development and better maintenance are achieved through the use of modern revision control, continuous integration, collaborative software systems, and where possible, extensive re-use of code developed for other projects. Optimally designed software distribution, Workload Management and Data Handling systems also increase efficiencies in operations area across the globally distributed computing platform of LBNE.

In order to increase efficiencies and better utilize the resources and pool of talent available to LBNE, we organize the breadth of the LBNE software and computing effort as a set of distinct but interrelated work areas:

• Physics Analysis/Physics Working Groups (PWG), covering various directions and areas of the physics analysis based on the data collected by LBNE. This group is responsible for the science deliverables. Leader: Jon Urheim.

• Physics Tools Group (PT), which is responsible for creation and maintenance of software modules and data required by the R&D work in the design stage of the experiment, and later the analysis activity of the Physics Working groups, such as simulation applications, background characterization analysis, tracking and event reconstruction algorithms etc. Leader: Thomas Junk.

• Software and Computing Organization (S&C), which develops and maintains a set of core services, systems, applications and policies necessary for implementation of the Physics Tools and higher-level analysis software. Examples include data distribution and access systems, optimal database access, code repositories and revision control, software frameworks etc. Co-Leaders: Maxim Potekhin, Liz Sexton-Kennedy.

• Data Acquisition and Online Systems Group (DAQ), responsible for the development, deployment and maintenance of the systems which collect data from the various detector elements, slow controls, interfaces with conditions databases and accelerator complex data network. Leader: Giles Barr.

The purpose of this structure is to improve efficiency by avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort across various sub-projects, achieve economies of scale and create an agile and productive environment for the scientists to work in. As one example, database services, their access methods and many other aspects of database technology will be made available to PT by personnel working within the S&C (and with their liaisons at participating sites), without the need for each individual group to set up its own database shop. Likewise, a consistent and well-managed methodology of building, validation and distribution of software is highly beneficial to all segments of LBNE. Last but not least, this structure will also allow us to foster collaboration within LBNE, by implementing efficient shared and reusable solutions.

Documents and Planning

Our approach to planning is as follows:

• The Collaboration forms a set of Software and Computing Requirements, i.e. a well defined set of expectations of what its computing sector must deliver.
• A Computing Model is created, which is a combination of policies, organizational principles and technology guidelines which are brought together for optimal fulfillment of the Requirements.
• In order to realize the Computing Model, we develop the Implementation Plan, based on which practical documents such as FWP and WBS can be created.

Computing Effort Organization Computing Model