Introduction/Background
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Contractor |
DOE Office |
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Contract No.:
DE-AC03-76SF00515 |
IMD: Name: Melna
Jones |
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Point of Contact: Bob Cowles |
Telephone No.: (510)
637-1741 |
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Telephone No.: (650)
926-4965 |
CO Name: Stan Wheeler |
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E-mail: rdc@slac.stanford.edu |
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Laboratory Mission
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)
is dedicated to experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle
physics and in those fields that make use of its synchrotron radiation
facilities, including biology, chemistry, geology, material science and
electrical engineering. This includes the development of new techniques in
particle acceleration and detection, and of synchrotron radiation sources and
associated instrumentation. The Center is operated as a national user facility
for the Department of Energy by Stanford University.
The Computer Information Resource Management functional area is responsible for coordinating Information Management activities within the Laboratory. This coordination effort includes encouragement of information standards to ensure broad availability of information resources, of computer and systems procurements that have Laboratory support, and are part of Laboratory wide information planning practices.
The Computer Information Resource Management
functional area self-assessment is based on, and measured against, performance
objectives and standards as reflected in the SLAC contract that were defined by
SLAC managers and DOE points of contact in order to address customer
satisfaction, cost efficiency, and contract compliance.
Scope of Self-Assessment
The BaBar program has been extremely productive during FY01. Luminosity in PEP II has increased more rapidly than expected, reaching over 100% of design luminosity. By virtue of this luminosity, BaBar has recorded over 400 terabytes of data. In order to accommodate this plethora of data, SLAC Computing Services (SCS) and BaBar physicists have been expanding computing resources as rapidly as possible. Three different areas deserve special mention:
Compute Farms
A
farm of more than 500 dual processor Linux-based systems from VALinux augmented
the existing farm of 900 Sun Netra T1 systems.
These are deployed in different ways depending on BaBar’s needs.
This
Linux Farm appears to be a cost effective way of supplying raw computing power
for the BaBar program; however, hardware and software issues slowed initial
utilization of the farm’s computing capacity.
The STK Silos continue to be the major source of Mass Storage for
the High Energy Physics Program. During
FY01, 30 of the tape drives in the silos were upgraded to handle the new
cartridges that each holds 60 gigabytes of data.
Intel Commodity Computer Purchases
SLAC purchases 90% of its Intel desktop machines through the DOE
established BOA with Dell. This has
provided a substantial cost saving during the year and perhaps an even greater
cost saving in user support costs through standardization to one manufacturer.
This has allowed SCS to develop a standard installation procedure for
both Windows and Linux systems that pervades the vast majority of Laboratory
desktop systems.
The Microsoft site license program continues to provide both
substantial savings and assures that Laboratory systems are in full conformity
with license regulations with regard to Microsoft products.
The latter assurance has freed an estimated 2 FTEs of human support
resources from tracking license activities and paid for the program almost
entirely in salary costs.
Virus Detection
In a year when computer users
everywhere have been assaulted by a continual barrage of viruses and worms, the
InocuLAN network-based virus detection package has been enormously effective in
protecting the Laboratory. InocuLAN
has been extremely responsive in supplying signature updates, sometimes several
times per week. (More details about
virus activities at SLAC are given in the Unclassified Computer Security
Self-Assessment). Following an
evaluation, the Antigen product from Sybari was installed to perform real-time
scanning of email entering and leaving the Exchange server.
This has proven to be a useful additional line of defense on top of
attachment removal at the mail gateway and real-time virus scanning at the
desktop.
Computing and Information Management
Policies
Laboratory policy committees have
scheduled monthly meetings but only meet as appropriate to deal with policy
issues. There are two committees
responsible for addressing computing policies
Associate Directors Committee on Computing (ADCC);
Computer Coordinating Committee (CCC). This group discusses issues
of concern and submits policy recommendations to ADCC for approval or other
actions.
New
Items of Interest in 2001
Intel Systems Summary
Windows-based machines ended the year with about 1700 systems.
The number of Linux systems at SLAC has increased during FY01.
In addition to the more than 500 Linux farm systems, the number of
desktop systems grew from an estimated 250 systems in September 2000, to more
than 320 in September 2001. Both security and manageability concerns have led to
the extension of Unix management tools by SCS to include Linux under the SCS
Unix support umbrella. Principal
among these is a Linux version of “taylor,” the management script that runs
nightly on SCS managed Unix systems.
Because
of the growing number of Linux security exploits, the SCS Security group has
strongly recommended that Linux administrators use the standard SCS installation
scripts when installing new Red Hat Linux systems.
Use of Citrix Windows Terminal Server (WTS) Farms continues at
SLAC. The secure BIS cluster
requires 128 bit encrypted ICA clients and carefully restricted accounts on the
WTS server.
Windows 2000 Support
Because
Active Directory Domains in Windows 2000 are such a departure from the NT 4
Domain concept, SLAC is taking precautions to limit the introduction of Windows
2000 into the community. Following
some initial problems with the introduction of Windows 2000 servers and the lack
of pressing user requirements for Windows 2000, conversion plans have been
scaled back.
Windows system administrator training
Windows
system administrators have received basic Windows 2000 training (Microsoft
Course 1560) and Windows NT plus Windows 2000 security training.
Institutional Data:
For
a number of years, the SLAC Institutional Data Committee (IDC) has been
identifying data resources that need to be integrated into a single
Institutional Data Structure at SLAC. Centralized
control and procedures have now been established relating to:
Exit procedures for terminating personnel to recall SLAC services
and property;
ESH training, waste management and dosimeters;
Space management.
In
FY00, the IDC recommended the establishment of a “Data Czar” within the
Directors Office.Filling such a
position is expected to have increased priority in the upcoming year.
Performance Side-Bar Indicators
HPSS
and Objectivity database
A
sign of system growth is the mass storage system HPSS that acts as the primary
repository of the Objectivity database for the data collected by the BaBar
experiment. The amount of data
stored in FY01 grew from approximately 250 terabytes at the start of the year,
to over 500 terabytes at the end of the year.
World Wide Web Usage
The
SLAC Web has grown in sophistication and functionality through the use of
virtual Web technology. New Web
analysis tools have been purchased and deployed during FY00.
The charts below were generated using these tools.
The first chart shows the majority presence of educational institutions in the SLAC Web traffic patterns. The .COM and .NET traffic for the most part are the inevitable Web search engines that perpetually index the data at all Internet Web sites.
The
final chart shows the client Operating System composition of SLAC’s Web
traffic. Linux has a very strong
presence, reflecting the trend toward Linux in the High Energy Physics community
worldwide. In fact, since last year
Linux has overtaken Windows NT as the dominant system on this chart. The Macintosh component, once strong at SLAC and HEP in
general, has fallen to 3%.
Compute Farms
As in FY00, SLAC Compute Farms have undergone rapid, continuing growth and change. From the point of view of satisfying the needs of the scientific community, however, great progress has been made to supply an immense and flexible computing resource. At the beginning of the year there were 900 Sun Nextra T1 systems operating at 440MHz and by the end of the year we had added over 500 Linux boxes with dual processor 850 Mhz processors with a resulting 200% increase in computing capacity.
An
additional Linux compute farm is in operation – Accelerator Research (ERDA)
has a farm consisting of 32 VALinux machines.
Status of Goals during FY01
Migrate Windows desktops Windows 2000
As indicated above, this goal was not accomplished, but much was learned. Various technical problem, in addition to slowness of vendor support for the Windows 2000 application installer technology, and lack of any compelling requirements in the user community resulted in a reprioritization of this effort.
No significant progress has been made
in this area. With several Peer
Reviews imminent, it was impractical to establish SCS based measures until the
requirements for the reviews are fully known.
Improvement Action Plan/Goals
Goals for FY 2002
Test Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 infrastructure
For Questions or comments, Please contact Ziba Mahdavi, Last Updated 10/24/00