Nurcan Ozturk

University of Texas at Arlington

for the Distributed Analysis Support Team (DAST)

ATLAS Distributed Computing Technical Interchange Meeting

Annecy – April 19, 2012

User Support Ideas

A searchable web interface

Accumulated vast knowledge in DAST egroups however it is not searchable

Need a searchable web interface+backend database: User types the error seen and the result will be a step-by-step description of what to

do to resolve the issue (with a link to FAQ or twiki)

For some cases, provide a diagnostic tool for users to figure out the problems themselves:

Example: manageTier3SW/ATLASLocalRootBase stack to diagnose DB issues, grid-cert issues as well as generate a file containing information that can point us to the problem.

Users do their first level support by searching for themselves thus reducing the load on DAST.

The database can be populated by anyone as soon as issue is resolved.

Despite the above, not sure how many people will do searches first before asking for help. Asoka’s experience from another experiment: “other users got annoyed if someone asked a question that was already posted before and peer pressure worked.  ATLAS users seem more forgiving or DAST shifters are a much more kinder lot.”

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Ideas from Asoka De Silva

Jira to rescue?

Asked for a test instance of Jira from CERN IT (by Manoj Jha). May have it in 2 weeks.

DAST will evaluate its performance and plan on migrating to.

What Jira offers for us: One interface (instead of two) for user-user and user-shifter interactions

No central page exist which displays ongoing problems affecting distributed analysis. Shifter can post ongoing problems on Jira web interface and users read them before sending any new ticket.

Possible to inform only the concerned users (for a specific issue) directly in Jira. Thus reducing the number of threads that all users receive.

A new idea from Wensheng De: DAST shifters' reports are currently under-utilized

If shifters can make shift summaries with Jira or insert question/solution info into Jira. This would make shift summaries more regularated, machine readable, and searchable in response to future queries.

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Improvements in other systems

Any improvements on the following will help in user support: automatic retries of failed jobs

excluding problematic sites by Hammercloud

Input data availability – PD2P

Looking at dq2 traces to understand dq2-get problems better – talk by Thomas Beermann earlier

Second copy of user datasets done automatically – does not look attractive by looking at Thomas’s talk

Also improvements in communication with other teams: Communicate better with ADCoS shifters on site problems, namely GGUS

tickets may have been opened by them already

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