Each member of the MB has a defined role (see below). The MB reports to the Overview Board (OB) to which it provides quarterly progress and status reports, and additional information as required. It responds to recommendations or other guidance from the OB. The Project Leader is appointed by the CERN Director General. The Project Leader appoints the Secretary and the Area Managers.
All members of the MB use their knowledge and expertise to participate actively in the coordination and management of the project, including the specification of requirements, development and evolution of the work plan, setting of goals and milestones, and allocation of resources to the different activities. The board endeavours to work by consensus, but if this is not achieved the Project Leader will make decisions taking account of the advice of the Board.
Project Leader
- Chair the meetings of the board.
- Ensure that the board is kept aware of the important issues faced by the project.
- Taking advice from the MB, ensure that decisions are taken in a transparent and timely manner to ensure smooth running of the project.
- Strive to attain consensus within the MB for all major decisions.
- Identify potential or actual problem areas that are not being addressed and take corrective action.
- Maintain the overall plan of the project. This is delegated to the Project Planning Officer who will be invited as necessary to attend the MB (the planning officer currently also acts as secretary to the MB).
- Manage the allocation of resources under the control of the project, maintaining resource allocation information and preparing reports for the Computing Resource Review Board. This is delegated to the Project Resource Manager who will be invited as necessary to attend the MB.
- Report to the OB on behalf of the MB, and bring feedback and decisions back to the MB.
Secretary
- Prepare agendas for MB meetings, coordinating with the other members of the MB.
- Maintain the to-do list and actions list.
- Ensure regular exposure through the agenda of each of the activities of the project operational areas and experiments.
- Prepare minutes of the MB meetings, reporting decisions and agreements, in a form suitable for a wide distribution within the project.
Area Managers
- There are four Area Managers, each with operational responsibility for a defined area of the project.
- Applications - provision of a development environment for applications software, development and support of common applications tools and libraries, common data management facilities and support for distributed analysis.
- CERN Fabric - provision of the physics computing service at CERN, including the physical infrastructure, data recording and storage, programme development service, clusters for data analysis, local and wide area networking.
- Grid Deployment - establishing and managing the LHC Grid Service , including middleware, certification, security, operations, registration, authorisation, and accounting.
- ARDA – direct grid support for experiments
- Elaborate work plans within their areas to respond to the formal requirements of the project, with estimates of the resources needed.
- Negotiate the provision of the necessary resources, adjusting work plans as necessary.
- Propose milestones to enable the MB and other committees to follow progress.
- Report on progress with the work plan, including a forward look and any actions taken to correct anticipated problems.
- Bring information of decisions, difficulties and other significant issues and concerns to the attention of the MB. This includes regular reporting of decisions and agreements made by subsidiary committees.
Experiment Computing Coordinators
- Provide direct feedback from the experiments on the usage and take-up of the software and infrastructure deployed by the project.
- Bring the opinion of the final users of the project into the management and decision making process.
- They are assumed to speak authoritatively for the whole experiment, and therefore it is their duty to collect and mediate the opinion of the different components of the experiment they represent.
- Plan and manage the take-up by their experiment of the common tools and services of the project.
WLCG Security Officer:
- Coordinate the WLCG response to security threats against its infrastructure, which includes requiring actions from participants when needed, in particular in the context of serious vulnerabilities and security incidents;
- Understand and assess the security risks faced by WLCG;
- Advise and make recommendations to the project management, grid security teams and LHC VOs on security risks;
- Contribute to the elaboration of security policies for WLCG participants and collaborate closely with the WLCG Security Policy Coordinator to ensure WLCG security policy issues are addressed.
In order to achieve this, the WLCG Security Officer will need to collaborate closely with the appropriate security teams (including the EGI CSIRT, the OSG security team and other CSIRTs), the LHC VOs and other WLCG stake-holders.
Tier-1 Representatives
- Bring the views and concerns of the Tier-1 to bear on the management and decision making process in the MB.
- Plan and coordinate the allocation and delivery of resources by the Tier-1 to the WLCG service to fulfill the experiments’ requirements.
- Plan and coordinate the participation of the Tier-1 in the service and data challenges.
- Report on status and progress of the services provided by the Tier-1.
- Identify issues and problems that require action by the MB.
Chair of the Grid Deployment Board
The Grid Deployment Board (GDB) is the governing body of the collaboration of regional centres that deploy and operate the LHC Grid service, and the experiments that use it. The role of the GDB chair in the MB includes the following:
- Convey the point of view of the regional centres into the project.
- Liaise between the MB and the GDB, bringing information and decisions from the GDB to the attention of the MB, and vice versa.
- Provide direct feedback from the regional centres on the usage and take-up of the software and infrastructure deployed by the project, bringing this to bear on the management and decision making process in the MB.
EGI Technical Director
- Ensure coherence between the two projects for technical matters, in particular:
- Ensure the coherence between LCG and EGI projects' milestones and deliverables.
- Ensure that the wider scope of the applications and activities of EGI and LCG priorities do not lead to divergences.
- Identify potential slippages, omissions or clashes and react rapidly to ensure the smooth coexistence of the two projects.
- Report to the EGEE management bodies on the technical progress and status of LCG.
OSG Director
Liaison between the two projects, providing information to the MB on the status and evolution of the OSG facility and identifying issues that require action by the MB.