Category
Software
Owner
WLCG
Risk Summary
Loss of support for 3rd party software
Risk Detail
3rd party software may become unsupported.
Effect
The loss of key components such as gridftp, OSS tools; would need to replace or support in the community.
Mitigation
Maintain flexibility and reduce dependencies on single solutions. Components such as gridftp can be replaced by http or xroot, other open source tools and middleware components may have finite lifetimes. We must ensure that we have alternate solutions. A primary mitigation however, is to move away from special solutions and ensure that we are using mainstream technologies where realistic. This is an ongoing strategy.
Risk
Risk Impact
1
Risk Likelihood
3
Risk Severity
3
The "grid" is continually evolving, and there are many fewer components today that are speecific to us. The use of mainstream technologies, not available in the first phases of LHC make this easier with very large upstream communities. There are only few areas such as high throughput data movement where we need specific R&D not being done elsewhere.