Participants
Sandy Philpott (chair), Graham Heyes, Brad Sawatzky
Goal
Discuss integration of scientific software support with the IT help desk (CCPR system), documentation, notifications and version control.
Summary
Here is a summary of our sub-committee meeting Tuesday, addressing IT support for Physics software:
CCPRs
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New category PHYSICS SOFTWARE added to CCPR system
- assigned to IT staff - Sandy or other
- email to Brad, Graham, Mark, Ole, Bob, Steve, Mauri, for starters
- the email interface allows status updates - need to dig out the syntax details
Documentation
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Suggest keeping the current location as a starting point, at
https://wiki.jlab.org/cc/external/wiki/index.php/Physics_Applications
and updating this overview to include 1) an overview of the JLab support model for Physics software, 2) a short description of each support package and 3) a current link to its JLab documentation.
Any relevant pages found through google and web searches of the JLab site should be consolidated at this top level, and stale pages should be replaced with a permanent redirect to the main jump page.
We also discussed that the documentation, software, meeting minutes etc would be hosted on a website controlled by ENP.
Standard and multiple versions
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Users on site have different methods of accessing software -- the JLab legacy "setup" and "use" commands, and the $JLAB_ROOT environment maintained by Mauri in /site/12gev_physics. More details are needed on running different versions than default, and identifying the PRO production versions. How does /site/12gev_physics interact with the versions in /apps? Does it need to? These available access methods need maintaining and documentation. Do users still need "use" and/or "setup" ? The choice between "setup", "use", and "/site/12gev_physics" may also impact who is in charge of the production software.
The production /apps/<software>/PRO version, or that in $JLAB_ROOT, should only change during a scheduled maintenance period that has been announced to users.
Notifications
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General announcements about software updates and status can go to the jlab-scicomp-briefs mailing list.