Fab Project Board 3rd Dec 2021

Fab Project Board- 3rd December 2021

Attendees:

Actions From Last Project Board

• A6 RG to capture requirement to replicate GitHub Actions environment for interactive usage in the future.
  • RG- will likely leave this as an open action for now; CARRY OVER
• A7 RG to adjust the scope to mention i) demonstration of Fab using JULES, UM, LFRic; ii) state NG-DA and JEDI are out of scope
  • RG- DONE; CLOSE
• A8 SM to review existing requirements and communicate and new anticipated ones
  • DONE; CLOSE
• A9 RG Add milestone to advertise Fab, eg via a Seminar, once the general capability has been proven.
  • RG- DONE at top of project plan page; CLOSE
• A10 RG Add a milestone at end Nov-21 for contractors to report back their tactical work plan to the project board
  • RG- DONE added to Phase 5; CLOSE

Present Project Phase

• The new project team has come together very well and quickly agreed ways of working etc
• Familiarisation used JULES as a small but realistic example, and has proven very effective
  • Dependency analysis has been switched to using fparser2
  • JULES has been built using Fab. Total time to complete is a similar order
  • The best way of queueing all the tasks is the subject of lively but constructive discussion
• Tactical work plan circulated seperately
  • Key point is that UM and then LFRic will be tackled in series

MS- was the time to complete on a similar number of processors? SW- Yes.

SM- noted for LFRic builds there may be the potential to reuse the fparser2 analysis later in the execution

General further discussion of possible optimisations.

ACTION RG Circulate contractor work plan ASAP.

Standing Items

Staff and Resourcing

We are well resourced and everyone is working together well.

Welfare

No concerns

Review Risk/Issue Log

The risk and issue log has had an incremental update.

• Resourcing has been dropped to a risk
• One Issue technically demanding amber around external dependencies
• Otherwise everything is disconcertingly good

Further discussion around access to more compilers via github actions, potentially using local machine.

Pathway to Green

If not formally Green, Fab is heading that way.

Review Stakeholders

The stakeholder analysis has been incrementally refreshed. There are now gaps for Partnerships and the MISS team, although neither seem critical at this time. A pleaceholder for NEMO use caes (see AOB) added.

• Worth keeping BoM in the loop as they were previously keen to contribute
• KB mentioned the Azure sandbox for the Gen2 supercomputer and potential relevance for Fab? Agreed it would good for building relevant skills in due course. Worth revisiting this topic once a prototype Fab/LFRic build has been done.

Change Management Issues

None at this time- see AOB

AOB

• The move of NEMO to git has resulted in some of the marine groups reaching out to learn about Fab. They are going to have a go with the Fab extract tool 'grab' as alpha testers. This may result in more substantial engagement in the future, triggering a Change Request.

Next Meeting

Early/mid Feb?

Actions for next Project Board

• A6 RG to capture requirement to replicate GitHub Actions environment for interactive usage in the future.
• A11 RG to circulate contractor work plan ASAP.