GridPP and Displacement
-----------------------

  As you know the question of e-Science displacement has still not been
resolved. At the last GridPP CB Group Leaders requested clarification of the
overall financial situation and how the need for ~£6M displacement has
arisen. I asked PPARC and received an answer (reproduced below) which does
not address the whole problem i.e. the additional amount that PP is above its
own guideline, and isn't very helpful.

  The current GridPP commitment (DataGrid posts) plus proposed hardware and
new posts comes to approximately £14M (inc CERN). Had we been awarded the
£20M then £6M displacement would have been possible (though not necessarily
desirable). With £17M it looks like we can displace a maximum of £3M from the
GridPP budget.

  The RAL SLA has up to recently included ~£750k/year for central computing
services. Of this about £250k has been hardware which in future will be
replaced by GridPP Tier-A/1 purchases already included in the £14M. The rest
is RAL ITD manpower (~9fte) who operate the central facilities at RAL. It is
likely that GridPP will need some of these people to operate the Tier-A/1
centre and hence some fraction should be displaced (<£1.5M). The draft RAL
SLA assumes 0, 3, 6fte in the 3 years 2001/02, 02/03, 03/04, an average of
3fte/year, though this has not yet been agreed by GridPP. This leaves between
£1.5M (~10fte/yr) (all 9 ITD displaced) and £3M (~20fte/yr) (no ITD
displaced) that can be displaced via the Universities and RAL PPD. The
current estimate is that 5.8 fte/yr of RAL PPD effort are or will be working
on the Grid.

  How do we identify who should/could be displaced? The GridPP PMB via the
Experiments Board and Technical Board is defining the scope of the whole
project taking into account the experimental requirements and likely technical
solutions. This will define the manpower requirements. Some of this will come
from new posts and some from displacement. Once these requirements are
defined then we will enter into dialogue with the Groups (as agreed at the
last CB) to see who could be displaced. One problem is that several good
candidates have taken the new DataGrid jobs and so cannot now be displaced.

  Why should Groups offer people to be displaced? Firstly, the community as a
whole needs significant displacement to save the physics programme. But what
is in it for an individual group? It is already agreed with PPARC that the
act of displacement does not change an individual's contract or the Groups'
current grant. However, there is a new grants round approaching. Given that
there is not enough money to support the current PP programme there will
likely be serious job cuts at the next grants round. It seems likely that
someone who has just been displaced will be protected otherwise the displaced
money would have to be paid back to e-Science. But what are the long term
consequences? Will the Grants panel assume that such people will be funded by
e-Science for several years and hence no longer support them from PP grants?
What about system managers? They are vital to the running of Group
infrastructure but are not generally working on the Grid (a few are) and
so GridPP wouldn't want to pay for them. 

  I do not know the answer to these questions and it is up to individual
Group Leaders to decide their best strategy. However from a GridPP point of
view we need to make best use of our resources for both GridPP and the wider
PP community's point of view. I image this topic will dominate the next CB
meeting (Tuesday 23 October 13.00 at UCL).

  There is another related topic that Group Leaders should agree on. As you
know there is an imminent LHC mid term review and most Groups need to fill in
Forms S and X for their ATLAS and CMS manpower commitments. These entries
will have to be carried forward to the grants round. What do we do about
GridPP? What do we assign someone who is full time (ish) GridPP but also on
ATLAS to - 100% ATLAS, 100% GridPP, 50-50? I suspect we have to be very
careful but also consistent from Group to Group or else there will be chaos
interpreting these numbers later (or maybe that would be the best thing!)

-------------------------- Letter to PPARC -------------------------------

John, Phil, Janet,
  We discussed displacement at the recent GridPP CB meeting. Apart from
their positions on the GridPP CB, the Group leaders would like to have a
clear statement of what the size of the problem really is and how it
arose. We realise that this is not easy but I believe that in order to
best solve the problem together, Group leaders need to be fully
informed.
        Regards Steve

-------------------------- Reply from PPARC -------------------------------

Dear Steve,
  
 As you know, the SR2000 did not contain any explicit provision for
 indexation against the effects of inflation on the programme, but PPARC
 gained £26M over three years for e-science. In planning for the Operating
 Plan period (01/02 to 03/04 inclusive) assumptions had to be made about both
 the spend profile for the e-science money and the displacement likely to
 occur. In order to restore both the pp and astronomy guidelines to those
 that had existed after SR1998, it was assumed that £4.3M displacment funding
 would be found across the PPARC programme. Doing this, repayment of the
 'loan' that had been made to astronomy, plus carrying forward the underspend
 (primarily on the GPDs) from 99/00 and 00/01 gives pp its current guideline.

 Therefore if displacement of £4.3M is found (from all e-science spend not
 just from pp) we have the current guidelines; if more displacement is
 identified then the guidelines can be increased. 

 Does this give you a clear picture? I am on leave until the 23rd Aug but we
can discuss when I get back,

 regards, Janet