Notes from the 1-2/3/2007 VO Support Workshop@FZK

VOs represented: 
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Alice, Auger, CMS, CompChem, DTEAM, ENEA, ESR/EGEODE, BIOMED/Health-e-Child, SuperNemo, VOCE, 
local VOs to CESGA (Madrid) and RMKI/KFKI (Budapest).

Summary:
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   * CMS have decided to push their users to enter problems in savannah but they are at the
     very beginning of this process. A big traffic currently goes on in HyperNews.
     Given that savannah is un-interfaceable to GGUS, I feel this decision could be re-evaluated. 
     I plan a meeting with Kati Lassila-Perini and the CMS software sub-systems' experts, 
     in my role as the LHC VOs' support person.
     GGUS experts' will create more Support Units (SUs) for CMS to target the right 
     team of experts (data production and transfer teams).      

   * Alice, similarly to CMS, take most of the support load internally, via
     the AliEn mailing list. So, what is submitted to GGUS is done by Alice
     experts and is always Urgent. FTS and general network problems are the main
     types of GGUS entries for Alice. When cases are fed to the INFNgrid ticketing
     system, responses don't get back promptly enough. 
     They would like to see:
     	* a "Affects the entire VO" flag, to emphasise the urgency of the case.
	* a regular check of overdue tickets before closing what is obsolete.

   * All VOs desire to have ONE person to contact when it comes to Support.
        * Several small VOs can have a common representative.
	* This person will bring the VOs' requirements to the ESC.
	* Direct VO participation to the ESC is possible, when need be.
	* Face-to-face meeting opportunities come up with the May EGEE User Forum
          and the September EGEE Conference.

   * GGUS improvement requests should be entered in the shopping list
     https://savannah.cern.ch/projects/esc/
     The ESC decides what should be accepted and for which release. Example:

     VO-related requests should be prioritised by the person who
     leads the "ESC VO Management Work Package". I offered to take up this role
     but Frederic Schaer also does "VO Management Coordination" so maybe he should
     be doing this(?)

   * VO supporters of small VOs need GGUS to provide "technology tips", especially news 
     and advice on VOMS. We need a formula to regularly disseminate such information.

   * ONE location of news, FAQ, doc. and problem submission is desired by 
     BIOMED. 

   * Review of the documentation on the GGUS site is a high requirement.
     I will send new VO-related links to Helmut Dres for update.

   * Small VOs contain as few as 21 (CompChem) users. They struggle to write
     local ticketing systems, which require extra development effort to be interfaced
     to GGUS and extra supporting effort from GGUS to maintain the ticket updates across
     these interfaces. I think, such small communities can be absorbed directly 
     from GGUS as they are, but maybe ther are other obstacles, I don't yet know(?)

   * I suggested that ticket submission via email or web form prompts users to enter:

	   * the command they used
  	   * the error they obtain
	   * their site and type of service node 
	   * the middleware version of the package involved (when they know if)
	   * the timestamp if not the same as the date/time of the ticket.

     My understanding is that as long as no new fields are added, but simply the 
     "Problem Description" is enhanced with this text on the page or when mouse on, 
     the GGUS supporters were willing to do it.