Create 2023-11-1-HTCondor-European-Workshop.md

2023-11-1-HTCondor-European-Workshop.md

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+---
+title: HTCondor European Workshop returns for ninth year, in Orsay, France
+
+author: Sarah Matysiak
+
+publish_on:
+  - htcondor
+  - path
+  - osg
+
+
+canonical_url: https://htcondor.org/featured-users/<2023-11-1-2023-htcondor-european-worshop>.html
+
+image:
+  path: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CHTC/Articles/main/images/groupphoto.png
+  alt: Group photo of those involved with the 2023 HTCondor European Workshop
+
+excerpt: The ninth 2023 HTCondor European Workshop occured in Orsay, France, September 19-22
+
+--- 
+
+*The workshop highlights research organizations’ success with HTCondor Software Suite (HTCSS), challenges, and possible 
+solutions. Planning for 2024’s workshop is already underway.*
+
+
+
+The ninth [2023 HTCondor European Workshop](https://indico.cern.ch/event/1274213/) took place September 19–22 
+at [IJCLab](https://www.ijclab.in2p3.fr/en/home/) in Orsay, France, to join communities of high-throughput computing
+(HTC) users together. Attendees and HTCondor users have the opportunity to learn from developers and vice versa, 
+HTCondor Core Developer Greg Thain says. During the workshops, “[I]nformation [is] going in all directions — developers
+to users, users to users, and users back up to developers,” Thain elaborates. Attendees discuss aspects of 
+[HTCondor Software Suite (HTCSS)](https://htcondor.org/) and HTC that they like and areas that could undergo potential development.
+
+
+
+This year, one featured talk was from the [European Weather Cloud (EWC)](https://www.europeanweather.cloud/),
+part of the meteorological community, which just started using HTCondor, Thain mentions. In their presentation, 
+Francesco Murdaca and Mike Grant discussed their challenges and current uses of HTC. Other HTCondor users like
+[DESY](https://www.desy.de/index_eng.html) and [CERN](https://home.cern/science/physics) also provided updates,
+challenges, and the scope of their current HTC uses.
+
+
+
+Another highlight was this year’s “Lightning Talks” sessions, which gave individual attention to users as a way 
+for them to highlight what works, what doesn’t, and what they’re trying to accomplish, HTCondor Technical Lead 
+Todd Tannenbaum says. These lightning talks spurred spontaneous discussion. Also included in this year’s programming 
+was a discussion of [Pelican](https://pelicanplatform.org/), a new system for sharing data, Thain reveals.
+
+
+
+HTCSS provides distributed high-throughput computing (dHTC) resources to users in academic, government, and commercial
+organizations across the globe. High energy physics is a leading group of dHTC use, of which CERN in Geneva, Switzerland,
+is a major player. For high-energy physics, Thain explains that more computation needs to be done than can be accomplished
+in one physical area, so physics communities and member nations affiliated with CERN share resources with each other. 
+However, HTCondor’s resources are not restricted to just these organizations — a broad range of scientific and research 
+disciplines tap into its resources. “About 50% of the participants were regular participants — we’ve seen their faces at 
+a lot of these workshops in Europe — but happily about 50% of the faces were new. So that was an encouraging sign, and 
+we are making plans to have another one,” Tannenbaum says. “The audience has widened a bit from just the system administrators 
+at these national labs that are doing the [LHC computing](https://home.cern/science/computing/grid) to include a couple of
+commercial companies and other universities.”
+
+
+
+The topics of discussion vary by year, Thain explains, depending on new developments or changes in the computing landscape,
+but are mainly driven by the Europeans. “One of the things we do in the year before is try and take the pulse of what’s new,
+what’s concerning, or what’s difficult and try to make sure that we have a workshop that addresses that,” Thain explains. 
+“We’ve talked about the new tokens the last couple of years, and there’s been a lot of concern about electrical power, especially 
+in terms of global events.” With the war in Ukraine and energy embargoes from Russia, electric prices have been less stable, 
+Tannenbaum says, which is a big concern of European data centers. Security, energy management, and power-saving were big 
+themes of this year’s workshops.
+
+
+
+One of the popular workshops — and one that Tannenbaum looks forward to — is the “Show Us Your Toolbox” session. During this
+session, “...folks from all the different national labs [show] how they solve problems like monitoring their cluster, managing 
+data, and interactive work. Just talking about what challenges they have at their site and their solutions to date inspires
+good discussion amongst the participants,” Tannenbaum shares. Other topics up for discussion included how German sites were 
+deploying HTCSS, ways to improve upon the current HTCSS, and the money and resources users saved with HTCSS.
+
+
+
+Another opportunity for users was participating in office hours, where they could take their computing issues to developers
+who work on HTCondor. For Tannenbaum, this is instructive because it helps him determine where people run into problems that
+he might not experience and understand which parts of HTCSS may need refining.
+
+
+
+Planning for the 2024 HTCondor European Workshop is already underway, with the venue set for [Nikhef](https://www.nikhef.nl/en/),
+the Dutch National Institute for Subatomic Physics, in Amsterdam, Tannenbaum reveals. Feedback from the attendees of this year’s
+workshop provided insightful information planners will take into account when they meet in a few months to discuss next year’s 
+workshop. “Looking at the feedback from the user surveys, we felt that this was the proof of the importance of in-person workshops,” 
+Tannenbaum says. Restricting the workshops to Zoom or other online formats, like what occurred in 2020, causes the workshops to 
+become less participatory and more reliant on passive listening. “It was much more a series of lectures. [The format was like] slide 
+show, next slide show, next slide show, which is useful to people, but it doesn't have that give and take and that everybody is 
+sharing and thinking together,” Tannenbaum says of the online workshops.
+
+
+
+Across the globe, similar workshops have popped up or are in the beginnings of development in places like India and Southeast Asia, 
+which the European workshops have had a part in spearheading, Tannenbaum says. “[T]here’s a lot of opportunities to
+network with people and share good ideas. If people are in Europe, we’d love to see them next year in Amsterdam. It’s a great 
+opportunity to have high-level conversations with other users. These last 10 years of meetings have come out of the work that 
+was done almost 30 years ago,” Thain states.