# Notes for 2023-04-06 meeting

* date & time: Thu 6 Apr 2023 - 14:00 CEST (12:00 UTC)
* (every first Thursday of the month)
* venue: *(online, see mail for meeting link, or ask in Slack)*
* agenda:
- Quick introduction by new people
- EESSI-related meetings in last month (incl. BioHackathon report)
- Progress update per EESSI layer (incl. build-and-deploy bot + test suite)
- EESSI pilot repository
- AWS/Azure sponsorship update
- Update on MultiXscale EuroHPC project (incl. kickoff meeting)
- Upcoming events
- Q&A

### Slides

* https://github.com/EESSI/meetings/blob/main/meetings/EESSI_meeting_20230406.pdf

### Meeting notes

*(by Kenneth)*

#### Quick introduction by new people

- ...

#### EESSI-related meetings in last month

*(see slides)*

- difference between EESSI and containers should be covered in our documentation...
- notes from Australian BioCommons meeting could be a good starting point
- containers were also raised in CASTIEL2 meeting as a first approach to distribute software developed by CoEs, which got a lot of pushback (see also meeting notes via Alan/Kenneth)
- can also look at Christian's talk at EuroHPC Summit for what's needed to use containers in HPC context
- see https://qnib.org/blog/2023/03/22/deeper-dive-into-container-labels-and-annotations/
- compare what annotations need to be in place to make containers work in an HPC environment vs what EESSI provides already

#### Progress update per EESSI layer

##### Filesystem layer

*(see slides)*

- we should go ahead with getting rid of EESSI pilot 2021.06 and init 2021.12 instead

##### Compatibility layer

*(see slides)*

- TODO for 2023.04 compat layer
- remove packages from compat layer (see PR to EESSI/gentoo-overlay)
- prune compat layer by removing build tools, etc.
- see also notes from sync meeting on compat layer @ https://github.com/EESSI/meetings/wiki/Sync-meeting-on-EESSI-compat-layer-(2023-03-07)

##### Software layer

*(see slides)*

- are we missing optimization opportunities by not shipping *.pyc files?
- Alan: missing PR for site-customize.py that EasyBuild includes in the Python installation
- to fix problem with picking up on `.so`
- should be conditional on use of RPATH + not setting $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
- Kenneth will get in touch with Alan/Bob/Caspar to set up a merge sprint for EasyBuild PRs related to EESSI
- to be included with upcoming EasyBuild v4.7.2 release...

##### Build-and-deploy bot

*(see slides)*

- lesson learned from efforts with building software layer in NESSI
- could be beneficial to build in two different setups, to catch problems that pop up in one but not in another
- short-term NESSI is used for experimenting with bot for building software layer, and learn from what goes wrong
- long-term the intent is to build stuff *on top* of EESSI
- some features are already being in implemented in bot + eessi_container.sh script that facilitate building for a non-EESSI CVMFS repository

##### EESSI test suite

- proof-of-concept implementation of GROMACS test is now more general/configurable
- will be used as blueprint for additional tests
- should also have a "getting started" page in documentation for EESSI test suite

##### EESSI pilot repository

*(see slides)*

#### AWS/Azure sponsored credits

*(see slides)*

* planning to ask AWS for additional sponsored credits by summer as current batch of credits runs out

#### MultiXscale EU project

*(see slides)*

- ...

#### Upcoming events

* HPCKP'23: https://hpckp.org/annual-meeting
* submission deadline 7 April 2023
* BioHackathon Europe 2023
* deadline for project proposals 10 April 2023

#### Q&A

- usage tracking
- init script could be replaced by variant symlink (could be done for 2023.04 script)
- opens the door for customized init scripts that track how EESSI is used (for example in AWS, Azure, ...)
- can also include customizations, like UCX environment variables, Lmod configuration, alternate module trees, etc.
- new sync meeting for compat layer should be planned
- Tue 11 April 2023 at 13:00 CEST?
- issue to track which packages should be removed from compat layer
- https://github.com/EESSI/gentoo-overlay/issues/91