4 ms·

CERN was a good example of how much can be done with how little when you have the right people. For a long time, the entire Linux distribution (Scientific Linu

by adev_ 2y ago

CERN was a good example of how much can be done with how little when you have the right people. For a long time, the entire Linux distribution (Scientific Linux) used for ~15K collaborators, the infra and the grid computing was managed by a team of around 4-5 people. The teams managing the network access (LanDB), the distributed computing system, the scientific framework (ROOT) and the storage are also small, dedicated skilled teams. And the result speaks for itself. Unfortunately, most of that went to shit quite recently when they replaced the previous head of IT by a Microsoft fanboy/girl coming from outside of the scientific environment. The first thing he/she did was to force Microsoft bloatware everywhere to replace existing working OSS solutions.

wuming2 2y ago
> Unfortunately, most of that went to shit quite recently when they replaced the previous head of IT by a Microsoft fanboy(girl?) coming from outside of the scientific environment. Painful to read so I did a short check. From a news post I don’t want to link here, but easily found searching “CERN, the famous scientific lab where the web was born, tells us why it's ditching Microsoft and helping others do the same”, direction taken in 2019 seemed quite the opposite. I am not sure how current head of IT at CERN, Enrica Porcari, fits in to the story. Insider info will be appreciated.
- adev_ 2y ago
  > direction taken in 2019 seemed quite the opposite The head of IT changed in 2021 if it answers your question.
  - wuming2 2y ago
    Don’t see any previous experience at Microsoft [2]. Just a self taught fan then? Edit: “Partnership is the art of understanding shared value. In WFP we have a number of partnerships, not many, but the ones that we have are deep, are sustained, are long-term. And definitely UNICC is one of them. Enrica Porcari, Chief Information Officer and Director Technology Division at the WFP” [1] United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC) is a Microsoft shop. Legit to assume, if OP statement holds true, she got the business sponsorship going while CIO at the World Food Program (WFP). This kind of attempted executive takeover is always the strategy of a team. Who sponsored and voted for her at CERN is the real person of interest. 1. https://www.unicc.org/our-values/what-makes-us-unique/ https://www.unicc.org/our-values/what-makes-us-unique/ 2. https://cgnet.com/blog/former-cgnet-employee-enrica-porcari-to-head-computing-department-at-cern/ https://cgnet.com/blog/former-cgnet-employee-enrica-porcari-...
    - wuming2 2y ago
      Joachim Mnich, Director for Research and Computing and her boss [4], holds the position also since January 2021 [1]. Mike Lamont, Director for Accelerators and Technology, also got the job at the same time [2]. Finally Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General, in 2019 extended her tenure for a second term “to start on 1st January 2021” [3]. So in 2019 the initiative to remove Microsoft began. With renewal and promotions taking in to effect it stopped. Interesting. Feeling a strong Microsoft US vs Munich DE vibe. With a twitch of IT. 1. https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/joachim-mnich https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/jo... 2. https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/mike-lamont https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/mi... 3. https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/fabiola-gianotti https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/fa... 4. https://german-dac.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/2022.01%20CERN%20Orgchart.pdf https://german-dac.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/2022.01%2...
      - wuming2 2y ago
        “newly created CERN Venture Connect programme (CVC), launched in 2023 […] In establishing CVC, CERN’s Entrepreneurship team entered discussions with Microsoft, with the aim to better leverage the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub“ [1]. Under the purview of Christopher Hartley, Director of Industry, Procurement & Knowledge Transfer (IPT) [2], Microsoft is gaining more footholds at CERN. Won’t be too far fetched to consider Mr Hartley and Ms Porcari as working together to achieve some sort of common good. 1. https://home.cern/news/news/knowledge-sharing/journey-cern-entrepreneurship https://home.cern/news/news/knowledge-sharing/journey-cern-e... 2. https://german-dac.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/2022.01%20CERN%20Orgchart.pdf https://german-dac.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/2022.01%2...
  - dguest 2y ago
    There was a huge initiative at CERN to move to non-MS products. It was great actually: suddenly we were leaving behind a bunch of bloated MS cruft and working with nice stuff. As someone working at CERN I was really inspired, not just by the support for open source but by how well it all worked. Then next thing I knew we were doubling down on MS stuff. I don't know what happened. It was sad though, and the user experience did not improve in the end. I'm not close enough to CERN-IT to know the details. But for what it's worth, no one I knew in IT could think of a good reason for going back.
    - notabee 2y ago
      Considering how massively in bed with the U.S. government and other governments that Microsoft is, and said government has been known for keeping tabs even on allies(1), I'm sure that certain parties have a keen interest in keeping up with what's going on at CERN that's not just scientific curiosity. Strangely these Microsoft evangelists manage to pop up in organizations all the time to reverse any open source initiatives. Could just be a coincidence though. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-...
axus 2y ago
I think the majority of the Scientific Linux software came from Fedora/Red Hat and the Linux kernel. Planning and managing the CERN computing infrastructure is a lot of work, then updating and releasing a famous distro on top of that was impressive.
jimbat 2y ago
Scientific Linux was originally a product of Fermilab, with contributions from CERN.

by adev_ 2y ago

wuming2 2y ago

> Unfortunately, most of that went to shit quite recently when they replaced the previous head of IT by a Microsoft fanboy(girl?) coming from outside of the scientific environment. Painful to read so I did a short check. From a news post I don’t want to link here, but easily found searching “CERN, the famous scientific lab where the web was born, tells us why it's ditching Microsoft and helping others do the same”, direction taken in 2019 seemed quite the opposite. I am not sure how current head of IT at CERN, Enrica Porcari, fits in to the story. Insider info will be appreciated.

adev_ 2y ago
> direction taken in 2019 seemed quite the opposite The head of IT changed in 2021 if it answers your question.
- wuming2 2y ago
  Don’t see any previous experience at Microsoft [2]. Just a self taught fan then? Edit: “Partnership is the art of understanding shared value. In WFP we have a number of partnerships, not many, but the ones that we have are deep, are sustained, are long-term. And definitely UNICC is one of them. Enrica Porcari, Chief Information Officer and Director Technology Division at the WFP” [1] United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC) is a Microsoft shop. Legit to assume, if OP statement holds true, she got the business sponsorship going while CIO at the World Food Program (WFP). This kind of attempted executive takeover is always the strategy of a team. Who sponsored and voted for her at CERN is the real person of interest. 1. https://www.unicc.org/our-values/what-makes-us-unique/ https://www.unicc.org/our-values/what-makes-us-unique/ 2. https://cgnet.com/blog/former-cgnet-employee-enrica-porcari-to-head-computing-department-at-cern/ https://cgnet.com/blog/former-cgnet-employee-enrica-porcari-...
  - wuming2 2y ago
    Joachim Mnich, Director for Research and Computing and her boss [4], holds the position also since January 2021 [1]. Mike Lamont, Director for Accelerators and Technology, also got the job at the same time [2]. Finally Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General, in 2019 extended her tenure for a second term “to start on 1st January 2021” [3]. So in 2019 the initiative to remove Microsoft began. With renewal and promotions taking in to effect it stopped. Interesting. Feeling a strong Microsoft US vs Munich DE vibe. With a twitch of IT. 1. https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/joachim-mnich https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/jo... 2. https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/mike-lamont https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/mi... 3. https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/fabiola-gianotti https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-people/biographies/fa... 4. https://german-dac.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/2022.01%20CERN%20Orgchart.pdf https://german-dac.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/2022.01%2...
    - wuming2 2y ago
      “newly created CERN Venture Connect programme (CVC), launched in 2023 […] In establishing CVC, CERN’s Entrepreneurship team entered discussions with Microsoft, with the aim to better leverage the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub“ [1]. Under the purview of Christopher Hartley, Director of Industry, Procurement & Knowledge Transfer (IPT) [2], Microsoft is gaining more footholds at CERN. Won’t be too far fetched to consider Mr Hartley and Ms Porcari as working together to achieve some sort of common good. 1. https://home.cern/news/news/knowledge-sharing/journey-cern-entrepreneurship https://home.cern/news/news/knowledge-sharing/journey-cern-e... 2. https://german-dac.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/2022.01%20CERN%20Orgchart.pdf https://german-dac.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/2022.01%2...
- dguest 2y ago
  There was a huge initiative at CERN to move to non-MS products. It was great actually: suddenly we were leaving behind a bunch of bloated MS cruft and working with nice stuff. As someone working at CERN I was really inspired, not just by the support for open source but by how well it all worked. Then next thing I knew we were doubling down on MS stuff. I don't know what happened. It was sad though, and the user experience did not improve in the end. I'm not close enough to CERN-IT to know the details. But for what it's worth, no one I knew in IT could think of a good reason for going back.
  - notabee 2y ago
    Considering how massively in bed with the U.S. government and other governments that Microsoft is, and said government has been known for keeping tabs even on allies(1), I'm sure that certain parties have a keen interest in keeping up with what's going on at CERN that's not just scientific curiosity. Strangely these Microsoft evangelists manage to pop up in organizations all the time to reverse any open source initiatives. Could just be a coincidence though. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-...

axus 2y ago

I think the majority of the Scientific Linux software came from Fedora/Red Hat and the Linux kernel. Planning and managing the CERN computing infrastructure is a lot of work, then updating and releasing a famous distro on top of that was impressive.

jimbat 2y ago

Scientific Linux was originally a product of Fermilab, with contributions from CERN.