Management Board Meeting of 28th August 2003

Status Report on Earned Value Management (EVM)
J. Ferguson, the EVM Project Leader, announced good progress with EVM reporting, noting that reports had been received for 86% of the 2500 work units incorporated in the reporting cycle. The data was now considered to be relatively stable, and any modifications to work units would be subject to strict control. To date, the total planned value on approved budget codes was within 0.2% (4.7 MCHF) of the total LHC cost to completion, which took account of the latest contract price revisions.
In recent months considerable efforts had been invested in the contract alignment tool to allow the transfer of the latest EVM data to the financial database (under the control of Finance Division) to ensure an accurate expenditure profile and consistent financial planning. A second demonstration of the tool to members of the Finance Division, the LHC Budget Planning Office and the DPOs concerned was scheduled for 1st September. Some 90% of the work on integrating the special contributions from non-Member States had now been completed, although a few issues remained to be resolved. A draft version of the first EVM-based status report to the Finance Committee, due to be presented at its September 2003 meeting, had been prepared and would be finalised early the following week, based on the data available as at 1st September. An EVM report would also be presented to the LHC Cost and Schedule Review Committee.
The Management Board expressed satisfaction at the progress made and thanked the EVM team and everyone involved for their efforts.

Consolidation Programme Proposal to be Submitted to the Finance Committee
The Director-General recalled that, in the context of the discussion on the medium-term plan at the June meetings of the Finance Committee and Council, the delegations' attention had been drawn to the absence of any systematic consolidation for many years owing to budgetary pressures and to the fact that the in-depth reviews carried out in 2002 had shown the need to renovate several items of infrastructure to ensure the satisfactory performance of the LHC machine. The Management had identified some resources in the 2002 materials budget margin for a minimum consolidation programme focussed on LHC needs and had agreed to submit a detailed programme to the Finance Committee in September 2003.
Under the Management's draft proposal, the 32 MCHF available from the 2002 materials margin, namely the difference between the 2% indexation assumption and the CVI granted by the Council, would be allocated to urgent consolidation over the years 2004 and 2005. On the basis of a detailed study of all requests for consolidation during the summer, it was proposed to allocate a total budget of 9.6 MCHF to consolidation of the PS and SPS injector complex and 1.4 MCHF to renovation of the computer centre; the remaining 21 MCHF would be used to replace essential infrastructure needed for the LHC proper, including cooling and ventilation equipment, water distribution systems, fire-fighting installations, safety systems and miscellaneous minor repairs and refurbishment in the LHC tunnel. The Director-General underlined that, despite those measures, the overall level of consolidation remained too low for the Laboratory to operate correctly in the long term and that a detailed plan of consolidation would need to be implemented after LHC commissioning.

Progress Report on LS Recruitment
The Director of Administration, J. van der Boon, presented progress on the transfer to Field Support Units of activities previously covered by the industrial support contracts S072 and S073, together with details of the impact of Local Staff on the industrial services expenditure ceiling in 2004, noting that the 2004 preliminary draft budget for industrial services was within the framework of the relevant savings plan and the baseline plan for 2003-2010. Phase I of the LS recruitment exercise concerning technicians and mechanics was now in full swing and on track for completion by the end of the year, with vacancy notices for 86 of the 95 posts concerned already having been published. The publication of LS vacancies for administrative staff (Phase II) would begin in November.
Reporting on Phase I, W. Zapf, Leader of the HR Division, noted that all vacancies had been published on the web, that two small advertisements had been placed in local Swiss and French newspapers and that local recruitment agencies had also been contacted. The selection boards, which would take place towards the end of September, would cover several vacancies wherever possible, and a series of briefing sessions had already been organised for the members. Both internal and external applicants would be invited to the boards, and all candidates would be required to undergo tests.

Update on Spam
W. von R den, Leader of the IT Division, reported on the growing problem of unsolicited junk e-mail or "spam" and the measures being taken to deal with it. Spam presently accounted for around 37% of all e-mail in Europe and a massive 74% in the United States. Having reviewed the anti-spam products available commercially and concluded that they did not meet CERN's requirements, the IT Division had developed its own anti-spam filter, which had been running for a year and demanded little manpower now that the initial development and test phase was over. The filter worked by analysing incoming mail, calculating the probability of its being spam and moving messages identified as such to a special folder; users were able to select the probability threshold at which they wished messages to be rejected and were encouraged to check the folder occasionally for any incorrectly identified messages before deleting its contents. Although the system was proving quite efficient, with only a small fraction of spam mail slipping through the filter into users' inboxes, new techniques were regularly tested and evaluated with a view to improving it. Pending the availability of an effective commercial product with a central anti-spam configuration and live update feature, the key to the fight against spam lay in joining forces with other organisations in order to enlarge the database of statistics and patterns on which the filter was based.

Update on Computer Security
W. von R den then reported on the issue of computer security. He noted that, although attacks by computer worms and viruses were by no means a new phenomenon, they were becoming increasingly sophisticated and destructive, causing untold problems for businesses, organisations and individual users throughout the world. Outlining the actions taken by IT Division in response to the latest case, known as the Blaster Worm, he explained that an urgent security patch had been applied rapidly to all 5200 or so centrally managed PCs and that owners of other machines had been requested to ensure that it was installed. However, in spite of repeated reminders, some 200 Windows systems had remained vulnerable and, to avoid the risk of such systems launching attacks themselves and bringing down all or part of the network, they had had to be disconnected. Given that many insecure machines were connecting from home via ACB (Automatic Call Back) or VPN (Virtual Private Network), access to the CERN intranet via those systems had also been temporarily restricted.
Pointing out that the essential problem lay in the more than 500 individually managed machines on the CERN network, for which the security team had no means of enforcing patches or other means of virus protection, he listed a number of ways of avoiding difficulties in the future. For example, divisions were urged to move as many machines as possible to the centrally managed service, appoint persons who could be contacted in the event of security alerts, ensure that those in charge of machines were able to apply patches, and make sure that the network database was updated whenever computers moved or changed owner. It was also proposed to enforce hardware address registration for all on-site computers using DHCP, including those of short-term visitors, establish a quick response procedure for dealing with future emergencies and, given the significant security threat posed by the ACB service, move towards a solution involving Internet Service Providers with whom special conditions could be negotiated.
The Management Board endorsed the above proposals and thanked the IT security team and all those involved for their efficient handling of the latest virus attacks, which had enabled CERN to work virtually as normal while many other sites had been completely disabled.

Road-safety Awareness Days
The Leader of the TIS Division, W. Weingarten, announced that two road-safety awareness days would be held on CERN's Meyrin and Prévessin sites on 23 and 25 September respectively. The programme, in which representatives of the Host State police forces and road safety bodies, the CERN cycling club and various CERN divisions would be involved, would include exhibitions, presentations and demonstrations. The awareness days were part of the general road safety campaign launched in 2002, which had focussed on courtesy to other road users, cyclists, parking and pedestrian safety.