meeting notes of APPS-RG from GGF13

[Thilo Kielmann]

Meeting of APPS-RG at GGF13, Seoul, Korea, March 15, 2005, 11:00-12:30

Notes taken by: Shantenu Jha, Thilo Kielmann

Agenda:

    * 0:00 Welcome, opening
    * 0:05 Status update
          o new charter approved
          o document GFD.39, "Workshop on Applications and Programming Tools"
	    has been published
          o other documents in the pipeline 
    * 0:20 Report from SAGA-RG: progress on simple Grid APIs
    * 0:30 Open microphone round:
      "Current issues of grid application developing and deployment?"
    * 1:15 Planning of future activities (e.g. workshops)
          o GGF14 (with Earth Observation community???)
          o GGF15 ??? 
    * 1:30 Adjourn 


Thilo Kielmann opens the session
GGF IPR policy is pointed out and sign-up sheet is circulated

Status update:

     new charter has been approved, group name has been adjusted to
     "application developers and users research group"

     This raises the questionamong the audience:
        - "What is an Application?"
     Do we need a tighter definition? Kind of consensus in the audience:
        - Application: Uses the Grid to get other things done.

Document writing:
          GGF12 workshop report now published as GFD39.
          We urgently need to initiate the other Workshop Reports
          Will start with GGF13


Report from SAGA-RG: progress on simple Grid APIs
Andre Merzky gives a short presentation on the progress made within SAGA-RG


Open microphone round:
      "Current issues of grid application developing and deployment?"

This is the so-called "Water Cooler Session" where people freely speak
up and tell what they are mostly concerend with (like at a company
water cooler)

The following statements try to catch what has been said. They are
personal statements, subject to inaccuracies of note taking.

Tomasz Haupt:
      not all users are the same, has diverse needs
      need infrastructure that is stable
      have an interface that hides the changing stuff
         i.e., similar to SAGA

Pascal Kleijer: quick implementation is critical
	    If SAGA can provide the interface	
	       then use as a black-box will help
	
	    users don't want to change their code
	    therefore need non-mutating wrappers
	    (i.e. clean wrapper)

	    Grid Added value: seamless use of remote resources

Tom Goodale: "Currently don't find the grid useful at all"
           lack of stability and consistency main problems

	  parallel environments: a stable one + a development
                                 (like production and development)
	
	  Basic s/w and system adminstration paradigms not followed
	  Production Quality S/W Required.
	
	
Couple of first time users: (names unknown)	
     government & business users
     in business important to have stable environment

Commonality b/w DRMAA and SAGA?
	     relationshp b/w such different API's?
	     common look and feel

NII  users: interactivity & easier usage

KISTI user: how long will we have to wait for services like SAGA?

       T.Goodale: 6-12 months.


Pascal K.: industry needs quick solutions
	and are proceeding to have "solutions without standards"
	
A.Merzky: "solutions w/o standards" isn't Grid Computing

GGF Steering Group member: Need to strike a balance b/w
rapid development and deployment and standardization

       2 "speeds" levels :
        - Speed of deployment
        - speed of integration of code & Usage

        low level integration is most susceptible to change

        as a user, fault tolerance is ususal hence Open Science
        Grid build a few simple services which are Robust
        and build others on top of it.

        Suggestion: Demos are useful

Planning of future APPS-RG activities:

        Production Grid Management:

        APPS-RG is seen (by some) as the flagship of community building
        APPS-RG has been approached for a "community panel" track for GGF14
        as part of GGF's reorganization, user communities shall be strengthened

        track at GGF14 will use existing groups and their results

        question from the audience: APPS-RG's umbrella function?
          (currently not addressed, for near future)

        possible future workshop topics:
          - Grid-Rel maybe a group to interact with

        TK: prod grid testing, usability
            (seems to be a 'hot topic' as mentioned in the waer cooler session)
            will approach PGM-RG to discuss a possible joint workshop



meeting adjourned as the agenda had been handled completely