[communities] GGF Proposal Submission

[m.j.leese at dl.ac.uk]

proposers_name: Mark Leese 
 
affiliation: CCLRC - Daresbury Laboratory 

email: m.j.leese at dl.ac.uk 

proposed_title: Use of Web Services for NM Applications 

session_type: Extended individual presentation, followed by Q&A and discussion session 

proposed_duration: half-day 

target_audience: Novice/intermediate WS developers, technical managers 

num_attendees: 10 from NM-WG 

abstract: Marlon Pierce from the Community Grids Lab at Indiana University will present an overview of Web Services, covering both the basics of the technology and describing the steps required to make a generic service available as a Web Service.

To allow detailed WS questions, Marlon will then lead an open Q&A, before participating with NM-WG in a discussion of how Web Services can best be applied in the NM problem space to facilitate the collection and publication of NM data.

The session is aimed at anyone seeking to reinforce or expand their Web Services knowledge, or make use of the NM-WG schemata. 

synopsis: The session is being organised in response to a clear NM-WG need, but may be applicable to other GGF/GridWorld participants, such as other RG/WGs in the Infrastructure area, where development of Web Services is not the core business of the group.

In the last 12-18 months NM-WG have been developing and trialling means for automating requests for the collection of network measurement data, and the subsequent publication of that data. While the group has varied WS exposure, active group participants are in the main networking experts not software engineers, and need assistance in fast tracking development of their WS expertise so as to not distract from the group\'s core objectives.

To this end, Marlon Pierce from the Community Grids Lab at Indiana University has been recruited to participate in a half-day session designed to give some members the thorough overview they need (i.e. with detail beyond the common WS \"stock quote\" examples) whilst providing more proficient members with the opportunity to ask detailed and perhaps lengthy questions.

In more detail, the session will consist of:
1. Web Services overview (2-3 hrs)
   - overview of relevant terminology, concepts and techniques, in particular WSDL, SOAP bindings and notification services
   - case study: e.g. some arbitrary group has a database of data and XML schemas for requesting the data and returning it in an agreed format. How does the group take those items and turn them into a working, deployed Web Service - what are the steps involved?
2. Open Q&A (0.75 hrs)
3. Discussion (1 hr)
   - how can Web Services be best applied in the NM problem space to facilitate the collection and publication of NM data?

In summary the session is aimed at anyone who feels that they need more Web Services knowledge, and will aim to give a thorough overview of Web Services, whilst allowing participants to ask detailed (and perhaps lengthy) questions.
 

tech_requirements: One port of wired network access.  

prereq_participants: A basic understanding of XML. An appreciation of the top-level principles of Web Services would be helpful, e.g. Web Services communicate via XML (with different SOAP bindings available), WSDL defines the interfaces into/out of a Web Service etc.
 

advertise_suggestion: Email would seem the best form of advertising to GGF, either targeted at specific groups (e.g. using the Infrastructure area mailing list) or open to the wider GGF community (e.g. mentioned in the pre-GGF emails frequently sent to wg-all at ggf.org and grid-announce at ggf.org). Any additional advertising required for GridWorld is not an area I\'m familiar with.