[DAIS-WG] DAIS Telcon Minutes

[Mario Antonioletti]

DAIS Telcon - 27 March 2008
===========================

Attendees:
 	Mario Antonioletti, EPCC
 	Dave Pearson, Oracle
 	Isao Kojima, AIST
 	Said Mirza, AIST
 	Miguel Esteban Gutierrez, UPM
 	Andre Merzky, LSU

Agenda:

   - Summary of OGF DAIS Session
   - Rechartering to cover RDF work
   - Provision of SAGA API use cases
   - RDF/RDF(S) progress
   - RDF/RDF(S) paper (though this will be too late for a call)
   - Socialising the RDF/RDF(S) specs
   - DAIX issues arising from OGF22
   - Coordinating DAIS implementations

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Actions:

[Mario] Check that Isao has Admin privileges for the DAIS GridForge account.
[Isao]  Add the proposed RDF work to the DAIS charter with deliverables and
         notify once this is done.
[Mario] Make some additional modifications and then submit for AD approval.
[All]   Come with use case examples for SAGA. Templates sent to the mailing
         list by Andre:

         http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/dais-wg/2008-February/000231.html

[Andre] Send out example APIs for files.
[Miguel] Post DAIS spec issues to the list.
[Mario] Collect existing spec issues in one location.
[Mario] Try to coordinate existing DAIS implementations.

- Summary of OGF

Mario gave a brief summary of OGF - basically attendance was pretty
poor with only the OGF folks involved plus one other.  There were
another two that came and went who did not sign the sheet. Aside from
that the meeting turned out to be very productive with a discussion
about the DAIX implementation work and issues that have arisen about
the DAIX spec from these from Edinburgh and Ohio. The meeting turned
into a face-to-face and there was a lot of discussion to the point 
where the session over run.

Others that were present agreed with the summary and thought the
session had been very productive.

Also had a joint session with the SAGA folk who are going to try to
develop a SAGA API for databases.

- Rechartering to cover RDF work

Mario noted that the current RDF work was not in the charter.  There
was an internal mail discussion with David Martin regarding process -
David thought that it might be worthwhile possibly spinning off the
RDF work on to a separate group to try and get more interest. However,
it was pointed out that previous discussions at OGF had reached
consensus that the RDF work should stay within DAIS. It would be
folly to try and spin this work out now that it is near completion.

Mario and Isao to re-charter.

- Provision of SAGA API use cases

Dave asked about why SAGA required use cases. Andre replied that they
do not have general use cases for using databases which is why they
are looking for input from DAIS.

It is not required for the whole of the SAGA use case template - the
most important section is on what an API should look like.  It would
be nice to have something for the next OGF.  Once a use case is
completed it should be circulated to the SAGA & DAIS mailing lists.
Dave will try to see if he can also provide any use cases.

SAGA API would probably treat queries as opaque strings - what is of
interest is what else is required in such an API - this is unclear in
SAGA.

Dave asked if any standards/guidelines already existed for APIs - it
would useful to distribute those - Andre said they have lots but which
do not include databases - Andre will send example APIs for files
which is the closest they have to a data API.

- RDF/RDF(S) specifications progress

Ontology spec R- DF(S):

There have only been 2 weeks worth of work done - so not much progress
since the last OGF.  A lot of time has been spent finishing and
polishing off the paper submitted to the OGF call. It took 2 weeks to
change everything and polish. The outstanding issues - have looked at
the missing configuration properties before including them in the
draft.

Query spec - RDF:

Updating the spec - but have not finished yet. Now basing it on the
glossary of terms - hope to be done by done the beginning of
April. Changing the motivational document. Hope to finish that over
the same time period as well.

- RDF/RDF(S) paper

Paper submitted on the 15th of March. Paper to go in to a review
process. Should know by the end of April.

- Socialising the RDF/RDF(S) specs

Mario suggested writing articles for newsletter: could try to publish
abridged stuff from the paper on to the NeSC, OMII-UK, etc
newsletters. Miguel is involved in Admire and will try to re-use stuff
form the RDF project.  Need to attend conferences - write papers, have
not published many things. Miguel will try to have a look at
newsletter.

AIST are thinking about how to do this as well.

Dave Pearson is also trying to disseminate the RDF work - whenever he
gives a presentations he mentions this work and gives references to
the pertinent documents.

- DAIX issues arising from OGF22

Should try to collect the information discussed at the OGF session.
Miguel talked to Elias about XQuery issues. Try to do experiments to
see if there are issues.

- Coordinating DAIS implementations

Have had various offers to do DAIR implementations: OGSA-DAI, AMGA
and GRelC. There is also another project that claims to have a DAIR
implementation that Mario needs to chase up. OGSA-DAI have almost 
finished a DAIX implementation - need to persuade someone else to
do one or try to cajole the Ohio folks back to finish off their 
implementation.

UPM will do a full implementation of the RDF implementations in
mid-April, extra people are coming to the group so they will have the
manpower to do both implementations.

AIST have an implementation of the query spec - based on OGSA-DAI. They
will also try do an ontology implementation also based on
OGSA-DAI. Question is what number of profiles need to be implemented.

Mario suggested possibly splitting the RDF(S) profiles into separate
documents which would make it easier to manage implementations and
make the document more palatable.

- AOB

Dave and Miguel suggested having themed calls as opposed one that
tries to cover too much stuff. Could then have a call that deals with
the implementations as opposed to RDF, etc.

Shall try to have a call in about 2 weeks time.

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|Mario Antonioletti:EPCC,JCMB,The King's Buildings,Edinburgh EH9 3JZ.   |
|Tel:0131 650 5141|mario at epcc.ed.ac.uk|http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/~mario/ |
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