[saga-rg] Fwd (s.newhouse at omii.ac.uk): Re: SAGA - WG?

[Craig Lee]

All,

First of all, allow me to say that this is a good problem to have.
The fact that the GFSG is considering whether SAGA should
be one WG or an umbrella RG for multiple WGs means that
people view it as important.

My personal opinion is that the SAGA-RG could continue as
this umbrella organization, but to follow through with the
original SAGA intent, an initial WG should be formed that is
focused on _S_AGA.  To emphasize the _simple_ in
SAGA I keep coming back to the analogy of "the six calls
in MPI".  Whether the current SAGA API is simple enough
is separate discussion.  In any case, the API should be
(a) minimally complete, (b) easy for implementers to implement
and (c) easy for new grid users to use.

As long as the umbrella SAGA-RG persists, it can consider
issues of enhancing the API in various functional areas,
e.g., data movement, and also establishing a common
look-and-feel across them all.  WGs could be spun-off
as necessary.

Just my 2 cents.

--Craig

At 10:13 AM 1/24/2006, Andre Merzky wrote:
>Dear group,
>
>as you know, we are currently in transition from a GGF
>Research Group to a GGF Working Group, which will enable
>us to submit documents into the standardization track.
>The last action from our side was to submit the proposed
>WG charter to our Area Directors (Steven and Dieter), and
>wait for the last step in the process, the GFSG approval of
>that charter.
>
>Below you find the answer we got from the GFSG.  I know
>people will have strong opinions about that, both positive
>and negative (well, certainly I do anyway :-P ), so we would
>like to discuss the GFSG answer on this list.  It would be
>favourable to come to a group internal conclusion, and a
>solid opinion, about the groups future before GGF16 - that
>means within the next two weeks.
>
>Best regards,
>
>   your friendly group chairs ;-)
>
>
>
>----- Forwarded message from Steven Newhouse <s.newhouse at omii.ac.uk> -----
>
> > Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 07:38:45 +0000
> > From: Steven Newhouse <s.newhouse at omii.ac.uk>
> > To: Andre Merzky <andre at merzky.net>, Shantenu Jha <s.jha at ucl.ac.uk>,
> >       Tom Goodale <goodale at cct.lsu.edu>
> > CC: Dieter Kranzlmueller <dk at gup.jku.at>
> > Subject: Re: SAGA - WG?
> >
> > Dear Andre, Shantenu & Tom,
> >
> > At the GFSG meeting last week, there was a general discussion as to how
> > GFSG should/could steer the standards areas to increase the impact of
> > GGF. One of the discussions related to the Applications area and how we
> > (as Area Directors) could help to structure the activity to align work
> > with activities in the Architecture (i.e. OGSA) area.
> >
> > There was considerable interest from the rest of the GFSG in the SAGA
> > activities and the potential uptake that the generation of stable
> > client-side interfaces (and potentially command line tools that build on
> > these interfaces) could provide. The GFSG saw SAGA-RG as an important
> > step forward for grids being adopted by the wider community.
> >
> > That's the good news!
> >
> > We mentioned the pending SAGA-WG charter and that this was the next step
> > to move things forward. Some concern was expressed about focus and broad
> > scope. Especially as other domains would like to bring forward their own
> > domains (data access, data movement, etc) for client side API
> > standardisation.
> >
> > One proposed solution to this is that SAGA-RG stays as it is. It is
> > doing very valuable work collecting use cases, developing the strawman
> > API that supports these use cases and discussing implementation issues
> > through real experience. However, clearly there are elements within the
> > strawman that are ready to move to the next level.
> >
> > It is proposed that these aspects should be developed as standalone WG's
> > starting with a common look and feel, and then picking up on (say) jobs
> > & file movement to drive some domain specific applications of the common
> > look and feel. The result would be an umbrella-RG (SAGA) with a set of
> > coupled WGs for the different aspects.
> >
> > So there are two ways forward - you have _our_ support which ever way
> > _you_ choose to go forward.
> >
> > If you go forward with then the current charter then you will need to be
> > explicit as to which areas you will be doing (to allow space for other
> > WG's to come forward), i.e. you need to define your API scope. Elements
> > of the API will change at different rates and putting this all into one
> > specification adds to its complexity. Small tightly focussed
> > specifications have had much greater success within GGF. This may be
> > something else to consider.
> >
> > As a conclusion we hope that you will think about this great opportunity
> > to take the responsibility for the bigger picture, and that you will
> > adapt your plans accordingly from this feedback. We would certainly be
> > available to support you in this quest. At the same time, it has also
> > been agreed to continue the regular bit-flipping procedure with your
> > charter, should you insist on your currently proposed approach.
> >
> > Steven & Dieter
>--
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
>| Andre Merzky                      | phon: +31 - 20 - 598 - 7759 |
>| Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) | fax : +31 - 20 - 598 - 7653 |
>| Dept. of Computer Science         | mail: merzky at cs.vu.nl       |
>| De Boelelaan 1083a                | www:  http://www.merzky.net |
>| 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands    |                             |
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------+