[SAGA-RG] OGF 18 - SAGA Minutes

[Craig Lee]

All,

I did talk to Hanoch Eiron (OGF's new VP of Marketing) about SAGA.
The OGF plan is to produce a Grid Landscape document (this is separate
from the TSC Technical Roadmap doc) that identifies how OGF (and its
work results) fits into the technical marketplace, etc.  I specifically 
suggested
to Hanoch that we include SAGA in that Landscape document.  We should
defintely have some follow-up conversations with him.

On a more technical note, GridSolve will be developing the data handles
concept for its use.  Perhaps we can have a discussion about GridRPC+DHs
and SAGA at OGF-19?  Given that GridSolve/NetSolve has a GridRPC
API at this point, and that SAGA has a GridRPC class, it might also be
useful to think about how things like security and discovery are handled
in various implementations (and exposed to the user).

--Craig


At 06:34 AM 9/19/2006, Pascal Kleijer wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>Here are the minutes of the two sessions held at OGF in Washington DC.
>
>**********************************************************************
>
>Session: SAGA I
>Time: Tuesday 12 September 2006, 10:00-11:30 AM
>Place: Washington Convention Center - Room 155
>Attendees: ~15
>Steering: Shantenu Jha
>Notes: Pascal Kleijer
>Phone: Andre Merzky
>
>Administration:
>---------------
>IPR
>SAGA Status and history for newbie.
>State of the RG and the WG, API v1.0 submission after GGF 18.
>
>SAGA Look & Feel:
>-----------------
>Andre: Simple and quick overview of the Look and Feel (L&F) aspects of the 
>specification. What is in and what not.
>
>Ron: Does Java implementation interacts with GT4?
>Andre: CoG might be interacting but GT4 is not indented.
>Shantenu: Might be in the future by some group in the UK.
>
>Andre: Brief explanation of the slides. A more detailed explanation of the 
>Interface & Class hierarchy. Discussion first focuses on the L&F, and then 
>the functional API.
>
>Q: Where is the document in Grid forge?
>A: The SAGA-Core-WG documents section should contain it; it is found in 
>the SAGA-RG documents section.
>TODO: Synchronize both projects in Grid forge to cross point the relevant 
>documents.
>
>Q: What happens if a method in the specification doesn't have an 
>underlying implementation?
>A: Then the implementation is not compliant with the spec.
>Q: What then?
>A: We can throw an exception. This is in the spec document, the General 
>Discussion section.
>
>Q: Discussion of the BES state model and SAGA is there compatibility? A: 
>yes, there are some additional states.
>
>Discussion of COMPLIANT but INCOMPLETE, NOT COMPLIANT. Can be found in the 
>document.
>
>Q: L&F is not an appropriate name; something better (bit mis-leading)?
>R: "Foundation" or "Principle" might be a better? Needs to think about it! 
>One proposal is to replace it with 'Principles of Foundations'
>TODO: Fire this issue on the ML for future discussion.
>
>Q: Can we break down into namespace or blocks to support sub-sets to be 
>implemented? This could allow partial implementation.
>R: Yes this is already possible even if there is no clear namespace 
>definition.
>
>TODO: Andrew Grimshaw pointed: SAGA should send experiences to OGF SC 
>about compliance.
>
>TODO: FIXME must be removed before the document is sent to the OGF SC.
>
>Q: Is this document supposed to help the developer or make then have head 
>aches?
>R: No we try to help them as much as we can.
>
>TODO: Get feedback is important to improve it, seek feedback as much as 
>possible.
>
>Q: What middleware is supposed to be supported?
>R: C++ version should support GT4 in the future.
>e.g., OMII implementation supports their stack, though that might not be 
>so in the future.
>Remark: Vendors support needed to develop bindings to their platform.
>Andrew Grimshaw: Go to customers, all vendors were involved.
>
>This is a problem that OGF in general has to help tackle. It is not only a 
>SAGA task. OGF SC needs to get involved as well.
>
>Why not use the MPI model? Take the vendors together, it that feasible 
>right now?
>
>Customer: Stable API is a must, possibility to switch between implementations.
>
>SAS representative: Will be useful if it provides all functionality
>(i.e., don't want to have to depend on different APIs). Equally don't want 
>statically linked libraries!
>
>Go directly to the customers (e.g., Banks, Boeing, TeraGrid...), not just 
>vendor, to ask them if they need it and how they need it. Use the 
>customers to push ISV to support SAGA.
>
>TODO: Shantenu Jha needs to take contact with several people for future 
>discussions. Business card taken: SAS, Intel, Qualcomm & GSI
>
>Chris: better framework to help quick implementation for sub-sets of the 
>API. Platform could focus on the just Job Mgmt
>
>Adoption:
>---------
>Steven: SAGA should be pushed in the OGF technical strategy committee 
>(document in the pipeline). See the TSC.
>- SAGA finds important mention in the OGFs Tech Strategy committe
>
>Q: SAGA in GIN?
>A: Steven Newhouse mentions that there is considerable debate ongoing
>
>Marketing material to promote SAGA is a necessity to make it pushed 
>forward. It should not be an API technical document for developers but a 
>manager type document.
>
>Q: Who should SAGA approach first: Vendor, Customer or ISV?
>
>EGEE Earth science at the Frauenhofer Institute (SCAI) is interested in 
>testing SAGA.
>
>TODO: Seek contact with them to see what can be done.
>
>Andre: GT4, EGEE (gLight), NAREGI, etc. (big projects) should provide a 
>binding to help push the project.
>
>
>Steven: SAGA is client side stuff thus we should promote that in the 
>marketing.
>
>(SAS) provide a new use case about their needs. Grid Monitoring is 
>important to them.
>
>TODO: Send use case canvas to them (Shantenu Jha)
>
>Next session expectations:
>* Streaming
>* Messaging
>* Next step
>* Marketing material
>
>There were offline discussions with SAS representative and with RAL 
>representative about information services.
>
>Session closed at 11h30.
>
>**********************************************************************
>
>**********************************************************************
>
>Session: SAGA II
>Time: Tuesday 12 September 2006, 13:30-15:00 PM
>Place: Washington Convention Center - Room 155
>Attendees: ~12
>Steering: Shantenu Jha
>Notes: Pascal Kleijer
>Phone: Andre Merzky
>
>Administration:
>---------------
>Agenda Bashing
>IPR
>Session rescheduling
>
>Streaming:
>----------
>Remark: Typo in section 3.12 GWD-R.72: "627" at the intro of the paragraph.
>
>Q: Juelich VISIT group, in their implementation wants to explore 
>extensions in the stream API.
>R: Some can be covered in the messaging API.
>
>Q: Is their any group using the API?
>R: Yes at LSU is working on visualization apps using the streams.
>
>Their use case did not cover their new needs. SSH tunneling might be 
>necessary inn the future.
>
>TODO: Juelich can be put in contact directly with John Shalf for more 
>details and getting things moving on.
>Update: Done (Shantenu Jha)
>
>Messaging:
>----------
>Intro from Andre about this API.
>
>Q: Did the API solve the visualization uses cases?
>R: Yes it did. Large messages support causes some problems at the 
>implementation level but manageable.
>
>Q: How can we do bi-directional streaming through one tunnel?
>R: This is an implementation issue. The API doesn't care.
>
>Q: Any thoughts on this?
>TODO: Put things on the ML for more detailed feedback. Clean up stuff then 
>post.
>
>Next Step:
>----------
>Platform: Symphony presentation at GGF 17. Platform is looking for an API 
>for their product (Symphony).
>
>Q: Is any other person interesting in this extension? Possible solution is 
>working on the SAGA L&F from Platform side.
>
>Q: Performance important?
>R: Important to critical.
>TODO: Remind Chris to post his proposal on the ML before the next call.
>
>Marketing:
>----------
>TODO: get contact with Steven Newhouse and Andrew Grimshaw about what to 
>put in the next marketing material flier. Pascal takes the job.
>
>CPR:
>----
>Quick overview of what it is!
>TODO: Send CPR document to the SAGA ML (Derek's job).
>Update: Done
>Closing Remarks: Any contribution for getting the SAGA out to the outside 
>is welcome.
>
>Session close at 14:30.
>
>**********************************************************************
>
>k-pasukaru at ap.jp.nec.com
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