[tc-rg] Research Group Updates

[Andrew Martin]

Dear all,

Happy New Year!

This list has been quiet for a while, I know.  I'm pleased to say that 
just before Christmas we uploaded to GridForge a draft of our Use Case 
document.  The URL seems to be:

https://forge.gridforum.org/docman2/ViewProperties.php?group_id=158&category_id=1051&document_content_id=4958

[I seem to be able to view that without being logged-in. I hope you can, 
too.]

There are a few obvious gaps; I'm sure there is much more to be said, 
too.  See this as a straw man document.  Please feel free to discuss it 
on this list.  Please do come to GGF-16 where we will have a tc-rg 
session to discuss this, and also to hear about some good progress from 
Wenbo's side of things.


Also, at GGF-16 we have applied to hold an ad hoc BoF on the subject of 
virtualisation.  Many of the deployment scenarios for Trusted Platforms 
envisage use of virtualised machines as a unit of assurance, for 
ensuring isolation among processes which must not interact.  Such 
technologies (in the commercial arena, VMWare; in open source, Xen; and 
so on) are becoming commonplace and clearly have many applications in 
grids --- for security, job mobility, dynamic provisioning, and more. 
The objective of the BoF is to find out what is being done in this area, 
and to make sure there's no undue divergence of plans.  There's no 
intention at this stage of forming an ongoing group in GGF, but some 
clear direction may emerge.

If you are using virtualisation technologies, or plan to, please 
contribute to the BoF.  If you would like to give a short talk --- or 
just stand up and say a few words --- or know someone who would, please 
(tell them to) get in touch with me.

Best wishes

Andrew