[wg-all] Suggestions for OGF19 and OGF20 Software Providers Presentations

[Joel Replogle]

All - The following is a call for a new Software Provider initiative  
from Geoffrey Fox, VP of eScience:

A highlight of OGF19 and OGF20 will be an eScience Software Providers  
track whose rationale is eloquently described by Charlie Catlett --  
who originally suggested it - below. We expect about 3 days at OGF19  
and 2 days at the rather busier OGF20 for this track. The track will  
feature the developers of core software that has broad use or  
interest among Grid systems. The audience will typically be those  
that are building Grids e.g. Charlie can send his staff to capture in  
one place a set of user forums on the software used to build  
TeraGrid. We expect the track to be interesting to both Enterprise  
and Standards as well; the software in this track should be major  
consumers of OGF standards. We have invited so far 11 such Grid  
software developers to OGF19 as listed below and we ask for your  
suggestions on the omissions we have surely made; what core software  
is broadly used and should be invited? In particular should we have  
commercial vendors as well?
Please send any suggestions to Geoffrey Fox <gcf at indiana.edu>
Thank you

Condor Scheduling system
Genesis II OGSA Grid Infrastructure (Grimshaw)
Globus core Grid Infrastructure
Grid-Shib Grid security
GridSphere portlet container for portals
Ninf-G core Grid RPC Infrastructure
NWS and BQP Network/Queuing Tools (Rich Wolski)
OGCE Open Grid Computing Environments collection of portlets (for  
Science Gateways)
OMII core Grid infrastructure (includes OGSA-DAI and Taverna)
SRB data Grid infrastructure
Unicore core Grid infrastructure

Each software system will be allocated one or occasionally two 90  
minute sessions.



Excerpts from
Charlie Catlett's description of the new Software Providers Track
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Friends-

I am sure I've left someone out (sorry), but wanted to send a note to
those of us who are trying to build grids out of our own and other
peoples' tools, which often means we are selecting and integrating
software, supporting it, in some cases packaging it in things like VDT,
gLite, OMII products or CTSS.

As we have worked together on the GIN project this year I think one
lesson is that having software providers work with us as a collective
group of consumers would be useful to us as well as to them.

A number of us in OGF (formerly GGF) have grown concerned about the fact
that there is not a convenient way for our software providers and
ourselves (their customers) to interact regularly and substantively. As
importantly, OGF meetings do not seem to inspire the kind of
Grid-to-Grid collaborations (solving common problems, as we are all
doing) that we originally envisioned 8 years ago (yes, 8!) when we first
proposed such a forum to the community. Yes, the Globus folks have their
Globus World and the Condor folks have their Condor Week, but there are
many other packages we use that have no such events, and if they did
would we send people to a dozen of them a year? (I think not)

I wanted to give you a heads up that Geoffrey Fox and several others of
us from the OGF steering group are going to try to experiment with a
"software provider forum" at OGF-19 in North Carolina at the end of
January. This is meant for groups like us who use perhaps a dozen
packages from as many providers - we want to bring them together for
mini "customer groups" (I say customer, meaning us, rather than user,
which we generally think of as the end-user who is our customer).

What does "provider of software" mean? I'm glad you asked. The sessions
are meant for people who already have software packages used by projects
like ours. Having a session does not in any way imply an endorsement by
OGF (or anyone else). Some providers may choose to ask for sessions to
try to sell wares, but that is a risky move on their part, as people not
in a shopping mood may walk out, but then again maybe people want to
hear what XYZ's software might do for them.

The sessions are *not* meant for us, even though some of us are in a
sense "suppliers" of things I listed in the opening paragraph. If we
want to have that kind of session with our users we should think about
how to do that, but if we try to do it at the same time as our providers
then we'll miss out on interacting with them (and with our fellow
consumers of their software).

Feel free to pass this note on as a heads up to anyone who is in our
shoes - trying to build grids out of collections of software packages.
Also, I plan to encourage TeraGrid sites system administrators and
software leaders to participate in these sessions at OGF-19 and I hope
you will do the same. Not because I care how many people show up in
North Carolina for a head count (I don't care about that, actually), but
because I want my software people to interact with their counterparts in
your projects.

If this is successful at OGF-19 we will encourage OGF to keep doing it.
But for now call it an experiment.

Best Regards-
CeC

--:
: Geoffrey Fox  gcf at indiana.edu FAX 8128567972 http://www.infomall.org
: Phones Cell 812-219-4643 Home 8123239196 Lab 8128567977
: SkypeIn 812-669-0772 with voicemail, International cell 8123910207