Initial 1-hour
meeting, 3/22/00
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Covered the working description of the group
developed last meeting. Asked for comments from
old and new attendees. Consensus was to leave
the description unchanged.
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Jim Ferguson volunteered as Secretary.
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Covered the working set of goals. Three goals are 1) Identify services and tools for
support staff and end-users; 2) Build a clearinghouse containing information
about the grid; 3) Assume role as support staff/end-user advocate.
Discussion
of goals: Perhaps we should add as a goal to have
liaisons with each of the other groups. We had
volunteers last meeting but no list was made. Added
fourth goal of “Create liaison roles to GF WGs”.
Volunteers taken to serve as liasons--
Account management:
Steve Quinn
Apps & Tools: Chuck
Niggley
Information: Sarita
Salm
Grid Performance:
Security: George
Myers
Programming Models:
Scheduling:
Remote Data Access:
Jim Ferguson
General discussion
on some specific things that we might want to do, but sort of outside the
role a goal list and more into projects. Also,
how do we “roll out” or publicize the services now available, including training
and individual project bootstrapping. Added “evangelize
GF externally” to third goal.
Discussed
adding user interfaces/portals to our goals somehow.
User Services needs to influence some of the content included
in user portals now being developed. A suggestion
was made that we need to step back first and perhaps do a “glossary” of some
sort to help educate newer grid users. For some
definitions we would have to do an RFC type document, since there would be
some disagreement among the “best” definition for various term we netheads
use. An RFC or definition of what is “highly
desirable” in a user portal from user services point of view should be discussed.
Collecting
support models from different communities was thought to be useful, perhaps
pointing toward an informational RFC. How PACI
partners, NASA, DoE, etc. support their users should be conglomerated and
sifted for common elements.
Another comment
was made that the User Services WG should be the main conduit for finding
the means to get information to the external world.
This might be what we do with the Clearinghouse, which is noted
under goal #2. At least the information will be
at home there. Workshops, etc., would not be
originated with the GF (at least initially), but might be promoted or jointly
sponsored, etc. George Brett described the NLANR
Clearinghouse project that he is heading.
Day #2 agenda
was presented. There was a suggestion of monthly
teleconferences to discuss progress and raise issues amongst group.
March
23, 2000, Extended Meeting
Attending: Rita
Williams(co-chair), John Towns(co-chair), Jim Ferguson, George Brett, Steve
Quinn, Glenn Bresnahan, Laura Nett-Carrington, Chuck Niggley, George Myers,
Greg Cates, Sarita Salm, Ethan Alpert, Judith Utley, Mark Trobian, Aon Tesani,
Aram Kevorkian, Ed Hanna, Keith Thompson, Leigh Ann Tanner, Sridhar Gullapalli
Rita recapped
our group description and goals. Went over agenda:
Charlie Catlett added: Do we need a User Services WG?
Outline work needed
to be done for each of the goals
Define a deliverable
for each of the goals
Roll up the outlined
work and deliverable for each goals into a task area
Do we need
a WG for User Services? Spirited debate for over
one hour.
Charlie C. pointed
out that perhaps we in the User Services need to be more deeply involved in
the other working groups, to the point of giving up the “working group” title/function
for User Services. This might be done by providing
an alternate forum for this group to get together to allow the member to
spread out into the other working groups. This
would be a way to be involved in all the other WG, and still come together
to do specific User Services tasks we want to accomplish.
J.Towns opined that none of the goals outlined the previous
day were so imperative that we should sacrifice the opportunity to participate
in all of the other WG as user advocates. Also
we would keep a role as reviewer of other WG RFC’s to provide comment from
the user perspective. R.Williams agreed
with the points put forth by Catlett and Towns, but pointed out that User
Services as a venue for solving users’ problems and solving support tools
issues for support staff is quite important as well.
G.Brett talked about higher education users waiting for things
to come together from the Grid Builders and waiting to jump in. He says to expect an exponential increase in less
sophisticated Grid users soon after many of the pieces go into place for
using the Grid effectively. Williams does not
think we can do both—getting involved w/other WG and focused User Services
issues. Another opinion put forward was that perhaps
these two activities are separated, as in pre-production and production. S.Salm pointed out that a User Services function is
needed even in pre-production to report back problems with the early release
of the Grid environment. Towns put forth that
we are not a Grid US Organization for all grids, but a loose organization
that would share experiences. S.Quinn said that
we should lay out a framework for reporting and interacting with each other’s
individual grids. Catlett indicated that he thinks
the Grid Forum user services people are not here to sharpen their user services
skills or methods, but to learn how the Grid World works at the development
level in the other WG’s. Williams pointed out
that you need to address the user services issues before the Grid goes “production”,
and Catlett agreed, but felt user services people needed to have a better
understanding of the underlying technology to address the user services
issues.
Catlett pointed
out that many persons even in HPC centers have little idea of what the Grid
will mean to their future work. Another participant
suggested that the user services WG be in a position to educate new contributors
to the Grid Forum. Catlett pointed out that there
are no current consultants answering phone at HPC centers that have used
Grids, like they have used HPC. Towns suggested
we still need to meet outside the other WG’s, to exchange information and
perhaps create recommendations to each WG on which directions they need to
go to assist users in making the Grid easier to use.
Williams worries about our recommendation having “teeth” with
the other working group chairs. Catlett pointed
out that the recommendations would be better received if the person was working
within the group to begin with, and perhaps shouldn’t be the reason we get
together. Catlett asked for a show of hands from
the gathered working group to see how many were “closely involved” in one
or more other working groups. Approximately 75%
responded positively to this query. This fact
impressed Catlett, along with the group’s passion to stay a Grid Forum WG.
Eat pizza. Reconvene.
J.Towns says
we should search for something we can do that’s important right now. We decided to re-couch our goals, replacing the ones
we had before. Our previous goals were labeled
as “visions” instead of goals.
Ideas for
goals tossed about by G.Myers and R.Williams. Producing
a best practice document. Producing a collection
of information from the other working group’s actions, especially those that
relate to traditional user services type issues (accounting, security, etc.). Debating whether or not we need to do best practice
for current non-grid type user services. Collecting
a future practices document (identifying user services issues) for Grid user
services. Perhaps building a clearinghouse of
tools and other useful information that Grid user services staff would need/use
to support users would be a good goal. Debating
being a central clearinghouse of documents of the Grid Forum. Is this worthwhile? Some
utility is seen in providing this central location for WG drafts. Discussing making a liaison’s role as keeping up with
new drafts of RFC’s etc. appearing on web pages of other WG’s.
We went over
roles for liaisons. Rita notes 4 possible projects. John says we should concentrate on only 1 or 2 of
these projects ahead of next meeting. There is
general agreement to this view. G.Bresnahan makes
a pitch to do a future practices type document first, in order to show the
other WG’s what will be needed from their groups for Grid user services. We also agreed that we could pretty easily knock off
what our current practices are in another document.
Next, we discussed bringing together a web page of links to useful
stuff.
Action items:
George Myers
volunteered to do a straw man outline of current practices. When complete, representatives from other organizations
will respond to the outline with their practices and they will be wrapped
into the proposed document.