Minutes of the OGSA Data WG teleconference, January 11th 2006 

1) Early discussion

* Roll call 
Allen Luniewski, IBM
Dave Berry, NeSC
Stephen Davey, NeSC
Mario Antonioletti, EPCC
Chris Jordan, SDSC (briefly)

The minutes and agenda were accepted.

2) Action report

* Completed/Retired actions

- Dave to iterate the description of the ByteIO interface (and let Mario know) 
- Stephen to investigate whether transient data is supported by RNS. [We believe this can be done]
- Allen & Dave to draft message to GFS co-chair & ADs, saying RNS is too complicated.

* New actions

- Dave to check dates for submitting documents for GGF16.

* Ongoing actions

- Allen to work on an integration pass, including a scoping section.
- Dave to investigate Skype or phone for OGSA Data session at F2F.
- Ann to check the Access section for suitability for file replication.
- Mario to update the Access section and make text available for comment.
- Section authors to add security notes to their sections.
- Everyone to talk with your contacts to get more participation in this WG.
- Allen/Dave to contact David Martin & Hiro Kishimoto to get reviewers & expert participation. 


3) Progess & planning update

Allen is marking up the document for rewriting as an integration pass or the architecture document.  Mario is working on the Data Access section, particularly the WS-DAI subsection.

Stephen is updating the scenarios document, putting it into the proper OGSA template and adding scenarios for the data staging, personal data & data discovery scenarios, as well as dealing with comments from the December review.

Dave has mailed the GFS co-chairs stating that we would like to work with them on the Grid File System architecture, with the aim of making that a part of the broader OGSA Data architecture.

We noted that DAIS specs were submitted to GGF editor on 20th December and the ByteIO specs are about to enter the public comment period.

* F2F plans:
On Monday we will work through the document, looking for holes, consistency, and check we are meeting the goals that we have for the documents.  Also discuss relationship with GFS.  

On Thursday we will present to the OGSA group.

Dave to check dates for submitting documents for GGF16.


4) Format for documenting interfaces

Of the proposals sent to the list, we preferred the suggestion by Michael Behrens.  We noted that the OGSA WG is planning to make more use of UML; we can discuss this with them at the F2F.  We also noted that we should look at the format that Mario has been using in the Data Access section.

We agreed that we don't want to tie ourselves too closer to specifications that are still evolving.  Also, we agreed that the operation names in the architecture document should be only loosely connected to the operation names in the underlying specifications.

We also discussed the question of how much we can specify about interfaces that have not yet been defined in detail, e.g. a new data access interface other than WS-DAI and ByteIO.  We agreed that we can specify general properties (e.g. naming, protocols, transactions, ...), but little more.



5) Linking the scenarios and architecture documents

We agreed that the scenarios document should refer to the interfaces in the architecture document, and furthermore, it should also refer to the key operations in the architecture document.  This will make the scenarios document clearer to read and will also help us to identify which the key operations are.

We think we don't want to include interaction diagrams in the scenarios document for the moment.  We may revisit this in the future, if we decide that the flow of operations in the scenarios document is hard to follow.

We agreed that the architecture document should reference scenarios where they help to explain the usage of the various interfaces or services.



6) Wrap up

Next meetings:

Jan 16th-20th:	OGSA F2F in Sunnyvale
Jan 25th:	Report from F2F; review of documents?
Feb 1st:
Feb 8th:
Feb 13th-16th:	GGF16 in Athens