Notes on GFS-WG/RG meeting at GGF9 on Oct. 7 2003
Date: 10/07
Time: 6-7:30
Note Taker: Pradeep Padala

Legend
------
Q - Question
A - Answer
C - Comment
J - Jane
O - Osamu
Ar - Arun
Leo - Leo Luan
Andrew - Andrew Grimshaw
Reagan - Reagan Moore
Ann - Ann Chervanak
Brian - Brian from IBM not sure of the last name
P - Pradeep

Agenda
------
*) Introduction, and discussion about charter
*) Survey of Grid File Systems by Pradeep Padala (UFL)
    - SRB by Reagan Moore (SDSC) 
    - Grid Datafarm by Osamu Tatebe (AIST)
    - Distributed StorageTank by Leo Luan (IBM) 
    - SlashGrid by Andrew Mcnab (Univ Manchester)
*) Grid Content Management by James Myers (PNNL)
*) Virtual Filesystem Directory Service by Leo Luan (IBM)
*) POSIX-like OGSA/SOAP Services by Arun Jagatheesan (SDSC)

Meeting
-------
Main presentation - Intro to the WG/RG by Osamu, Jane, Arun
	Slides ...
	- Pros/cons of WG, RG
      i) start RG spawn WGs
	  ii) start WG
	- RG charter
	- WG charter

	 Q:	Describe what is application specific meta data
	 A: Profile file system usage of applications and use the metadata

	 C: Infer characteristics of applications from profiling applications.
	    Working groups choose specs rather than technologies
	 J: 
	 O: Metadata is related to hierarchical name space
	 Ar: Users can describe/associate meta data with logical names. 
	 J: Way to describe metadata

	 Q: Andrew Grimshaw: Logical name spaces for other things like
	 storage
	 Leo: name space for different data with same file system semantics
	 C: 
	 Andrew: legion, avaki do this. In earlier OGSA discussions, file system
	 service and other 
	 Reagan: In SRB, file, data base objects etc. can be registered
	 J: Collect useful stuff from research projects like SRB and commercial
	 things
	 Andrew: 
	 C: Is it nomenclature problem? files vs content vs directory services
	 Andrew: Don't want to constrain to only files
	 David Martin: Many groups are working on directory services. RG vs WG
	 An RG can study different directory services

	Q: What is reliable POSIX ??
	J:
	O: It is necessary? To make it fault tolerant
	C: POSIX is semantics.

	Q: Will the FSS be part of grid services?
	J: We have heterogeneous data sources. Virtual directory service
	   virtualizes and interfaces to various data sources and Grid FSS
	   can be built on top of it. Also, traditional interfaces like NFS
	   can be provided.
	
	Q: Are the data sources defined similar to what DAIS did
	J: Yes. Focus of the group is VDS and POSIX like interface
    Arun: 

	Q: When would one use DAIS service vs GridFS posix service?
	   DAIS is planning to define similar posix service.
	Leo: File sys is heirarchical 
	C: In DAIS discussion being done for a front-end to http, ftp
	   and it has hierarchy.
	Leo: Is the scope too broad?
	C: May be DAIS shouldn't touch it. But it should be consistent
	Leo: DAIS is talking about access
	C: Global naming is out of scope for DAIS may be
	J: It provides POSIX operations on global name space
	Reagan: There is a different between POSIX operations on logical name
	space and POSIX operations on storage resource
	C: file system is like dbmgmt. Files are like tables. Interfaces
	probably should be defined by same group.
	Reagan: In SRB, interfaces are seperately implemented

    Good work being done out side GGF - WebDAV, AFS, DFS etc.

	Andrew:Why can't survey be done first

	C:DAIS-WG, OGSA-WG might be a good home for some of the things
	David Martin: good to do RG for surveying different implementations
	Arun: Some of the process is already started. We already have a survey
	document. Some projects already did good research in requirements.
	David Martin: Adapt from some commercial or already available 
	implementations instead of starting from scratch

Votes
-----
For WG: 8
For RG: 23

	Ann: Scoping issues with DAIS or OREP
	C: Dais currently doesn't have file systems in charter. GGF needs to think
	about this.
	Andrew: different groups shouldn't be doing the same thing
	Brian: I don't know which way to vote. What is POSIX like API? Architecture
	that clearly shows what this POSIX API does?
	Reagan: Some implementations already have it. Survey document might answer
	this.

Specific Presentations
----------------------
    Questions during survey
    Leo: How to make sure that the input from the projects is correct?
    P: Actually there is no easy way of doing this
    Reagan: Are you suggesting that pradeep setup a test bed?

    Andrew: Instead of asking the projects to send data, why can't you survey
    based on papers?
    P: That's possible. There are too many projects to survey. Often, the papers
    don't have enough details.