[AG-DEV] Continual of AG services

[Salim Haniff]

Hi Jason and All,

First, thanks for taking the initiative on keeping the AccessGrid  
program running.  The shutdown came at an unfortunate time as I just  
started my doctoral research and a significant portion will utilize  
the AccessGrid.


> Some of the feedback I think would be useful in knowing, includes:
>
> . What groups depends on the use of the Access Grid
> 	o What sort of usage are we talking about?

My doctoral research is in collaboration between my university in  
Finland and a  university in Canada.  The research work entails  
exploring other application domains where collaborative technologies  
and new interaction techniques can prove to be beneficial  
(manufacturing, tele-operation, software engineering).

> . I would like to see an international team (especially those  
> involved in local AG support), that assist with maintaining and  
> operating some of these services in the future.  Does this sound  
> like the best way to operate?
> 	o Are there any other suggestions?
> 	o Any nominations?

I can't commit to the above due to my status at the university is  
relatively low in making those decisions. I can try to negotiate with  
my university.  However, I have Dreamhost account where I may be able  
to temporarily host certain aspects of the AccessGrid project, disc  
space permitting.  I was thinking a better solution is to do what  
mirrors.kernel.org is doing to minimize single dependency.

> . Which services/aspects of the AG are of importance:
> 	o Source code

Access to source code is highly important since the focus is to extend  
the functionality of AccessGrid to other application domains.

In addition, because the interest in the AccessGrid project at my  
university has recently surfaced it would be nice to add the  
Beacon/dBeacon to the list to help  troubleshoot multicast issues and  
gather some metrics.

> 	o The accessgrid.org web site (Documentation, Node Listing, QA  
> results, Software downloads)
> 	o AG-related mailing lists

Documentation and support from the mailing lists are very important to  
understand how to extend functionality and pass knowledge onto others  
or seek additional assistance.

> 	o ANL Bridge Registry
Due to the lack of multicast currently available a bridge is also  
highly needed for us.

> 	o AG-Dev Certificate Authority
> 	o ANL Venue Server

At this stage, the above 2 are moderately important.

> 	o ANL Jabber Server

Not sure if ANL Jabber Server would be useful to us.




-- 
Salim Haniff  (salim.haniff at uta.fi)
School of Information Sciences
33014 University of Tampere, Finland