[AG-TECH] Invitation Joining Virtual Venue Server Experiments

[Rick Stevens]

Access Grid Virtual Venue Prototype Scalability Experiment

We are looking for a small group of folks who are willing to help us 
experiment with a new prototype of a scalable virtual venues server. Each 
site that participates in this project will be asked to run a prototype of 
a venues
server at their site and make the venues on it publicly available. The 
prototype servers will be interlinked, such that a node can navigate from 
venues local to one server to venues served by a completely different 
installation.

As we begin to build a large-scale Grid communities the need to support 
linked AG servers is the crucial next step in building scalability into the 
Access Grid. Furthermore, we believe that it is essential that AG 
communities not deploy isolated islands of servers, but instead build into 
future AG Servers the capability to support a linked fabric of venues 
similar to linked sets of web pages that enable rapid navigation from one 
venue to another.   Ultimately we plan to develop a set of AG community 
servers that will provide venue overlays and directory services that will 
help users navigate the space of venues.

This experiment is the first step along the road to enabling interconnections.

Please do not volunteer for this experiment unless you:
  * Have a working AG node,
  * Have an ADDITIONAL pc similar to an AG audio machine (sans audio cards),
  * Are willing get banged up by and tinker with early release software,
  * Will provide feedback and participate actively in the experiment.

It is highly recommended that participating sites have operational multicast.

The prototype will be available in mid-may. At that time, we will expect 
participating sites to jump in and aggressively play. Note that 
participation in the project will not detach you from the existing AG 
community. When not involved in prototype-based experiments, you will be 
able to log in to the community-wide venues server.  Our goal is to 
finalize this prototype server in time to base the SC-Global event on a set 
of distributed venues.

To volunteer for the Scalability Experiment, please send mail to 
olson at mcs.anl.gov expressing your interest. Finally, please understand that 
we may not be able to accommodate all volunteers.