[AG-TECH] AG Centralisation

[Don Morton]

All,

Where does ANL see the future of AG "support" going?  A few of us in
the western states have discussed the notion that we'd like to be
doing more regional collaboration over the AG and, in the long
term, "maybe" it would be beneficial to all if we looked at the prospects
of creating our own venues, with our own machines, etc.  This is all
VERY PRELIMINARY thinking, not at all thought out but, clearly
ANL must have put some thought into how all these new nodes would
be handled, scheduled, etc.

- Does ANL "want" to be the centre of activity for this expanding AG?
- Does ANL "want" to have some centralised control over AG activities?
- Does ANL wonder how in heck it ever got into this support role and
  want a way out???? :) :) :)
- Does ANL have any interest in seeing regional groups set up their own
  infrastructures, thus offloading some of the demand from them?

I know there may be no real long-term game plan, and the answers may
not at all be clear but, ultimately what I'm trying to understand is
"if" some of us in the west decided to pursue a path towards semi self-
reliance with the AG (have our own venues, bridges, etc.), would this
be viewed as a "good" thing, or would it be discouraged?  I think "our"
prime motivation in pursuing something like this would be to have some
set of resources that we could dedicate to ourselves (i.e. we wouldn't
have to share the toys all the time!!).  There are times when this
would be advantageous, particularly if the AG starts to become saturated,
but, of course, the management of a regional infrastructure is a bit 
intimidating.

Thanks,

Don

-- 
   Don Morton                     http://www.cs.umt.edu/u/morton/
   Department of Computer Science       The University of Montana
   Missoula, MT 59812 | Voice (406) 243-4975 | Fax (406) 243-5139