NeSC, Edinburgh: WPA1/WPA0: Architecture Focus Meeting

Draft Minutes 31 May 2002 by NicholasWalton

Present: ElizabethAuden (ECA), DavidGiaretta (DG), TonyLinde (TL), BobMann (BM), GuyRixon (GTR), NicholasWalton (NAW).

Time: 10.00-15.00

1. The agenda was as posted on the wiki page.

2. Define goals for end of architecture for Phase-A (to be completed by the end of July)

Use cases, sequence diagrammes, collaboration diagrammes, object model (contains class diagrammes) component models, deployment models

Need to complete the project overview 'vision' document

Need to agree the architecture overview early to ensure clarity when viewing the lower level components. The overview (ACTION on TL/NAW to complete) will link with the AstroGrid project vision

2.1. AGREED that only NAW would add science cases into the Astrogrid scoped sample.

Need to link AstroGrid use cases to the AstroGrid science problems

Ideas for design of the use cases will be added at UseCaseDesign, whilst any constraints to the system will be located at SystemReqs

NW and EA will associate use cases to the decompositions of the science cases as shown in the SequenceDiagrams. CollaborationDiagrams will show more implementation details. ActivityDiagrams will be required for non-single threaded use cases.

ACTION TL - set up a CVS server on the Leicester Web server

ACTION DG - test out the CVS server after it has been set up.

AstroGrid will update the models (activity and sequence diagrammes) using Together, with a weekly snapshot published in HTML format to the AstroGrid wiki.

ACTION DG - look into GRIC dialup access for AstroGrid purposes.

3. Q4 Activities

Responsibilities for generating the technical cases, sequence diagrammes etc were AGREED as follows:

• Detailed UCs and SDs --> ECA/DG/AMSR
• Complete CDs and OMs for:
  • Client/Portal --> DG/BM/AMSR
  • Workflow --> ECA/AMSR/TL
  • Registry --> TL/CGP/NAW
  • CAS/Data Permissioning --> GTR/DG/TL
  • Data Centre interface --> CGP/BM/ECA
  • MySpace --> DG/NAW/CGP
  • OGSA Integration --> GTR/ECA/TL
• Integrated OM, CM, DM (the final output of the Q4 architecture) --> DG/ECA/GTR/TL (to complete by 10 Aug 2002)

NVO's data model is at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/vo/vodm001.ps as discussed on the US-VO mailing list at http://archives.us-vo.org/dm/0003.html

BM reported on his recent meeting with Alex Szalay and the development of SkyQuery.

DG discussed possible design approaches. It was AGREED that objects would act on their own in the manner of autonomous agents rather than having a global controller running all objects. Refer to the current design overview at http://www.ssd.rl.ac.uk/astrogrid/architecture/index.html

4. Technology Trials and Updates

4.1 GTR reported on his recent assesmment of Globus' CAS - see also AssessmentOfCAS. GTR suggests that CAS could be used and adapted for AstroGrid use in Phase-B. Noted issues concerning CASProxy, can grid services be composed that easily extract infomation from the CASProxy.

An alternative top down approach could be adopted which does not require the use of CASProxy. These approaches are shown in GTR's overheads (powerpoint).

This work will form the basis of the IAAA/CAS demo for Q4. It was AGREED that GTR and DG would lead this. This demo will be constructed on WebSphere application server.

4.2 TL reported on the Registry/Workflow demo.

TL has investigated the use of ontology (use of RDF, DAML+OIL, WSDL) rather than relational databases in the area of the registry. TL is producing a discussion paper for the next meeting of the AVO Interoperability working group meeting June 12, 2002.

See also NVO Metadata discussion and Ray Plante's Meta-Data paper

It was AGREED that TL/ECA and BM would progress this workflow/registry demo, with their first meeting in Edinburgh on 18 June 2002 whwere they will discuss ontology issues with Edinburgh biologists etc.

This demo will be constructed with JBOS.

4.3 Use of DBTF early access products:

GTR reported on areas of early DBTF products and how AstroGrid could use them in a demo.

• Web based front end to an XML database (xindice)
• DBTF with IBM at Hursley will provide an interface to DB2 and Oracle 9i soon whic AstroGrid could use.
• The interfaces have a plugable query language --> enable exploitation of specialised databases.
• Delivery System --> make the query, returns a handle to a delivery system, this informs you when the job has finished. Covers DG's locate data set.

For demo could ingress WFS data products into an XML database with suitable astronomical schema for that data set.

It was AGREED that GTR would work on this demo (data into XML DB) and DG/BM for data into an RDB (assuming that DBTF make the RDB interface available in the near future before end July 2002).

4.4 Demo of running a job processing task remotely. Low priority to be overseen by DG.

5. WP plans for Q4

5.0 WP-A0

5.1 WP-A1

• Vision document
• SRD
• ArchitectureOverview (NAW/TL)
• Pointers to UCs (NAW/ECA)

5.2 WP-A2

• Demos
• Strees test of GridFTP
• OGSA tracking
• Perl interface to VOTable

5.3 WP-A3

• Network Overview
• LDAP
• data sizes
• Application servers (WebSphere, JBOS, Apache/AXIS)

5.4 WP-A4

• DB evaluation
• DBTF RDB demo

5.5 WP-A5

• WP-A5-1 WP-A5-2 close with a report
• Plans for WP-A5-3, WP-A5-4 and WP-A5-5 have recently been reported.

5.6 WP-A9

• Much of this has been subsumed by TL's Workflow/Registry demo.

6. Phase-B

6.1 Development Methodology

TL outlined methodology - spiral model.

UC/OM --> Code/Test --> Deploy --> more UC/OM --> more Code/Test --> Deploy --> etc. The cycle time will be 3 months. Thus four cycles per year.

Thus at each stage of deployment, there will be a more stable, better featured product. It is anticipated that the first few deployments may have limited practical application but will be functional albeit not fully tested.

The demo products will be released for use to the community. Iteration one may lead to the deployment of the first version of the AstroGrid Portal (this would be the route to access the demos).

6.2 Staffing and Structure

Project structure is less likely to be so formally structured in to work packages in Phase-B.

• A coding leader will be required in Phase-B (new hire?). [1]
• Some effort deployed in a team who look after the low level base upon which the AstroGrid structure is based.
• Research stream led by TL. (Includes Data Mining research activity).

A fuller analysis of project staffing requirements will be presented at the June AstroGrid collaboration meeting.

6.3 Training

• Java
• Platform specific (J2EE/EJB - Enterprise Java Beans)
• Web Services
• OO Analysis and Design

6.4 hardware/Software needs

A full analysis will be presented at the June Collaboration meeting.

7. AOB.

BM described IfA/WFAU's involvement in eDIKT (e Data Information Knowledge Transformation) - a Scottish, Edinburgh/Glasgow initiative to place them at the forefront of 'Grid' research. They have met with AL and BM. AstroGrid is seen as a key application area and therefore there is a possibility that they could provide effort useful to AstroGrid. One area of possible input from eDIKT is the area XML and Ontologies.

Meeting Closed at 15.00