Joining the NGS
Stephen Pickles
Technical Director, GOSC
stephen.pickles@manchester.ac.uk
GOSC face-to-face meeting, NeSC, 28/10/2004
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Joining the NGS
• What does it mean to join the NGS?
• What are the benefits to prospective
partners?
• Some common concerns, and NGS
position
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Assumptions
• NGS brand is valuable
• NGS compatibility is valuable
• NGS integration is valuable
We must make it so!
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Membership of NGS
NGS-Baseline document distinguishes
(initially) between two levels of
membership, affiliation and partnership:
1. Affiliation
•
a.k.a. connect to NGS
2. Partnership
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Affiliation
Affiliates commit to:
• running NGS-compatible middleware
– as defined in NGS Minimum Software Stack
– this means users of affiliate’s resources can access these using same
client tools they use to access NGS
• a well-defined level of service and problem referral mechanisms
– SLD approved by NGS Management Board and published on NGS
web-site
• providing technical, administrative, and security (CERT) contacts
• providing an account and mapping for daily compliance tests
(GITS++)
• accept UK e-Science certificates
• maintain baseline of logs (gatekeeper, batch system) to assist
problem resolution
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Partnership
Partners commit to same as affiliates, plus:
• making significant resources available to NGS users
– creation of accounts/mappings
– in future, VO support, pool accounts, etc
• recognise additional CAs with which UK e-Science
programme has reciprocal agreements
• publish/provide additional information to support
resource discovery, brokering
– BDII (MDS), populating GLUE schema
– job level accounting
– additional monitoring: load, availability
• compilation environment on computational resources
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Benefits
Affiliation:
• NGS brand
– certified NGS-compatible
• better integrated support for local users who also access
NGS facilities
• assistance/advice in maintaining NGS-compatibility over
time
Partnership:
• higher brand quality
• representation on NGS management board
– either direct, or through regional or functional consortia
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FAQ
Q. Why should I join?
A. See benefits
Q. So I’m compatible today. How do I
maintain compatibility over time without
unreasonable effort?
A. (The short answer). NGS appreciates and
shares this concern, and is committed to
providing leadership.
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The long answer
• Operating a production grid means valuing robustness and reliability
over fashion.
• NGS cares about:
– alignment/compatibility with leading international Grid efforts, especially
EGEE, TeraGrid,...
– special requirements of UK e-Science community
– easy migration/upgrade paths
– proven robustness/reliability
– based on standards or standards-track specifications
• NGS cannot support everything
– c.f. TeraGrid’s rule of one
• Everyone wants service-oriented grids
– but still settling out: WS-I, WS-I+, OGSI, WSRF, GT3, GT4, gLite
• Significant changes to NGS Minimum Software Stack will require
approval by NGS Management Board
– on conservative time scales
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Questions?
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