EchoGRID 2nd Strategic Workshop
29 – 30 October 2007, CNIC – Beijing, China
Chair Session
Report
Session Chair: Thomas Fahringer – University of Innsbruck, Austria
Session Title: Grid Middleware for Industrial Applications
Number of participants: 25
What was the focus of the presentations? Please provide as much relevant detail as
possible in relation to the aims of the Strategic Workshop.
The presentations were very heterogeneous. One presenter frankly expressed that his talk had
nothing to do with the Grid. Some others did not reflect any industry application. It was mostly the
European presenters that provided information about industry applications with the exception of
the talk given by Yongjian Wang who nicely presented also an aviation and pharmacy
applications. In total many industry applications have been briefly discussed including
applications from finance, geoscience, reservoir simulation, seismic simulation, atmospheric
retrieval, risk management, plastics simulation, health and energy. Those presentations that
discussed industry applications provided information about key obstacles for industry applications
which can be summarized as follows: Secure access to applications and privacy for sensitive
data must be maintained. Standards and policies are a necessity to justify the development of
industry applications for the Grid. Software license management reflects the problem of how
users access commercial packages and how to generate revenue. Then there are prohibitive
costs to use the network for commercial applications which is very much in contrast to free
academic use. Industry has to pay for using the Internet. Finally also portability of applications
across different platforms is a major concern.
Other concerns were whether the Grid is mature enough for industry applications. Are there
proper business models available? QoS very often is an academic concept but not well supported
by underling monitoring tools and effective SLA negotiation understood by different parties in the
Grid.
The presentations did not reflect Web 2.0 technology which was surprising as Web 2.0 may
challenge Web service technology and even the Grid.
What key points were raised? Which technical aspects and/or points are expected to have
the highest impact on Grid development?
Secure access to applications and privacy for sensitive data must be maintained. Standards and
policies are a necessity to justify the development of industry applications for the Grid. Software
license management reflects the problem of how users access commercial packages and how to
generate revenue. Then there are prohibitive costs to use the network for commercial
applications which is very much in contrast to free academic use. Industry has to pay for using
the Internet. Finally also portability of applications across different platforms is a major concern.
Standards for creating, programming and modelling applications is important to achieve portable
Grid applications from one Grid to another and from one application/runtime environment to
another.
2nd EchoGRID Strategic Workshop: Grid Middleware for Industrial Applications Tuesday 30 October
2007
EchoGRID 2nd Strategic Workshop
29 – 30 October 2007, CNIC – Beijing, China
What key follow-up points and actions were identified?
Although not explicitly mentioned by individual presentations it could be filtered that possible
collaborations across institutions and projects from China and the EU may cover the following
issues: general QoS parameters and SLA negotiations, security, business scenarios but not
business models as these are mostly confidential. Moreover, pilot applications could be shared to
challenge each other systems and Grid infrastructures.
Please feel free to make any additional relevant comments, such as particular challenges
and issues highlighted, etc.
The session was not well attended. It is thus unclear how representative all the findings are.
There were not many questions from the audience. Thus most information has been filtered from
the speakers but less contribution could be collected from the audience.
2nd EchoGRID Strategic Workshop: Grid Middleware for Industrial Applications Tuesday 30 October
2007