Informal REDDnet software stack meeting, 3Dec06

Goals

• Settle on the contents of the first "REDDnet release" of the LN stack, subject to revision as a result of the discussions with users in the next days meeting.
• Layout a roadmap for further development, subject to the same reservation as above
• Discuss and formulate a plan for coordinating the work of the software community

Elements of the LN software stack

• IBP
  • NFU
• exNode library
• LoRS toolkit
• L-Store
• L-bone (Nevoa resource discovery)
• LoDN
• LSL
• I/0 libraries
  • libxio
  • stdio
  • netCDF/L
  • HDF5
  • MPI/IO
• Nevoa tools and services
• File system work

Topics, questions, and issues

Here are some topics that have generated some interest. Of special interest are things that we need to move toward agreement on.

• What should the standard release of the LN software for REDDnet contain? What should the timetable look like?
• What should the standard release include?* How should we integrate security/authentication into the LN middleware framework? The LoCI group did an early approach. The Czech group has done another one.
• Can we agree on a standard network (as opposed to file system) interface to directory services, so that we get interoperability between L-Store, LDoN, etc.? What should it be?
• How should we harmonize/unify methods of moving data, e.g. LoRS vs. L-Store?
• We need a standard way of numbering NFU Ops, similar to Iana.
• What needs to be done with regard to a "community process" for LN and REDDnet? It seems clear that we need a process, or set of practices, that help us discuss issues as they come up and achieve consensus on key questions so that the community as a whole can advance.
• Now that we've started to use NFU Ops routinely, what are the requirements for integrating NFU Ops into the standard distribution of IBP?
• Other possible areas for discussion
  • Documentation
  • Licensing

Order of items to be discussed

One natural way to do this is to work our way up the stack, but if have ideas about the critical items, we need to budget our time. Maybe we need to review a common checklist for all the software items (i.e. create a matrix) and review the matrix as a whole and then start discussing the problems, plans and issues.