The Middleware Development and Innovation Alliance: The MeDIA proposal

1. The Middleware Development and Innovation Alliance:The MeDIA proposal Balázs Kónya, Lund University EMI Project Technical Director EGI-CF, Manchester 8-12 April 2013

2. Outline • Motivation: Why do we need coordination? • Lessons learned from the ”EMI times” • Proposal for a different continuation, the MeDIA initiative: • Who? • What? • How? • When? EGI-CF, Manchester

3. About the name • European Middleware Collaboration Group (EMCG) • Middleware Development and Innovation Alliance (MeDIA) • ”EMI launches the new media” • Middleware Innovation Alliance (Mid Inn) • ??? EGI-CF, Manchester

4. MediA: Anarchy or Alliance? EGI-CF, Manchester

5. Mw coordination: past, present, future Before EMI EMI 3 years Post EMI ImplementedAgreements EMI common products Other products Standards,New technologies, Users and Infrastructure Requirements EGI-CF, Manchester

6. How coordination was done in EMI? • ”Strong” control • Planning • Execution (Q.A. Q.C.) • Top-down • Directions set by management • External requirements • Pre-defined developer teams • as execution units • EU project brings • Reporting and formalities • money EGI-CF, Manchester

7. Results of coordination • Common service monitoring • CANL auth library • EMI-ES job management interface • StAR and CAR accounting • GLUE2 adoption • EMI Registry (EMIR) • Emi_datalib • EMI delegation EGI-CF, Manchester

8. What’s next? • There is a need for continued coordination • Preserving the work done • Opening up to new technologies and services • MEDIA: a proposal for a DIFFERENT • long-term • open • lightweight • collaboration on middleware technology EGI-CF, Manchester

9. Motivation for MeDIA • Uncoordinated evolution of existing services, integration with new technologies can lead to disintegration • Re-establishing technical contacts, communication channels, common ”dictionary” would be very expensive • Continous and pro-active sharing of information • Among middleware teams • Among developers and users • Maintaining single access point to • Information • Developer teams (not a representation) • Software products (depends on efforts available) EGI-CF, Manchester

10. MeDIA: Who? • MeDIA is proposed by EMI project partners. Initial member teams are from EMI • Expressed interest: dCache, NorduGrid-ARC, gLite_MPI, L&B, NGI_CZ/Meta, UNICORE, AMGA, EMIR • Membership is OPEN to developer teams of middleware products • Represented by a team leader • Delegates team members to MeDIA task forces • Full member (active involvement in task forces) • Observer member (can’t be elected, no voting rights) EGI-CF, Manchester

11. MeDIA: What? Proposed SCOPE: • Software enabling distributed computing and data escienceinfastructures • Fundamental domains on security, data, compute, information services providing the core infastructure layer • Main commitment is towards academic and scientific research infrastructures • Higher-level tools, domain specific framworks are not directly in scope EGI-CF, Manchester

12. MeDIA: What? Proposed activities: • Requirement sharing • Make sure user request reach dev teams • Some sort of prioritization system • Roadmap sharing • Every team takes care of its own roadmap • Place to discuss and sync dev plans • Technology surveys • Incl. comparison of products • Shared vision ... EGI-CF, Manchester

13. MeDIA: What? Proposed activities: • Common development • Cooperation instead of competition • When same functionality is needed by many products (e.g. Infra integration) • Preservation of common products • Agreements on technology and standards to use • Selecting, profiling specs • Maintainig existing agreements • Cooperating with SDOs EGI-CF, Manchester

14. MeDIA: What? Proposed activities with limited scope: • Coordination of cross-product integration, testbeds • Time-limited campaigns • ”Registry” of testbed instances of developer teams • Shared strategy on managing software releases • Discussion of synchronization issues • Best practices, advices • Forum for firefighting, conflict resolution • Recommendations for repositories • Maintenance and support • Collect information about support channels EGI-CF, Manchester

15. Media: How? Proposal for a lightweight organization • Collaboration without legal entity • A single document, the ”MeDIA charter” • Participation is interest-driven, bottom-up • Single management group: technical/executive board (TEB) with a coordinator • TEB members and the MeDIA chair are elected by full members • Real daily work/activities are done in the task forces • Task forces can be proposed by members, TEB approval is needed • Initial list of task forces will be available • Developer teams may apply for membership by providing some minimal information • Full or observer member status • Member teams enjoy full autonomy, self-control EGI-CF, Manchester

16. Media: When? Launching the MeDIA: • Discussion, iteration over the proposal is ongoing right now • 22nd April: Rome MeDIA launch event • End of Summer: start of the MeDIA operation • Interim Technical Executive Board members found • First task forces are created • Setting up the collaboration platform • Developers teams joining the Alliance • End of the Year: Media community event • Election of the TEB, Chair EGI-CF, Manchester

17. Let’s play together! EGI-CF, Manchester

18. Links • MeDIA proposal: http://www.eu-emi.eu/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=764ca098-75ab-4925-b6c0-58a79f150e0e&groupId=10147 • Rome launch event https://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?ovw=True&confId=240405 EGI-CF, Manchester