RE: [sem-grd] Agents and the Grid?

[David De Roure <dder@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

Kashif - thanks for this.  

The way the GGF process works, to get an activity going it's 
necessary to hold a "birds of feather" session at a GGF event 
and propose a charter for a new "research group" or "working 
group".  It needs a chair (or chairs) and a secretary (and 
preferably a room full of enthusiastic people!)  So to get 
this moving, what we need is some "champions" who can attend 
GGF events...

The next GGF is in Korea in March.  That's a longer gap than 
usual (6 months) but at least that gives time to get something 
together.

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to lead this (I'm an area 
director and already doing semantic grid) but I can facilitate.  
So I am encouraging the community!

I've had positive interest from a number of people, including 
Omer Rana in Cardiff (who has been proactive in this area), 
Jon Dale (who has been involved in FIPA) and my local colleagues  
involved in AgentLink (Mike Luck, Terry Payne).

I agree with you about the relevance of agent based computing 
to the grid.  We wrote this into the original Semantic Grid 
report and some aspects have taken off - plenty of automation 
but not so much "autonomy" in grid yet.  Recently there has 
been a resurgence of interest and efforts towards bridging 
communities e.g. the Foster/Jennings/Kesselman at Autonomous
Agents and the Goble/DeRoure paper at ECAI.  The WS-Agreement 
activity in GGF is also an example of why the grid needs the 
kind of thinking that's well established in the agents 
community.

So, I hope we can get this together.

Thanks

-- Dave

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004, Kashif Iqbal wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> You have raised an interesting point of discussion. First let me briefly
> introduce myself. My name is Kashif and I am a PhD researcher at digital
> enterprise research institute (DERI). I am currently working with Stefan
> Decker and ISI on a semantic matchmaker for Grid in context to an EU-funded
> project called ASG (Adaptive Services Grid) http://www.asg-platform.org
> 
> I also advocate the use of agent technology in Grid environments. I have
> done some initial research work related to integration of agents and grid.
> Although there exists some inherent gaps in terms of communication protocols
> and languages between the Grid and agent world but it doesn't mean that it
> is impossible to integrate both of these world. 
> 
> That's why I strongly believe that agent and Grid activity should be
> initiated in GGF and the reason why this activity should sit next to the
> semantic grid is that semantics are the only way that can help in bringing
> the two worlds together. 
> 
> But I would really like to hear comments from agent and grid communities on
> the integration aspect of both the worlds.
> 
> Looking forward to hear more on this interesting topic.
> 
> 
> With best regards,
> 
> Kashif
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> 
> From: owner-sem-grd@gridforum.org [mailto:owner-sem-grd@gridforum.org] On
> Behalf Of David De Roure
> Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 12:53 AM
> To: Semantic Grid Research Group
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Subject: [sem-grd] Agents and the Grid?
> 
> Some GGF business.
> 
> There will be a discussion about GGF area reorganisation at a 
> forthcoming GGF Steering Group meeting (at SC2004).
> 
> In fact this doesn't affect the Semantic Grid Research Group much.  
> We're currently in the architecture area, we could well have been 
> in data, and it doesn't make a huge amount of difference anyway(!)
> 
> Meanwhile I have been advocating the introduction of an activity 
> in the area of agents and the grid, and this has attracted some 
> interest from parts of the agents community where there are some 
> existing grid activities.  It needs a champion and I think this
> may happen.
> 
> So, through reorganisation of the areas, this may will end up in 
> an area alongside Semantic Grid (which may be a good thing when it 
> comes to bridge-building).
> 
> Anyway, I'd welcome any comments from the community on this (e.g.
> do you think GGF should have an agents and the grid activity?  Do
> you think it should sit next to Semantic Grid?), so that I can go 
> into the discussions able to represent your views.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> -- Dave
> 
> 
>