Community Function Innovations

End-User and Vendor/Developer Forums Launched

The Community function of GGF recently announced two new forums to be launched as part of the Community program at GGF17 in Tokyo. The Voice of the Community (or VOC) forum is where end users (or consumers of Grid technology) meet to discuss their needs, wants and expectations of the Grid standards development effort. The Vendor Adoption Forum (or VAF) will bring together vendors & developers (or producers of Grid technology) to work with the GGF standards development effort to help ensure that standards are feasible and cost-effective for producers to implement. Both of these forums address the importance of producing effective standards that are widely adopted and address real consumer needs. We strongly encourage you to play an active role to help influence the standards that are being developed by GGF. You can do so by participating in one or both of these important forums at GGF17 and future events.

The goal of the Voice of the Community (VOC) forum is to bring Grid technology consumers together to capture requirements and use cases that can then be incorporated into the GGF standards development effort. At GGF 17, one session in the GGF Community program is dedicated to the VOC forum. It will have three parts: 1) understanding Grid technology in order to make a business case for how the technology can impact your business, 2) identifying and prioritizing your use cases and requirements; and, 3) working with the GGF Standards function to represent the use cases and requirements in the standards development effort. Ultimately, the result is intended to ensure that GGF Grid standards are relevant to consumers so that producers in turn implement the standards into products that consumers need, want and expect.

The goal of the Vendor Adoption Forum (VAF) is to bring Grid technology producers together to work with the GGF standards development effort, to identify issues and constraints that make it cost-effective for producers to adopt the standards. This session is also organized in three parts: 1) understanding Grid technology in terms of being able to build a market for products that consumers will need, want and expect, 2) identify issues and constraints that make it feasible and cost effective for producers to adopt standards; and, 3) work with the GGF Standards function to represent these issues and constraints in the standards development effort. Ultimately, this forum is intended to ensure that standards reflect the economic interests and practical concerns of producers who implement the standards.

Remember, this is your chance to be heard and to help influence the important standards that are being developed by GGF for Grid implementations worldwide. You do not have to be a Grid expert in order to participate. The only thing that you need to bring to these forums is your perspective as either a consumer or a producer. We look forward to seeing you at one or both of these sessions.