TM

JUNE 2004 Vol. 2 Issue 2
Informing Users and Grid Communities about Access GridTM Developments

AG-TECH Update
Presenting A Challenge for Development to the AG Community
The centennial celebration of Albert Einstein’s “miraculous
year” is rapidly approaching. In 1905, Einstein publishedthree legendary papers that contained ideas that shaped thedevelopment of modern physics. He once said, “Imagination
is more important than knowledge.” Therefore, the challenge
to you as users and developers of the Access GridTM (AG)is to use your imagination to continue exploring thepossibilities for future collaboration environments.
Where are we today? Technology advancements in computing,high-speed networks and data storage are continuing at a rapid
rate, having profound effects on how science is being done. With
the advanced networking we have today, resources that include
people as well as computers, data stores and experimental facilities
can be linked in ways that are beginning to reduce barriers of
distance, institution and even discipline…but we need to continuethat progress.
In 1997, my office funded a project at Argonne National
Laboratory (ANL)—”shared virtual spaces.” It was one of several
that were part of an ambitious, minimally-funded effort focusedon harnessing the fusion of computing and communications toaccelerate the ability of the U.S. Dept. of Energy to meet its
missions. In 1999, the AG sprang forth from this project, mature
in its vision but realistically premature for some elements of thetechnology and supporting infrastructure.
It suffered growing pains…but combining persistent virtual
spaces with ideas and tools from computer supported collaboration
was a concept whose time had come. Enabling effective distancecommunication between groups of people was important to enough

Inside This Issue
Partner Perspectives
Developer’s Corner
AG Collaborations
AG-TECH Update
Building AG Global
AG News Node
AG Retreat
Upcoming AG EventsAG Manifesto
JUNE 2004

institutions that, even working with technology that was three tofive years early, it didn’t take long to put a number of AG nodes
in place, spanning five continents and soon to be six. Imagine—a technology that defies distance.
AG is no longer just an ANL project. The concept has
engaged the community and it is now up to the community
to nurture and grow the child. An open source softwareenvironment is a good space for that. Science is a beneficiaryContinued on p. 6

Building AG Global
PRAGMA: A Community-BasedApproach to Using the Grid
The Pacific Rim Application and Grid Middleware
Assembly (PRAGMA) is an open, institution-basedorganization of twenty institutions that was founded in 2002.
Its goal is to establish sustained collaborations and to advancethe use of grid technologies in applications among acommunity of investigators working with leading institutions
around the Pacific Rim. PRAGMA was founded based on
the following premises: the conduct of science is global andmore examples arise that point to the challenges that mustbe faced internationally; the grid promises to revolutionize
Continued on p. 8

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www.accessgrid.org

General Inquiries
ag-info@mcs.anl.gov
Technical Inquiries
ag-tech@mcs.anl.gov
Documentation (subscribe to)
agdp@accessgrid.org
Updates (subscribe to)ag-announce@mcs.anl.gov
User Discussion (subscribe to) ag-users@mcs.anl.gov
AG Focus is a publication of the Futures Laboratory within the Mathematics
and Computers Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, operated
by the University of Chicago (www.mcs.anl.gov/fl/).

1

TMPartner Perspectives
Collaborating with Microsoft ConferenceXP
frames per second andC o n f e r e n c e X P,
supports three video
developed by Microsoft
data transfer rates: highResearch’s Learning(1.5 Mbps compression
Sciencesandat 640 x 480 resolution),
Technology group,
medium (512 kilobits
enables you to interact
per second [Kbps]
and collaborate withcompression at 320 x
others in a virtual
240 resolution), and low
collaborative space,(256 Kbps compression
called a venue. In
at 320 x 240 resolution).
addition to offering highAs a peer-to-peer
quality, low-latencyapplication,
audio and video, theConferenceXP
sends
ConferenceXP Client
audio,
video
and
data
application includes two
streams
betweensample capabilities—
ConferenceXP clients,
ConferenceXP
Shown is a distance-learning class using ConferenceXP.
instead of sending thesePresentation and Chat.
streamstoorreceivingthemfroma server. To support
ConferenceXP Presentation enables you to collaborate withsimultaneous
users
while
keeping
networktraffic to a minimum,
real-time ink on an electronic whiteboard or distributed
ConferenceXP
uses
multicast.
That
way,
a ConferenceXP
Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation, and Chat enables you
clientcansendastreamonce
toall
ConferenceXP
clients set
to send instant messages.
uptoreceivethedata.
When you start the ConferenceXP Client application, it opens
With ConferenceXP, participants can join online
a window that displays the available venues you can join.
conferences,
presentations, and meetings by using a simple
After you join a venue, ConferenceXP automatically starts
point-and-clickuser interface. Because ConferenceXP
the multipoint real-time audio and video capability, which
supports
standardplug-and-playdevices, as well as installing (andenables you to see and hear others in the same venue. You
uninstalling)asastandard
Microsoft
Windows® application, setting
can choose whether you want to automatically send or receiveup
ConferenceXP
hardwareandsoftwareis easy.
audio and video streams, and you can specify how the video
The
ConferenceXP
research
platform
enables developers
windows display onscreen.
to
build
a
set
of
interoperable
solutionson
top of a common
To provide high-performance audio and video, ConferenceXP
framework.
Withpublished
APIs
and
a
set
of base classes,
uses Microsoft Windows Media® audio and video codecs. Its
developersandresearcherscandesignpowerful new
audio and video features are designed for high-speed networks—
conferencing
andcollaborativeenvironments,
create custom
2 megabits per second (Mbps) or faster—which enables highinterfaces,andintegrate
ConferenceXP
withexisting
quality multipoint conferencing. It delivers full-screen video at 30
conferencing and classroom
systems. The difficult partsof developing collaborative
applications—forming
groups, managing groupstate and status, dealing
with network errors—aretaken care of by the
ConferenceXP platform andits services.
For more information about
ConferenceXP, visit theConferenceXP Community Web
site at www.conferenceXP.net.
ConferenceXP displays acollaborating participant’s video
stream (l) and the available
venues a user can join (above).

2—Chris Moffatt,
Microsoft Research,
Learning Sciences andTechnology,
chrismof@microsoft.com
JUNE 2004

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Developer’s Corner
AGTk 2.2: Simplifying Shared Application Development
In previous columns, I’ve discussed the facilities provided by
the Access GridTM (AG) Toolkit for developing shared applications.
In this column, I’ll cover a convenience class included in the 2.2
release that bundles together much of what is needed to develop
shared applications. Afterward, I’ll provide an example of a sharedapplication that I developed in a couple hours at home.
Shared applications typically: join a shared application
instance, connect an event client to the shared application event
service, register callbacks to handle events and send events.
More involved shared applications may require additional
functionality, including log application execution, store
application state in venue and provide participant info.

The SharedAppClient is being used in the SharedPresentationand SharedBrowser applications for developers to refer to as
examples.
Example:SharedGnuplot

Gnuplot is a program widely used for plotting scientific data.
It is very straightforward to use: issue plot commands at the
prompt and the resulting plot is displayed in a window.
For an example of shared application development using theSharedAppClient class, I developed a shared version of Gnuplot.
In this case, when one user inputs a plot command, it is propagatedto the other users over the event channel, and executed locally,so that they also see the plot.
The SharedAppClient ClassThe example consists of a command processor and a
To address these needs, the AG team constructed the GnuplotSharedAppClient. The command processor is derived
from the one found in
SharedAppClient class. It includes
the Python cmd
interfaces to provide shared application
developers with easy access to the Shared applications typically: join a module. It takescommands, sends them
support they need to develop
applications as easily as possible. For shared application instance, connect an to Gnuplot, and calls a
example, with the SharedAppClient, the event client to the shared application callback registered todeal with commands.
single call:
event service, register callbacks to The callback, in thisJoin(appServiceUrl)case, is a method in
joins the shared application session, handle events and send events.
GnuplotSharedAppClient
creates an event client, and connectsthat sends the commandthe event client to the event service forthe shared application. Events can be registered using a simpler to other participants. When this event is received by otherclients, the command is sent to their Gnuplot command
method than previously:
processor so that the plot is displayed locally.
RegisterEventCallback(eventType, callback)The command processor is just a front-end to Gnuplot, so
where the eventType is defined by the application, and the callback
is a method that will be called when an event of the specified type it accepts any valid Gnuplot command. There are a couple
is received by the event client. The callback must accept a single built-in demo commands included; type ‘demo1’ or ‘demo2’
to view interesting sample plots.
argument: the event that was sent.
The example works on both Windows and Linux; on either
Applications can send events by calling the SendEventmethod, which takes an application-defined event type and platform, it requires that the following packages be installed:· Gnuplot (http://gnuplot.info)
data as arguments:· Gnuplot.py (http://gnuplot-py.sourceforge.net)
SendEvent(eventType, data)· Numeric Python (http://numpy.sourceforge.net)
The SharedAppClient class also provides interfaces for the
The SharedGnuplot package is available at http://
additional functionality described above:
www.mcs.anl.gov/fl/research/accessgrid/documentation/· Application logging
devcorner/2004.2/SharedGnuplot.html . It is about 225 lines
InitLogging(debug = 0, log = None)of code, including comments and the demo command sets,· Storage/retrieval of application stateshowing how simple it is to develop a shared application
SetData(dataKey, dataValue)
for AG.
GetData(dataKey)
This example could be easily extended by parsing the Gnuplot· Participant Info, so shared apps can display a list ofcommands and performing appropriate venue operations,participants
including storing the current plot state in the venue so lateGetParticipants()
joining participants see the latest plot, and capturing file-based
SetParticipantProfile(ClientProfile)Some of these interfaces are new, while others are simplified to plot commands to upload the data file to the venue.
hide details that developers don’t need to know. Documentation
If you have any questions or comments about this article,
for the complete SharedAppClient interface is available online at please email me.
http://www.mcs.anl.gov/fl/research/accessgrid/documentation/—Tom Uram, Argonne, Futures Laboratory, turam@mcs.anl.gov
devcorner/2004.2/SharedAppClient.html.

JUNE 2004

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AG Collaborations
Karaoke & The Grid: AG Entertainment at Its Finest
Karaoke was originally invented inJapan, but today has become global
entertainment. In a Karaoke session, asong is sung by an individual or together
with friends accompanied by the
background music.
In November 2003, a distributed
Karaoke session was held over Access
GridTM (AG) as part of SC Global 2003, a
distributed international conference on the
Grid. Special AG nodes, Karaoke Grid
nodes, were developed and deployed at a
karaoke room and at Waseda University,
forming a global virtual karaoke room.
There were more than 20 singing sites fromfive countries, Australia, German, Japan,
Thailand and the U.S.
Young Japanese people in Phoenix sang
their favorite Green Day and Beatles songs
and shouted with Japanese friends being

costumed as Santa Claus and reindeer. A
group at Boston University requested a Bon
Jovi song and raised their fists while singing.
A man at Winston-Salem State University
led the singing of “We Are the World” ashe was dancing.
Several challenges had to be overcome
to accomplish the karaoke session,
including the audio configuration forsinging, audio latency, IP multicast
reachability, deployment at a karaokeroom in service, and the performancerights of songs. Audio latency was
reduced by research efforts of Waseda
University but more reduction is stillrequired for a duet.
The Karaoke Grid was developed by
the National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology(AIST), a leading karaoke service

provider for XING and Waseda
University. They proposed the session
and managed it. The Asia-Pacific
Advanced Network (APAN) strongly
supported the AG infrastructure such as
an IP multicast connectivity. The session
was accomplished over a trans-pacifichigh-performance network, TransPAC.
For the most part, AG has been applied
for formal use such as lectures andmeetings. Such applications still require
more sophisticated technical support suchas speech recognition and real-time
interpretation of speech.
But informal applications like karaoke
disclose limits and requirements ontechnologies, providing a foundation for
future research.
—Kazuyuki Shudo, AIST,
shudo@ni.aist.go.jp

SC Global 2004: New Directions in Collaboration
Anchored in the newly constructed, technology-enhanced
Pittsburgh convention center, SC Global 2004 will link Access
GridTM (AG) communities from around the world with theannual SC Conference to exchange ideas through highly
informative talks, papers, panels and BOFs on topics of interest
to attendees. The focus of this year’s SC Global will bedemonstrating collaborative applications and tools that havedeveloped over recent years, as well as a unique venue forartistic expression and other innovative ideas in the AG
environment.
Two new initiatives for SC Global 2004 include: the keynote
talks being broadcast over AG, allowing remote participants tohave a more complete experience of the conference; and plans
are underway for a suite in the Pittsburgh convention center fora set of personal AG nodes for use by conference participants(additional telecommunications technologies may be madeavailable as well).
SC Global 2004 builds on the solid
foundations of SC Global events in 2001
and 2003. In 2001, 43 sites using AG
and inSORS Grid techologies spread
across 11 countries and 6 continents,
providing four concurrent tracks ofevents. In 2003, 80 sites participated,
representing 10 countries and 5
continents. The technical infrastructure
was broadened to enable participation
by AG, inSORS Grid, Windows Mediaand vBrick streams.
Detail of this year’s SC Global,
including technical infrastructure anddeadlines for participating sites, will be
discussed at the AG Retreat 2004. For
more information, visit www.scconference.org/sc2004/scglobal.html.
—Jackie Kern, NCSA,
jkern@ncsa.uiuc.edu
SC Global 2004 to be held in Pittsburgh ishoping to build upon the 80 AG nodes
sites used at the 2003 event.

4

JUNE 2004

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AG Collaborations
Universities Come Together to Develop Art on the Grid
University of Maryland
The Access Grid TM (AG) is prime Miho Aoki and Scottutilized MAX/MSP &Deal,
Universityoftechnology for collaborative art projects
Jitter, an audio and video
Alaska,andBethinvolving a variety of media. Art on theprocessing software
Miklavcic,
TonyLarimer
Grid is an organization of visual, media
system from Cycling 74.
and
Aaron
Henry,and musical artists that are developing
Her experience with AG
UniversityofUtah.
productions on the Grid to explore its
2.1.2 on a laptop was her
GridoperatorPaul
strengths, weaknesses and inherent
first one. Her design was
Merceratthe
University
potential. In March and April, Art on theto take two video signals
of
AlaskacoordinatedtheGrid produced a series of events to study
and process them with
live
feeds
from
Aoki
and
the effectiveness of the Access Grid
MAX/MSP & Jitter and
Deal.
Each
site
utilized
when applied to the arts.
send a single stream from
their
AG
Nodes
to
On March 25, the University of Alaska
her PIG. Paul Mercer at
capturethe
local
Fairbanks gave a Grid presentation of
the University of Alaska
performances.
Utah’ssite
musical artist Valerie Naranjo to more
had the challenge of
used
each
of
the
remotethan 25 sites internationally. Valerie is
supporting a live
site’svideo
streamsandthe percussionist for the Saturday Nightpercussionist, computer
mixed
these
with
the
local
Live Band and the Drum Principal and
Pictured is percussionist
assisted live electronics
streams
and
set
them
Arranger for the Broadway production
Valerie Naranjo performing
sounds, and 3D computer
to25
different
Grid
sites
back
out
onto
the
grid.
of the Lion King. She is a noted singer
acrosstheglobe.
animation.
Throughtheprocessofand drumming expert in African and
Percussionist
Scott Deal, Professor of
creating
Hallucinations,
the
three
sites
Native American musical genres. The
Music
at
the
Universityof Alaska used a
exercisedtheAG’sclinic was anbatteryofpercussion
instruments,
strengths
andefforttosamplers
andsignalprocessors
towrestled
with
its
ascertain how Art on the Grid is an orgaproduce
computerassisted
music
for
the
weaknesses.
Eacheffectively thesite’sprocess event. Using Emagic Logic software andGrid can be used nization of visual, media
a DrumKat 4.5 Turbo, he also sentdiffered,
ranging
to communicate and musical artists that are
MIDI signals to UAF Art Professor Miho
fromtheinstrumental anddeveloping
productions
Aoki’s graphics package Software 101,
experienced
node
vocal musicalwhich drove animation that was sent tooperator
adapting
techniques and on the Grid to explore
the other sites.
his/hersite
forconcepts.
strengths,
weaknesses
The group is currently planning moreartistic
purposestoDuring her
andinherent
potential.
projects
for the future.
thenovice,building
session, she–Dr. Scott Deal and Jimmy
a
PIG
for
the
first
performed on
Miklavcic,
University of Alaska
time
on
a
laptop.
the Gyil (anFairbanks, ffwsd@uaf.edu
There
were
severalissuesthat
involved
African xylophone), the marimba, sang
Native American songs and lectured capturing incoming video,
itandabout her music. She also directed modifying
retransmitting
to
the
grid.
participants in call and response singing,a first for this kind of event on the Grid. Utah used ATI Radeon
A questionnaire was sent out to people 9600 graphics cards with
who viewed the event, the results of built in scan conversion.
which will be included in a presentation This allowed Jimmy
Miklavcic to take any large
at the June AGN Retreat in Toronto.
On April 23-25, several sites came vic window, convert it to
together to create a new form of 640 X 480 NTSC and passperformance. University of Utah, it through a prosumer video
University of Alaska Fairbanks and mixer. The mixed signal is
University of Maryland College Park then connected to Osprey
combined their resources to create 230 capture cards andInterPlay: Hallucinations. The work was transmitted back on the
directed by Jimmy Miklavcic with grid. Utah’s current node
cussionist Scott Deal used a batter y ofperformances by Nadja Masura and has seven video capture Per
instruments, samplers and signal processors tocards.
Nadja
Masuraatthe
Brian Buck, University of Maryland,
produce music across the Grid.
JUNE 2004

5

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AG-Tech Update
Continued from p. 1

Presenting A Challenge to the AG Community for Developmentof this technology, which is where I of view? What tools can be added to thecome in, but the technology is much framework to address these questions?
For example,
bigger than any
senseof
single beneficiary.
presencecomes
How about the
AG is no longer an ANLfrom all thearts
andproject. The concept has senses. In a
humanities,
economics, social
engaged the community large room, atosciences, healthand it is up to the commu- clue
identifying aservicesandnity to nurture and grow speaker is where
emergency care?
the sound comes
What needs tothe child.
from. You don’t
happen now?
have this in theThecurrenttechnology can grow in many directions. AG, but how about directional
How can you enhance the sense of microphones and voice recognition topresence? How can you improve the point change an audible clue into a visual one?

When you’re looking forward to whatmight be possible technology-wise, it
sometimes helps to step back to see
where you have been. If you’d been
living in the 1800’s and wanted to getfrom one side of the country in hours
instead of days, would you have invested
heavily in designing and building everfaster trains, or would you have started
down the track that would lead tomodern-day air transportation?
And…sometimes there are ideas
spawned by visionaries connecting dots
no one else sees.
—Mary Anne Scott, PhD,
U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of
Science, scott@er.doe.gov

Building AG Global
Asia Pacific: A Distinctive Region of Diversity, Ready for AG
Have you ever noticed that mostAccess GridTM (AG) nodes are locatedin North America? While this is true,
more than 200 sites do exisit throughout
the globe, not including smaller single PC,
PIG nodes.
In Asia Pacific, AG nodes have beenor are being deployed in at least eight
countries including, Australia, China,
Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan,
Thailand and Philippine. In addition,
com-munities such as the ApGrid, Grid
working group of Asia-Pacific Advanced
Network (APAN) and the Asia PacificAccess Grid mail list are thriving.
Each country takes part in the AG
community in respective ways. In
Australia, Sydney VisLab built thecountry’s first AG node in Aug 2001.
Today, there are more than a dozen AG
nodes over the country.
In China, the Admire research group at
Beijing University has operated its AG node
since 2001. In addition, Tsinghua
University proposed and hosted aworkshop for SC Global 2001 that included
several dozen participants from China.
From Japan, the National Instituteof Advanced Industrial Science andTechnology (AIST), the Tokyo
Institute of Technology (TITECH) andKyushu University took part in SC
6

Global 2001. They planned andIn Taiwan, NCHC built the SARS
managed a panel discussion as a kick- Grid for fighting SARS. The SARS
off event of ApGrid, which is a Grid consists of AG and medical
partnership of more than 40 information management systems.
organizations from 15 countries in the They were developed in cooperation
Asia Pacific region. AIST, a leading with Pacific Rim Applications and Gridkaraoke service for XING and Waseda Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA)
University, held a distributed karaoke members and deployed at least four
session as part of SC
hospitals.
Global 2003 and more
In Thailand,
than 20 sites from 5
K a s e t s a r t
countries enjoyed the
The technical prob- University has
session.
working on alems that arise from been
In Korea, the Korea
broad range of AG
diversity are where the nodes from roomInstitute of Science andTechnology Information
nonverbal communi- based to laptop. It(KISTI) initiated aalso established thecation of AG assists.
community Access Grid
Asia Pacific AG
Korea. The Kwangju
mail list. In theInstitute of Science andPhilippines, someTechnology (KJIST) and Grid WG of room-based AG nodes are being built
APAN held tutorials and a workshop in now.
August 2003 that highlighted speakers fromThe Asia Pacific region is about
seven countries.
diversity. From different languages to
In Singapore, the National Grid Office different customs, the region and the(NGO) built the first AG node in that eight countries highlighted here are ascountry, which helped spawn community diverse as they are the same. Theinterest that includes Nanyang technical problems that arise from thisTechnological University (NTU) and the diversity are where the nonverbal
National University of Singapore (NUS). communication of AG assists.
NGO held the Memorandum of—Kazuyuki Shudo, AIST,
shudo@ni.aist.go.jp
Understanding ceremony with AIST.
JUNE 2004

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AG News Node
Cave Lifts Purdue
West Lafayette, Indiana—To demonstrate the advanced
computing power of Purdue University’s Envision
Center for Data Perceptualization, biology professor
Paul Robinson revealed a bit of his inner self—a whiteblood cell. Projected on wall-sized screens in thecenter’s virtual reality theater, the 5,600-square foot“Cave,” a three-dimensional image of the cell scanned
from an earlier sample resembled two blobs lockedin combat. In another room, an AG node will link
Purdue with more than 200 high-speed multimedia
research and academic sites on five continents.
Equipped with a 219-inch-by-58-inch video screen,
it will allow users work collaboratively on projects inways that standard teleconferences do not allow.
“There are a number of classes that we plan to teachthrough the AG in the fall,” said technical architect
Dwight McKay, who is responsible for the center’s
day-to-day operations. “Right now there are a few
scattered projects going on and there will be someprojects during the summer, but we expect explosive
growth as we become better.”–Information courtesy Indianapolis Star,
www.indystar.com$50K Learning System Grows
College Park, Maryland—A group of students walks intoa class and immediately confronts a wall of computer
images in a scene reminiscent of The Architect’s appearance in The Matrix: Reloaded. Instead of seeing
people’s lives the students sit in on other classes studying the same topic at universities across the nation. It’s awhole new type of distance learning - “videoconferencing
on steroids,” said David McNabb, a faculty research
assistant for the Office of Information Technology. Scenarios such as this may become more common at theuniversity following the creation of the University of
Maryland AG Initiative, an open community that supports collaboration among institutions. “The AG is ideally suited for smaller research groups,” McNabb said.
“We’ve looked at some distance learning projects, butthey’re not here yet.”–Information courtesy www.inform.umd.edu

Chicago AG Is Collaboration
Chicago, Illinois—Collaborative software is nothing new. Graybeards
recall “groupware” (a popular term from more than a decade ago)that referred to software that integrated the work of multiple individuals on a LAN. Lotus Notes, a famous example of groupware,
was the early entrant in this field and is still used at many Midwest
organizations. AG and PC-based software like Lotus Notes represent two extreme ends of collaborative technology in terms of costs
and sophistication. Despite the popularity of Lotus Notes, the reality
is that collaborative software is still uncommon. The potential tosubstantially increase productivity, speed up cycle times and reduce
confusion exists even with low-cost, desktop-based collaborative software tools. Some tools don’t even require a persistent Internet connection, which makes them perfect for laptop-toting travelers or
people only with access to the Internet.
–Information courtesy Jay Hemmady, Pensive PundIT column inePrairie, www.eprairie.com

Australia’s Virtual Reality Center
Adelaide, Australia—A new $5 million virtual reality centre openedat the University of Adelaide on May 4. The 3D Visualisation
Facility has four partner universities-–the three South Australian
universities and Curtin University in Western Australia-–as well as
industry and government partners. “This facility will put Adelaide
at the forefront in three-dimensional research in Australia,” said
Professor of Petroleum Engineering and Management Ashok
Khurana. “We hope to make a real impact in the way researchand teaching is conducted across many areas of the University of
Adelaide, and to provide a world-class facility for those outside of
the University.” The 3D Visualisation Facility is underpinned bysome serious technology. It features three imposing screens, motion tracking, full stereo sound and real-time computing capability
area. It also boasts an “intelligent whiteboard” that can record
anything written on it in digital form, send it anywhere in theworld and link up with the international AG system, allowing visual and audio-based remote collaboration with more than 250
universities around the world. “The applications for this facility
are almost limitless and stretch across just about everything the
University of Adelaide does, from petroleum engineering and molecular biology to agriculture and wine,” said Professor Khurana.
–Information courtesy www.news-medical.net

Continuum Supports Distributed Scientisits
Chicago—Specially equipped rooms in a business headquarters used for conferences and planning, often referred to as war
rooms, contain media intended to support or facilitate intense problem solving sessions. Researchers at University of Illinois at
Chicago’s Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) have developed a high-tech war room for scientists called the Continuum,
where distributed collaborators solve problems assisted by advanced collaboration, computation and visualization technologies
backed by PC clusters connected over gigabit networks. EVL’s Continuum Project aims to develop integrated ubiquitous tools
and environments to enhance collaboration. These include interactive stereoscopic displays, multi-site audio/video conferencing
and high-resolution tiled displays. “We want to understand how to build rooms with walls made of high-resolution displays
capable of both stereoscopic and monoscopic projection-allowing scientists and decision makers to see all of their data, all of
the time,” said Leigh. “We believe display-rich environments are a powerful way to enhance group awareness in distancecollaborations. It’s something that today’s basic video conferencing tools have great difficulty conveying.”–Information courtesy Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago, www.evl.uic.edu

JUNE 2004

7

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Building AG Global
Continued from p. 1

PRAGMA: A Community-Based Approach to Using the Grid
science as much as networking has done to our daily activities; underlying the collaborations, and illustrate the concept that theand the grid is yet too difficult to use by most researchers. grid “brings remote resources (observational equipment,
Finally, PRAGMA recognizes that constructing and using the computers, data and people) together to one’s local work
grid to promote e-science is inherently a global, collaborative environment.”
undertaking. No one institution or economic entity has all ofDuring the coming year, PRAGMA will continue tothe talent or all of the resources to do this. Yet, each needs to demonstrate the value of application-focused collaborating toparticipate in building the future scientific, social and economic build the grid from the ground up. We expect to diversify
global infrastructure.
areas of applications, to expand
PRAGMA accomplishes its
the institutions and geographic
mission primarily by conducting
regions involved, run experiments
joint projects that develop gridto demonstrate how to make the
PRAGMA’s goal is to establish
middleware to advancegrid usable on a routine basis,sustained collaborations and to
applications and by sharing
integrate software from various
advance the use of grid technoloresources to create a testbed, andmember institutions, and develop
addressing scheduling andvehicles and resources to train andgies in applications among a
allocation issues acrossexchange participants.
community of investigators workinstitutional and international
PRAGMA is a single model ofboundaries. In addition,how
to collectively build on
ing with leading institutions
PRAGMA is committed tointernational scientific needs sucharound the Pacific Rim.
disseminating the results of its
as building and deploying a grid.
efforts to the broader community
It is premised on the principles thatand to work with regional anda focus on application will produced
international groups to enhance the overall grid infrastructure and those developments, that an open organization of institutions
to promote global collaboration.
committed to this goal is a viable approach, that open access toDuring the two years of existence, PRAGMA has developed software and data are essential, and that attribution of ourtechnologies for a variety of examples, ranging from controlling a individual and identifiable contributions will ultimately
microscope to understand cell processes in the brain to monitoring benefit the larger effort. As the number and diversity ofthe environment in national parks and establishing a global international collaborations increase, we hope that ourframework for lake ecologists, distributed computations that can experience will provide guidance and inspiration as to what
lead to insights into drug discovery to moving files essential to is possible.
high-energy physics experiments, and from conducting a global
The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the National
structural genomic experiment to rapidly deploying technology to Science Foundation for PRAGMA (NSF INT 0314015) and would
assist the world in fighting the outbreak of SARS. These like to express our gratitude to all of the PRAGMA members.
accomplishments highlight working together across political and—P. Arzberger and P. Papadopoulos, PRAGMA,
disciplinary boundaries, with a common focus and shared principles
phil@sdsc.edu and parzberg@ucsd.edu

Photos showing Asia Pacific interaction are courtesy of AIST.

8JUNE 2004

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Retreat 2004
June 9-11

Ryerson University
Rogers Communication Center
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

as of 6/1/04

JUNE 20049TM

as of 6/1/04

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Plenary Programas of 6/1/04

Thursday, June 10
8:30am-9:00am
Rick Stevens, Argonne National Laboratory
Welcomecollaborative technologies, but to address the tough issues ofeffective human interactions and communications.

9:00am-10:00am
Alan Blatecky (alan@sdsc.edu), RENCIPlenary Keynote - Collaborative Technologies:
The Next Generation
Technology drivers (computers, networks, data) coupled with
scientific applications is beginning to make collaborativetechnologies such as AG useful and effective. However, up to
this point, the primary focus and efforts in these collaborativetechnologies have been technical in nature. It is now appropriate
to broaden the base of collaborative technology developers toinclude a wide range of interdisciplinary expertise from the arts,
humanities, economics and social sciences to not only mature

10:30am-11:00am
Ivan Judson (judson@mcs.anl.gov), Argonne National Laboratory
Access Grid Toolkit Roadmap
The Access Grid Toolkit has been out for only a year, and theadoption of the software has been remarkable. The past year
has seen a large part of the community migrate to the newsoftware; over the same period the AG Toolkit has increasedin usability, reliability and functionality. This talk will present
the roadmap for the Access Grid Toolkit over the next few
releases of the software, through quarter 3 of 2005. The
presentation is intended to stimulate discussion in thecommunity, identify where developer opportunities exist, andshow the users what features will be coming.

JUNE 2004

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Ryerson University
Rogers Communication Center
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Retreat 2004
June 9-11
4:30pm-5:30pm
Rick Stevens, Argonne National Laboratory
AG Community Roundtable - AG Future Directions
5:30pm-6:00pm
Special Interest Group Sessions
NOTE: SIG sessions take place at Riley’s Bar & Grill.

Bob Olson, Shannon Schraegle#4: Troubleshooting the AG
Node operators (and others) needing to better understand what
to do when things go wrong.Network Administrators and Systems
Administrators who find themselves supporting AG usage.
Friday, June 11

Ivan Judson, Tom Uram
#1: Hot Topics for AG Toolkit Development
Any developer interested in developing applications using the
AG Toolkit (or developers that are already building exciting
applications). You should have a basic knowledge andunderstanding of the Access Grid in order to fully participate
Jennifer Teig von Hoffman, Jim Miller#2: Documentation for the Access Grid
Do you have valuable AG experience or knowledge that could
help other AG users, node operators or developers? OR, areyou missing critical information that would help you to more
successfully use the AG? Please join this discussion. Priorknowledge of the Access Grid Documentation Project efforts
to date is beneficial to a productive discussion.
Mary Fritsch, Jackie Kern
#3: Conducting Productive AG Sessions
Anyone interested in effectively using the Access Grid (siterepresentatives, new users), or anyone with success tips toshare (current AG node operators, experienced users), is
welcome to participate.

1:00pm-2:30pm
Deb Agarwal (DAAgarwal@lbl.gov), Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory
PANEL Future Security Issues for the AG
The Access Grid Toolkit now uses the Globus Toolkit to build asecure collaborative infrastructure using a PKI. This panel will
present a short security tutorial, a review of the existing Access
Grid Security solution, discuss the current plans for future
security solutions in the Access Grid. The panel will try to solicit
from attendess security requirements that might be incorporated
into the future work. A set of security best practices will also be
discussed in the context of the Access Grid.
2:30pm-3:00pm
SIG Leaders
Special Interest Session Findings & Feedback
3:00pm-3:30pm
Rick Stevens, Argonne National Laboratory
Closing Session

Track One–AG Operations
as of 6/1/04

Thursday, June 10
11:00am-11:30am
Terry Disz, Argonne National Laboratory
Scientific Workspaces of the Future
The Scientific Workspaces of the Future project is apartnership between technology developers and end users to
deploy and further develop next generation high-end
collaborative and network based scientific visualization tools
and systems designed to meet the specific needs of distributed
applications communities. The initial application foci has been
the atmospheric modeling and simulation community andcomputational molecular biology community. This talk will
present the results of two years of close interaction with theseapplication communities.
11:30am-12:00pm
Dioselin Gonzalez (dioselin@purdue.edu), Purdue University
AG Collaborations – Collaborative Vir tual
Environments over the AG
We present the current state of the first phase in a research
project in the area of design and implementation of aframework for Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs). Thelong term objective is to create a toolkit that provides routines
12and functions that can be added to existing Virtual Reality(VR) applications in order to have them run in geographicallydistant Access Grid™ (AG) nodes. During the first phase,
specific VR applications have been developed to run as sharedapplications for the AG.
1:00pm-1:30pm
Mike Galich and Jim Miller (jmiller@insors.com), inSORS
Partner Perspectives – inSORS
inSORS has seen major advancements in both its customer
base and products and services in the previous 12 months.
Jim Miller of inSORS will provide interesting examples ofcustomer AG usage. From the end user point of view, thepresentation will identify some features and functions of theAG that have proven to be effective in collaboration projects.
A summary of inSORS’ latest software enhancements andAG2.0 integration will also be presented.
1:30pm-2:00pm
Todd Needham, Microsoft
Partner Perspectives – Microsoft Research
JUNE 2004

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Retreat 2004
June 9-11
2:00pm-2:30pm
Jonathan Tyman (tyman@internet2.edu), Internet2
Partner Perspectives – Internet2
The Internet2 Commons promotes and facilitates remotecollaboration throughout the Internet2 research and education
community. Working toward interoperability and sustainability
in the field of collaboration technologies, the Commons aims
to connect corporate, government and educational members
so that community needs are met by appropriate solutions.
There is practical support for widely deployed H.323, emerging
desktop tools, and advanced technologies like AG. There is
expectation that these can complement one another, leading
to global adoption of videoconferencing and collaboration tools.
2:30pm-3:00pm
Ron Rankine (rrankine@ryerson.ca), Ryerson University
AG Showcase Summary Sessions
3:30pm-4:00pm
Stephenie McLean (mclean@ncsa.uiuc.edu), NCSA/UIUCAG Collaborations – Minority Serving Institutions(MSI) Update
In July 2003, a Minority Serving Institutions AG Initiative waslaunched. This presentation will discuss some of the challenges
and successes related to developing a virtual community using
the Access Grid. This session will focus on how The Minority
Serving Institutions (MSI) Consortium has worked to engage
MSIs to be full participants in the high performance community
through the use of the access grid. The session will further
provide time for discussion and will make somerecommendations to other emerging high performance
communities that are looking to build the capacity tosuccessfully implement this technology.
4:00pm-4:30pm
Jackie Kern (jkern@ncsa.uiuc.edu), NCSA/UIUCAG Collaborations – SCGlobal Update
Anchored in the newly constructed technology-enhanced
Pittsburgh convention center, SC Global 2004 will link Access
Grid communities from around the world with the annual
Supercomputing Conference, to exchange ideas throughhighly informative talks, papers, panels and BOF’s on topics
of interest to attendees. In this session, you will learn about
the technologies planned for use by SC Global participatingsites, the requirements and deadlines for participation, andhear a few highlights of the SC Global program. Plenty oftime will also be available for questions and discussion of SC
Global’s past and future.
Friday, June 11
9:00am-9:30am
Brian Corrie (bcorrie@sfu.ca), WestGrid/Simon Fraser
University
WestGrid Collaboration and Visualization Network
WestGrid is a multi-province, multi-institute grid-computing
project in Western Canada, deploying a range of grid enabled
computation and storage facilities across Alberta and British
JUNE 2004

Ryerson University
Rogers Communication Center
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Columbia. As part of this initiative, the Collaboration and
Visualization (CV) Group within WestGrid has also deployedan advanced set of collaboration and visualization technologies
across the WestGrid sites. The goal of the CV group is toprovide an advanced collaboration and visualization
infrastructure to the computational scientists in the WestGrid
community. The collaboration infrastructure uses AccessGrid
as a foundation for providing collaboration capabilities,
including collaborative visualization, to its users. In this talk I
will describe the WestGrid infrastructure that has currently
been deployed, as well as describe some of our goals for
integrating visualization into the AG environment as a “firstclass” collaboration service. I will pose some open questions
as to how best to approach this integration in the AG
environment.
9:30am-10:00am
Eric Olson (eolson@mcs.anl.gov), Argonne National
Laboratory
Packaging and Distributing the AG Toolkit
Demand for the Access Grid Toolkit is growing. In particular,
users wish to see the toolkit packaged and supported on
various operating systems and hardware. This presentation
discusses the strategy the Access Grid Toolkit is adopting toallow the porting and customization of the software.
This presentation is intended to begin a discussion in thedeveloper community and provide developers with theinformation and tools they need to support the platforms of
their choice.
10:30am-11:00am
Tom Uram(turam@mcs.anl.gov), Argonne National Laboratory
A pplication Level Netwo r king: Netwo r kMonitoring and Bridging
The Access Grid has relied on working multicast
infrastructure since its inception in 1999. This reliance on
multicasting has required considerable effort, both fromnetwork providers who need to deploy and maintain the
Access Grid and from the users who occasionally run into
difficulties. This talk will describe how the Access Grid
Toolkit plans to address these issues by integrating
technologies already developed for application-level
multicasting. The existing solutions will be presented within
the framework of the Access Grid Toolkit. This solution isintended to provide stability to the users, while presenting
opportunities for challenging middleware research.
11:00am-11:30am
Bob Olson (olson@mcs.anl.gov), Argonne National Laboratory
Credential Management
The Access Grid provides a secure collaborative environment,
based on GSI/PKI tools and software. This talk will discuss
the state of the toolkit and its security software. Also presented
will be details about how the existing software will be enhanced
to support additional security solutions. The discussion of futureenhancements will include justification not only in terms of usability
and security but also in terms of technology changes coming in
the near future.
13

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Retreat 2004
June 9-11

Ryerson University
Rogers Communication Center
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Track Two–AG Technicalas of 6/1/04

Thursday, June 10
11:00am-11:30am
Deb Agarwal (DAAgarwal@lbl.gov), Lawrence Berkeley
National LabsXMPP Chat in the AG
11:30am-12:00pm
Rod Harris (rod.harris@anu.edu.au), Australian National University
Video Presence Clustered Rendering and Remote
Display Manager
The Australian National University Internet Futures teamwill present an application that can run across multiple offthe-shelf PCs turning them into a video decode cluster anddisplay wall. The use of this will be to enable Access Grid
Nodes to use multiple display PCs, with each being
responsible for a portion of the total display, instead of asingle display PC with a multi-head graphics card. Further
more the application is able to be controlled remotely
enabling a Node Manager to organize and arrange video
tiles with minimal distraction to those participating in a videoconference.
1:00pm-1:30pm
Hiroyuki Komatsu (komatsu@taiyaki.org), TITECH
Advanced Display Management
The Access Grid uses many windows such as video windows,
presentation slides, and control panels. To control thosewindows, an operator has to move, resize and iconify eachwindows separately at the present. AGPager provides an easy
window manipulation GUI as well as an automatic window
layout system under a specified layout rule. This talk will
present the usage of AGPager, the outline of theimplementation, and the goal.
1:30pm-2:00pm
Ivan Judson (judson@mcs.anl.gov), Argonne National
Laboratory
Scheduling on the Access Grid
The Access Grid provides a complex framework of services
and resources that can make the coordination of events
difficult. Scheduling systems provide interfaces for making
reservations for resources and the infrastructure to enforce
the resulting schedule. The Access Grid has had primarily
two online scheduling systems, but with AG2 there exists thepossibility to more deeply integrate a scheduling solution thatcan provide simpler to use but more control over the
preparation, and possibly the execution of AG collaborations.
This talk will present some scheduling scenarios, generated
as part of the GGF, ACE research group, and some derived
use cases and requirements will be discussed. The talk willconclude with the presentation of a draft design of schedulingsoftware that could be integrated with AG2.
142:00pm-2:30pm
Susanne Lefvert (lefvert@mcs.anl.gov), Argonne National
Laboratory
Developing Shared Applications
As the demand for customized collaborative tools increases,
developers recognize the need for a shared environment
providing a platform for applications to build on. This
presentation will take a close look at the framework available
in the Access Grid Toolkit for creating shared plug-in
applications. An example shared application will be
discussed, with the intention of providing a broad
understanding of the technology fundamentals and thechallenges associated with application implementation andintegration. Also included in this presentation will be
discussions about packaging, installation, and registration
solutions to make an application available for the community.
2:30pm-3:00pm
JongWon Kim (jongwon@gist.ac.kr) and SangWoo Han(swhan@netmedia.gist.ac.kr), Gwangju Institute of Scienceand Technology (GIST, formerly known as K-JIST)
Design of Network-Adaptive Extended Video
Services for Access Grid
The old VIC-based video services of AGTK 2.1.x is now
facing limitations such as lack of high-quality video support,
inflexible address allocation, and others. To address these
problems, since year 2003, we’ve been working on highquality video extensions for AG to include supports for DV(digital video) and HDV (high-definition digital video) video.
Based on our past experience, we are now designing an
extended version of video services for enhanced AG
support: ExtendedVideoService. The proposed video
service will provide a flexible arrangement for multicast
address allocation and will interface diverse video delivery
applications such as Vic, DVTS, and VideoLAN with AGTk.
In addition, we suggest a MonitoringService that monitors
current status of network and system resources and reports
them. By interacting with the MonitoringService, thedesigned ExtendedVideoService may be able to control
the quality of served video either manually or automatically.
3:30pm-4:00pm
Han Gao (hangao@cs.uchicago.edu), University of Chicago
Research Directions in Network Services
We first will review the current research in network services
starting with theoretical development of network services
infrastructure, which includes two basic management
modules: Capability Matchmaker and Multicast Clustering.
Then we will discuss the main technical issues about
integrating these models into the existing AG architecture.
Finally, several interesting research topics will be introduced
briefly, such as defining fairness in multicast, multicast
tree topology and other details of network service
applications.
JUNE 2004

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Ryerson University
Rogers Communication Center
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Retreat 2004
June 9-11
4:00pm-4:30pm
Rhys Hawkins (rhys.hawkins@anu.edu.au), Australian
National University
Improved Media Tools For The Access Grid
The progress of a project to implement a new set of media
tools for use in Access Grid sessions is presented. The
new media tools have been designed to incorporate
spatialised surround sound, flexible screen arrangement,
remote control of video placement, the ability to run on
separate machines, and provide a centralized mechanism
for automated or preloaded video layout. The aim of these
new media tools is to reduce the node operator load for
setup and running of an Access Grid session, to improvethe usability of Access Grid media software, and to give
greater flexibility to the designers of Access Grid rooms.
Friday, June 11
9:00am-9:30am
David Schissel (schissel@fusion.gat.com), General Atomics
AG Collaborations – National Fusion Collaboratory
The Department of Energy’s National Fusion Collaboratory
has been developing and prototyping collaborativeenvironments in support of the nation’s fusion program.
Next generation fusion reactors will be an international effort
with the reactor being shared by the entire global
community. This talk will present a set of requirements thata project of this scope imposes on the collaborativeenvironment.
9:30am-10:00am
Mitch Kutzko (mitch@ncsa.uiuc.edu), NLANR/DAST
Multicast Beacon Project Update
The NLANR/DAST Multicast Beacon is a multicast diagnostic
tool written in Perl which uses the RTP protocol to provide
useful statistics and diagnostic information about a given
multicast group. Multicast is a way of distributing IP packets
to a set of machines which have expressed an interest inreceiving them. It is a one-to-many distribution model suitablefor video conferencing and other forms of data sharing overthe network. Teamed up with the Access Grid, the Multicast
Beacon provides measurement data for the current multicast
traffic in a group. The Access Grid is a project led by ANL to
implement large-scale distributed collaboration over the

network. It relies on multicast for distributing audio, video,
and other data across the network. The Multicast Beacon
can also be used as a general-purpose multicast measurement
tool as well. Multicast performance measurement is usuallystraight-forward, as illustrated in RFC3550 (Real-time
Transport Protocol). A set of measurement hosts send small
probe packets to a particular multicast session, and also
receive packets from the session in order to determine session
transfer (network) performance. The NLANR/DAST Beacon
uses RTP as the underlying protocol for generating statistics.
10:30am-11:00am
Kazuaki Obana (obana.kazuaki@lab.ntt.co.jp), NTT Network
Innovation Laboratories
Evaluation of the MXQ Mechanism by Using Vic
and RatThis presentation discusses potential congestion problems
caused by video and audio applications. These applications
commonly use UDP for their transmission. Unlike TCP, UDP
does not have any standardized mechanisms forcongestion control. Therefore, they might lead to severecongestion that would significantly damage all of the flows
in same traffic class and degrade network utilization. To
overcome this problem, we propose the MXQ (MaXimal
Queuing) mechanism to realize a new flow-aware
forwarding policy. We evaluate this mechanism using UDP
video (vic) and UDP audio (rat) applications which areused as components of Access Grid. The results show thatthe dynamic arbitration control realized by the MXQ
mechanism can effectively control the congestion andenhance the effective use of best effort networks.
11:00am-11:30am
Piers O’Hanlon (P.OHanlon@cs.ucl.ac.uk), University College
LondonIPv6 and the Access Grid
The advent of IPv6 will provide a number of benefits to theInternet in terms of its continued growth and scaling
properties. The provision of IPv6 functionality in Access
Grid is under consideration within 6NET.org, a large
European Research Project. Preliminary studies and tests
have been performed and will be reported on. Initialinvestigations are underway into the impact of IPv6 on the
deployment, functionality and development of AG systems.

AG Retreat 2005

Co-Hosted By
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley, California
JUNE 2004

May 2005
15

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Workshops& Retreats

Upcoming AG Events
September 22-23, 2004 - Sophia Antipolis, France
Collaboration Technology: Advances Enabling Global Scientific Acheivement
A Workshop to Prepare a State of the Technology Report
Co-hosted by INRIA and the Argonne/University of Chicago Computation InstituteDetails forthcoming at www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/fl/events/Collaboration2004/
September 24, 2004 - INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, France
WACE 2004: Workshop on Advanced Collaborative Environments
Details forthcoming at www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/fl/events/wace2004/

Town Hall Meetings

Townhall meetings include general information from the AG community, and more detailed information on specifictopics. Occasionally, the topic will be more oriented toward developers, but non-developers still are encouraged toattend those meetings.
July 13, 2004: Development Tutorial - Developing Network Services
Invited Speaker: Susanne Lefvert
Discussion of AGtk 2.3 release
Susanne will present the tools, interfaces, and cumentation that are used to construct rich middleware services
that can enhance and expand typical AG collaborations. This will include a status report on the NMI Middleware
effort that NSF is supporting the University of Chicago.
August 3, 2004: Access Grid Toolkit Status
Overview of AGTk2.3 Toolkit functionality
AGTk 2.3 testing and packaging update
September 7, 2004: Community Roundtable
The AG Team Invites all AG Users and Developers to provide feedback on the AG Toolkit. An exhaustive list offeature requests will be shared, and feedback is welcome so that the AG Team can prioritize tasks.
October 4, 2004: Development Tutorial - Shared Application
Invited Speaker: Eric Olson, VenueVNC
AGTk 3.0 Development Update
November 2, 2004: The Access GridTM and Streaming Media
Invited Speaker: Thomas D. Uram
Tom will present: the requirements the Access Grid presents to streaming media solutions, some history of
the existing tools, and some useful libraries for developing new tools; a plan for building very highperformace, flexible, platform specific media tools, using QuickTime and Microsoft DirectShow; and how
the combination of data formats choices d network services have a direct impact on AG collaborations.

16

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The Access Grid (AG) (www.accessgrid.org) is an ensembleof resources including multimedia large-format displays, presentation and interactive environments, and interfaces to Grid
middleware and to visualization environments. These resources
are used to support group-to-group interactions, including largescale distributed meetings, collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures, tutorials and training.
The AG is now used at more than 200 corporate, research

Access GridTM
Documentation
Project

Access GridTM

December 6, 2004: XMPP in the AG
Invited Speaker: Deb Agarwal

The Access GridTM Documentation Project (AGDP)
develops high-quality documentation on AG usage, development, and node operations, available by download.
The AGDP aims to establish a set of AG references thatare easy to find, use and search. This effort owes a great
debt of gratitude to the Linux Documentation Project(LDP), on whose model the AGDP has been created,and on whose manifesto its own manifesto is based.
The AGDP has more than 30 documents and tutorials

AG Manifesto
and academic organizations worldwide. The AG technology was developed by the Futures Laboratory at Argonne National Laboratory(www.mcs.anl.gov), under research funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and Microsoft Research. Argonne National Laboratory is operated by the University of Chicago.

www.accessgrid.org
available online, covering topics as diverse as installing AG software, communicating effectively over the AG and managing AG
events. These resources are created and supported by AG users,
for AG users. Volunteers are always needed to support the project
and a “wish list” is available on the AGDP for those interested indeveloping new documents.
The AGDP is supported in part by the National Computational
Science Alliance.

www.accessgrid.org/agdp/
JUNE 2004