Workflow

[Wil O'Mullane]

logging is in the SupportINterfaces
On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 07:34:38PM -0000, Tony Linde wrote:
> That's right, Alex. Getting standard ways of finding and invoking services,
> and reading from and writing to VOSpace are critical at this stage.
> 
> > 	(ii) can capture and log messages in some format
> 
> Hadn't thought of that one. Log4vo? :)
> 
> T.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-interop at eso.org [mailto:owner-interop at eso.org] On 
> > Behalf Of Alex Szalay
> > Sent: 19 January 2005 18:48
> > To: Tony Linde; Interop IVOA
> > Subject: RE: Workflow
> > 
> > My 2 cents:
> > 
> > I fully agree with Tony, since I think there will never be a 
> > "standard"
> > workflow system, thus we will have to live with and love many 
> > different workflow environments, each having some advantages 
> > over others in some area.
> > 
> > We should only ensure, that our existing frameworks can easily
> > 	(i) submit jobs to such workflow environments,
> > 	(ii) can capture and log messages in some format
> > 	(iii) capture and save the outputs as part of VOSpace.
> > 
> > Then we can use a multitude of these services in a useful and 
> > tolarant fashion.
> > 
> > Cheers, Alex
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-interop at eso.org [mailto:owner-interop at eso.org]On 
> > Behalf Of Tony Linde
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 12:50 PM
> > To: Interop IVOA
> > Subject: Workflow
> > 
> > 
> > (I'm assuming Interop is the right list for this message.)
> > 
> > It was mentioned during the exec meeting/telecon that IVOA 
> > ought to look at standards for workflow. I must say that I 
> > think this would be an unnecessary drain on our resources 
> > when we already have too many things to work on standardizing.
> > 
> > Presumably any such standard would state the way that a 
> > workflow ought to be described so that it could be submitted 
> > to some unnamed workflow engine for execution. But why would 
> > we need such a standard?
> > 
> > Any project which wishes to develop a workflow creation, 
> > submission & execution tool would write the appropriate 
> > software so that a user could select from a set of tools and 
> > data sources (from the registry) and string them together 
> > with some flow logic into the workflow. This would then be 
> > submitted to a job execution service etc.
> > 
> > The only reason for standards in the workflow arena is if we 
> > expect that people willl want to create a workflow using one 
> > project's tools and then submit it to the job execution 
> > service run by another project. I think this is highly 
> > unlikely and certainly not something that will gain us 
> > sufficient benefits that we need to push effort into it now.
> > 
> > We already have a wide range of efforts proceeding: we need 
> > more registry standards, more data models, more data accecss 
> > standards as well as the new events effort. I really think 
> > that to start, or even start discussing, workflow standards 
> > at this point is superfluous.
> > 
> > Can someone persuade me that we do need workflow standards?
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Tony.
> > 
> > __
> > Tony Linde
> > Phone:  +44 (0)116 223 1292    Mobile: +44 (0)7753 603356
> > Fax:    +44 (0)116 252 3311    Email:  ael at star.le.ac.uk
> > Post:   Department of Physics & Astronomy,
> >         University of Leicester
> >         Leicester, UK   LE1 7RH
> > Web:    http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~ael
> > 
> > Project Manager, EuroVO VOTech   http://eurovotech.org
> > Programme Manager, AstroGrid     http://www.astrogrid.org
> > Co-Director,
> >  Leicester e-Science Centre      http://www.e-science.le.ac.uk/
> >