Dear all,

I just wanted to give you a quick update regarding
the proposed meeting between science and db research.

We picked the dates: meeting will start with a
dinner on March 30, and will finish on Apr 1st at
3:00 pm. We have rooms at Asilomar reserved (thanks
to David and Mike!). We also have a draft list of
attendees, the list is still being worked on.
I will send it once we finalize it.

Again, I'd like to encourage everybody from science
to help us refine the list of common requirements
http://xldb.slac.stanford.edu/display/XLDB/Common+Requirements

Contact me if you have any questions!

Thanks,
Jacek





Jacek Becla wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> It was suggested at the xldb workshop that we should
> improve collaboration between science and db research
> communities, in particular, we should try to organize
> a working group & a mini-workshop with representatives
> from different sciences and db research community to
> discuss a common set of database-related requirements
> and primitives that scientists need from next-generation
> DBMS with the goals of stimulating database research
> and eventually producing standardized benchmarks.
> 
> We know from Mike's blog
> http://www.databasecolumn.com/2007/11/databases-for-big-science.html
> that the research community is still interested (great!),
> and I think science is interested too, so let's make it
> happen.
> 
> I suggest we organize a _small_, focused mini-workshop
> with representatives from
>  - astronomy (2-3)
>  - HEP (2-3)
>  - biology/medicine/neuro-science (2-3)
>  - earth science (1)
>  - db research (4-6)
>  - plus KT and myself (organizers).
> That would be < 20 total.
> 
> I do remember it was mentioned at the XLDB we might want
> to invite few selected vendors to this meeting, could
> someone explain what the thinking behind it was? I imagine
> if we pick some (true) db researchers that happen to work
> for a database vendor that might work well (maybe
> Guy Lohman? Who else?), but otherwise I think for the
> sake of keeping the meeting small and focused I'd be
> tempted to leave the vendors out this time (sorry!).
> 
> I know astronomy and HEP communities relatively well,
> and I thought about inviting:
>  - Robert Lupton, Alex Szalay and Kirk Borne (astro)
>  - Dirk Duellmann, David Quarrie (hep)
> I will need help with identifying solid representatives
> from the remaining sciences, I'm counting on Nagiza (ORNL),
> Celeste (LLNL) and others to help us.
> 
> We'll expect science representatives to prepare white
> papers in advance of the mini-workshop based on input
> and materials from their colleagues describing prioritized
> features and primitives her/his community would like
> to see in a next-generation DBMS. These white papers
> will serve as the basis for the workshop discussions.
> 
> To kick off this process, we have prepared a draft
> list of potential common requirements:
> 
> http://xldb.slac.stanford.edu/display/XLDB/Common+Requirements
> 
> We encourage everybody from science to add to it or
> attach comments.
> 
> We are proposing to meet late April or early May in
> Asilomar (as discussed at XLDB), and we believe a
> 2 day meeting would be most productive.
> 
> Mike, David: I know you've organized many meetings and
> conferences at Asilomar, can we count on your help with
> arranging the logistics with Asilomar?
> 
> And finally, given how severely the budget of entire
> science was hit this year, it would tremendously help
> if we would have some sponsors to offset the costs.
> Given we are not planning to have representatives from
> industry and vendors, I'm not sure what is the best
> way to attract sponsors.
> 
> Anyway, please send feedbacks, comments and suggestions
> either to me or to the entire list.
> 
> thanks,
> Jacek and KT
>