[AG-TECH] Retirement - Chris Osland

["Osland, CD (Chris)" <C.D.Osland@rl.ac.uk>]

This is just to tell everyone with whom I've had the pleasure of

working on the Access Grid, in the US and the UK, that I am taking

early retirement and my last working day at RAL will be December 23.

 

When we first set up the RAL node, one of the first of the UK eScience

nodes, I was already in a different department (BITD, not eScience)

and now eScience have finally appointed a member of staff responsible

for the eScience Access Grid - Paul Bonnett (see Cc: above) who works

for Nick Hill (ditto), so I expect the service will improve compared

with the rather informal support provided by myself and a succession

of good sandwich students (interns is probably the equivalent US term!).

This may also mean that support of the other Access Grids I have

built at RAL and DL has a higher profile.

 

I remain interested in the development of the Access Grid and may be

taking part in the upcoming conference organized by Peter Kirstein

and others at University College, London on the way forward for

the basic tools (vic, rat etc..) that underpin the AG, VRVS and others,

so will stay as a listener on ag-tech for some time - hopefully continuing

with my current e-mail address (see From: above).

 

It's been great to be involved in the project, and hope that it prospers

in the future.  As predicted by many, the problems that currently

appear to restrict its roll-out - scaleability, maintenance of the

basics, uneven reliability of multicast - are symptoms of its success:

I hope they are seen in a couple of years time as no more of a problem

than adequate single machine performance appeared to be about three

years ago.

 

Best of luck

 

Chris