Application Strategy Council (ASC) Meeting
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
1:00 PM Eastern

Participants: George Thoma,  David Lassner, Parvati Dev,  Homer Neal (from Geneva), Harvey Newman, Russ Hobby, Laurie Burns, Mike McGill, Terri Saarinen - scribe,

Unable to participate: Alan Bletecky, Alan Whitney, Jacqueline Brown
  
Update from Internet2
Mike McGill shared information about the new Healthnet initiative.:  Commissioners of FCC approved program to fund 85% of cost.  Mentioned Internet2 in the press release 9/26/06.  Specific details to hit FCC website today.  Lots of conjecture here to what that means.  Focus on providing reasonable connectivity to various communities. 
  
Laurie Burns gave update on Governance. Harvey Newman and David Lassner both sit on that council.  Good level setting meeting to make issues known.  They have a very, very preliminary outline of the first draft of the final report.  A clear description of what the recommendations are and outcomes of environmental scan.  Captures current state, issues, areas of concern and improvement.  Six teleconferences scheduled between now and Thanksgiving to do deep dives into several areas. 

Intend to use the FMM06 to bring a final draft, or well vetted and articulated ideas to the FMM06 and engage there for discussion.  Plan now is to go to the board Jan or Feb.  Additional time allows for more openness and transparency. 
  
Real Time Collaboration
RTC is humming along with weekly/biweekly teleconferences. They are trying to finalize the final report.  RTC report has lots of meat, but still not to the point of recommending products and tools.  It is more about architectures.   RTC is working hard and staying focused.

IDEA Awards 
David said Awards stuff is chugging along.  Greg Wood’s and Ted Hanss’s goal is to organize judging team for next round of awards and feature award winners at subsequent MM. 

Other agenda items?
Homer said this may be a good time to let ASC know about a small tools collaboration conference in Geneva Dec 11 -14.  A combination of an event put together by users from the LHC and workshop on collaboration environment.  Issue is how can collaboration exist for 2000 scientists around the world, working on projects that extend over a decade?  What tools? What other issues?? What existing technologies small groups should investigate? What is on the horizon?  He welcomes ASC participation if available especially if any ASC members will be in Europe at that time.

Russ said interest is coming from all sectors.  CIOs are now wondering how to support all of this once researcher gets tired of self-support or if there are facility or infrastructure problems.  NY state (NYsgrid) being put together to support grid type infrastructure.  Then there are the institutions themselves, and even the smaller disciplines.  Lots of activity in this area is now sprouting up.  David agrees as requirements go up the stack from connectivity, the issues of how to use, organize and make it all work from campus emerges.  He sees lots of work, lots of opportunity.

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