Dear NIST SAJACC working group, After much discussion with many interested parties, and some delays due to trying to get all of the support infrastructures in place for continued activity, I would like to propose to the group to restart some of the activities of the SAJACC group in use case definition and testing, with the goal of moving these activities beyond their initial atomic-level testing to include expanded and broader use case testing. NIST SAJACC interest group meeting Tuesday, Aug. 21 2012, 2:00-2:30 pm EST Join by Phone +1 (855) 834-4888 - Toll-free Conference ID: 34801340 The URL for the web conference tool for the meeting is: http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/sajacc In proposing this, I am aware especially of the presence of new resources and projects that will enable us to test cloud use cases at a higher level, and with more emphasis on broader-scale interoperability and standards testing. In particular, here are a few examples. It should also be said that this restart effort has the approval and support of NIST people involved in the previous effort, and that we will make every effort to continue the previous good organizational and participation guidelines and principles. -- The IEEE has a new inter-cloud testbed that is being created to support the p2301 and p2302 efforts. -- OGF, ETSI and SNIA are cooperating on the new "Cloud Plugfest" series (http://cloudplugfest.org), which is on its 6th event iteration and continues with ETSI providing formal testing tools and logistical support to the ongoing testing series. -- The National Science Foundation supports the FutureGrid project,which is led by Indiana University with several US universities and large-scale computing centers (University of Chicago, University of Florida, San Diego Supercomputing Center, Texas Advanced Computing Center, University of Virginia,University of Tennessee, University of Southern California, Dresden, Purdue University, and Grid 5000) as partner sites. In this context we have proposed and had approved a Cloud Interoperability Testbed project, which is open for all interested parties to join. (https://portal.futuregrid.org/projects/176) -- The National Science Foundation has also funded an industry-supported Center for Cloud and Autonomic Computing (CAC), led by the University of Florida and with current sites at the University of Arizona; Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and Mississippi State University and with site memberships under consideration at three other universities (Texas Tech University, the Univ. of Chicago and Indiana U.) with approval currently pending. (http://nsfcac.org). We intend to support the ongoing activities for SAJACC under the umbrella of the CAC if these projects are approved. Beyond this, there are interoperability efforts going on in several standards organizations, including the ITU-T, ISO, DMTF, OGF, ETSI, SNIA and related organizations such as the Cloud Standards Customer Council, Cloud Security Alliance, etc. that would merit our attention. I believe that it would be an ongoing service to the community to leverage the above activities in a way similar to the previous SAJACC efforts in order to define, describe, conduct (where possible), communicate, disseminate and document cloud interoperability efforts where they are relevant to the NIST cloud computing standards project mission. To do this, I would like to propose that we schedule an interest meeting to take place in the usual (though not recently used!) SAJACC meeting time of 2:00 pm Tuesday, Aug 21, with the goal of starting monthly or bi-weekly meetings of the full SAJACC group thereafter. To register for access to the NIST SAJACC working group TWiki and e-mail list, if you are new to this effort, please see the information and fill out the sign-up form by checking the "SAJACC" box at http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/workinggroups.cfm Other information: the NIST Cloud Computing web site is http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud/ The SAJACC group information page is http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/bin/view/CloudComputing/SA... Further information on testing tools and access to related cooperating projects as discussed above will be given at the organizational interest meeting. If you have an interest in presenting any information at the meeting, please let me know. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me using the details below. I look forward to any and all input on this important topic. Please distribute this message as appropriate to any other interested parties, and I look forward to our conversation during the SAJACC meeting next Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2:00-2:30 pm EST. Alan Alan Sill, Ph.D Vice President of Standards, Open Grid Forum Senior Scientist, High Performance Computing Center Adjunct Professor of Physics, TTU ==================================================================== : Alan Sill, Texas Tech University Office: Drane 162, MS 4-1167 : : e-mail: Alan.Sill@ttu.edu ph. 806-834-5940 fax 806-834-4358 : ====================================================================