If interoperability between these islands is required we need to address the AAA issue but that should not affect our adoption of BES.
I agree completely. There are two "killer apps" for grid computing: data and compute. We should, by all means, aim to construct standard interfaces for these applications. (Having said that, I should also point out that these "wheels" have been reinvented since time immemorial...) However, failing to construct a *common* credentialing solution will result in, as you mention, "islands of grids" for *any* application standardization effort. And if islands-of-grids is an acceptable ends to our means, I have to question what we are doing in these working groups: we can simply refer the reader to a specific instance of middleware architecture documents (or implementation, even) as the standard for that "island". Problem solved. -Duane