ETICS User feedback and Usability Workshop

As ETICS is gaining momentum, its user community is growing. We now have over 15 projects (mainly Grid related) from different grid user communities; for example: gLite developers and integrators, high-level services developers (e.g. GridWay and DILIGENT). This workshop will provide an opportunity for exchange between the growing ETICS user community and ETICS developers. ETICS is powered by Grid middleware, via the NMI/Condor that ‘We're using the Grid to build the Grid’. This is why ETICS can claim The Grid allows ETICS users to transparently build and test complex software on a wide range of architecture, operating system and environments, in turn accelerating the ability for software to properly execute in heterogeneous environment like Grids. We are not yet able to run on the EGEE infrastructure, since we're missing an important element: virtualisation. As soon as we are able to ship with a build and test job a VM of the environment required for the job, we'll be able to exploit the full power of the EGEE infrastructure. This is work in progress and an important focus for ETICS work plan for 2007. As mentioned above, virtualisation is an important enabler for ETICS's usage of a public Grid such as EGEE. Software built and tested with ETICS requires a highly controlled environment in order to ensure build and test reproducibility over time. This is why virtualisation is key for ETICS, such that it provides the required controlled environment no matter what the state of the host computer is in, as long as it can execute the VM.