IVOA Executive Committee Meeting (FM15)

May 18 2005 @ 12.30-15.30 Local Time (Kyoto)

Logistics

• The meeting will be held in the Kyoto International Conference Centre, Room 104.
• A working lunch will be provided
• Those attending by phone will be called from Kyoto - please provide number to Masatoshi

Agenda (Draft)

1. Roll Call
2. Minutes of FM13
3. Review of Actions
4. Reports from VO projects (to be uploaded to web page)
5. Reports from WGs
6. Progress on Technical Roadmap
   • review of milestones
   • general review on technical progress : are we still focused ?
7. Key IVOA positions
   • new Deputy chair
   • Secretary and Technical Lead
   • Applications Interest Group
8. Kyoto meeting - review of progress
9. Prague 2006 conference : next steps
10. IVOA Calendar
11. AOB
12. Summary of Actions

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Reports from the Projects

(please upload you projects here - or email to Nic Walton) -- NicholasWalton - 18 May 2005
See also IvoaExecMeetingTM14.

AstroGrid - AndyLawrence, 13 May 2005

Progress Report

AstroGrid just passed a major milestone - our first public release of an open system for astronomical end-users - AstroGrid-Release V1.0. This is a preliminary release, with limited documentation and known bugs, but we are encouraging astronomers to register, start using the system, and feedback their experiences. We anticipate a fuller release in late summer - V1.1. This will be a release of an improved end-user system and a release of the AstroGrid software suite, which of course all other VO projects are welcome to make use of. Since the very recent announcement, we have 26 new registered users, making 71 in total now; it will be interesting to see how this grows.

The release is described on AstroGrid News and is available at http://www.astrogrid.org/release-v1.0

This release has a portal; access to virtual storage (MySpace); a browsable Registry; a query builder; a workflow building system; some simplified "science services" parameter driven tasks; and links to third party applications, like TopCat and Aladin. Some things work directly through the portal, using Cocoon. Others are launched on the client machine using Java Webstart, using an "AstroGrid Desktop".

Given that we now have a fully working system, we are having vigorous debates about how to maintain and support such a system, and the relation between the AstroGrid project and the UK data centres. (I bet this all sounds familiar to some of you ..)

The other thing of note is that we running a workshop for users in July in Cambridge. For further details see the news announcement, or the full details here.

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Euro-VO - PeterQuinn, 11 Apr 2005

The final demonstration for the AVO project (and the end of the project) occurred at the ESA Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), Villafranca Spain, from 25-26 January 2005. A full report can be found at http://www.euro-vo.org/twiki/bin/view/Avo/AvoDemo2005. This occasion also marked the initiation of the Euro-VO program. I would like AVO to be removed from the IVOA membership and replaced by Euro-VO (using the existing www.euro-vo.org as the home site for the moment). Euro-VO will be represented on the IVOA Exec by myself and Martin Kessler from ESAC. I ask that the IVOA Exec recognize and accept this transition.

The Euro-VO work program will be executed by three new organizations. The EURO-VO Data Centre Alliance (DCA), the Euro-VO Technology Centre (VOTC) and the EURO-VO Facility Centre (VOFC). A Memorandum of Understanding supporting the Euro-VO program has been drafted between ESO, ESA, PPARC, INAF, INSU, INTA, Max Planck Gesellschaft, NOVA and PPARC and is expected to be signed by mid-2005. A successful proposal (VO-TECH) to the EC FP6 scheme was lead by Andy Lawrence and generated 6.6 million Euro in funds. This contains 12 new software engineering positions who will work with 12 contributed positions from the six partner organizations (U.Edinburgh, U.Leicester, U.Cambridge, ESO, CDS, INAF) to execute a three year work program on VO infrastructure and tool development. VO-TECH is the first project under the VOTC umbrella and successfully started in January 2005. The DCA Executive Board had its first meeting in December 2004. A proposal to the EC FP6 for DCA funding was lead by Francoise Genova from CDS in March 2005. The proposal is seeking approximately 2 million Euro in funds for DCA startup over the next two years. Results from this proposal are expected by mid-year. Start-up activities for the VOFC are foreseen for 2005/2006 under the joint leadership of ESO and ESA. In line with the IVOA roadmap, Euro-VO is endeavoring to make 2005 a year of data centre take-up by hosting a workshop at ESO in June. The workshop currently has 80 registered participants and will conduct a series of overviews, lectures and tutorials aimed at giving data centre and large project staff the ability to publish data within the existing VO infrastructure (see http://euro-vo.org/workshop2005 for details).

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