Overview
A series of two workshops on data management for Office of Science programs will be held this year. The first workshop will be at SLAC on March 16-18 and will examine the needs of the programs and the status of relevant data-management technology and computer science. The second workshop will be in Chicago on May 24-26 to formulate plans to address the gap between program needs and the data-management solutions that will be available. Between the two workshops a smaller meeting will draft a range of plans for consideration by the second workshop. The workshop series will be sponsored by ASCR/MICS.
A white paper "Planning ASCR/Office of Science Data-Management Strategy" (MS-Word) written by a subset of the workshop-series organizing committee is available.
Goal
Identify the challenges posed by data-intensive science supported by the Office of Science. Aim at a 5+ year plan to address these challenges.
Focus and Boundaries
The focus is on challenges arising from the volume and complexity of both data derived from experiment, simulation, and observation. Non-trivial volumes of data are typically tens to hundreds of terabytes today and are increasing with "Moore's Law". The complexity stems from the diversity of data sources relevant to a scientific domain, and the metadata and provenance of the large volume of data. The workshop will aim to avoid replicating effort already supported, by identifying relevant areas already receiving significant funding and attention, such as Grids and digital libraries.
Participation
By invitation, with encouragement to those interested to request invitations. Please send requests to Richard.Mount@slac.stanford.edu
The organizers wish to ensure participation of:
- Scientists and engineers from Office of Science programs who can present and discuss their current and future data management needs (First workshop especially);
- Scientists from Office of Science programs who can address the priorities of data-management needs in relation to other needs of each program (Second workshop especially);
- Office of Science computer scientists with interests in data management;
- Representative scientists and/or program officers from other programs and agencies (NSF, NASA, DOD, etc.), especially those who can bring a broad perspective over the data-management needs and plans of their agency.
- Representatives of the storage and data-management industry, particularly those who can bring a broad perspective over likely future capabilities.
In general, participants will be strongly encouraged to attend BOTH workshops. Limited financial support may be available for university-based participants.