SLAC Workshop on Scientific Data Management Problems and Solutions

[Mike Grissom <mikeg@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

Radsafers,

Those of you who are involved in data analysis may
be interested in the following recently announced
Workshop:

----------

           WORKSHOP ON SCIENTIFIC DATA
             MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AND
                    SOLUTIONS
   
                20-22 October 1998

  First (Formal) Announcement, September 19, 1998

{Web Links available on the Web page}
Agenda     Registration
Lodging    Travel

         Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
                2575 Sand Hill Road
                Menlo Park, CA 94025

Purpose and Audience

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together
scientists with large scale (petabytes) or
high-complexity data management problems and also to
encourage interaction with computer scientists
working on these problems.

We expect problems and solutions will arise from a
variety of fields, for example, computing science,
Climatology, combustion, high-energy and nuclear
physics, biology and genetics, fusion, materials
science and chemistry, and welcome wider
participation. Please distribute this announcement to
others working on problems of scientific data
management.

The workshop will be held at SLAC.

Goals

  1.	Present the current state of the art(s) (both
	implementations and computing science);
  2.	Present and compare the differing current and
	future needs of each area of science;
  3.	Promote ad hoc collaborations based initially
	on existing funding; for example:

	o  scientists already using Object Database
	   Management technology collaborate with
	   scientists needing to try out an ODBMS for
	   their application;

	o  scientists with massive future data
	   management needs study detailed
	   requirements and possible solutions
	   together with computing scientists and with
	   other scientists using large existing data
	   management systems.

Background

The initiative for the workshop arose from a need to
improve information exchange on data management issues
between DoE-funded scientists.

DoE and other US agencies are proposing the Scientific
Simulation Plan (SSP) to increase the visibility and
funding for computing/simulation as the "Third Branch
of Science".

The natural growth in the importance of data
management in almost all fields will be massively
accelerated by SSP. Preparation of SSP (e.g. a recent
workshop on Computing Science and Enabling
Technologies for SSP) has revealed a strong need to
set up collaborations to make much more effective use
of existing implementations of data management
solutions and to bring computing scientists and
developers into contact with "applications"
scientists.

The workshop will focus on how best to use the
existing intellectual resources in the near to medium
term. Strategies and quantitative cost estimates for
SSP data management are also required and are
expected to be one of the outputs from collaborative
studies initiated at the workshop.

----------
The above may be viewed on the Web at URL:

http://www-user.slac.stanford.edu/rmount/dm-workshop/main.htm


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