Workflow Optimisation in Distributed Environments

19 October, 06 10:00 AM - 20 October, 06 04:00 PM

e-Science Institute, 15 South College Street, Edinburgh

Any slides or other material generated as a result of this event can be found at: www.nesc.ac.uk/action/esi/contribution.cfm?Title=702

The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in the area of workflow optimisation for scientific applications. Workflows are widely viewed as offering a useful representation of service-based applications that are to be run in a distributed environment. A workflow can be conveniently displayed as a directed graph in which nodes represent services and edges represent the flow of data and/or control between them. Various opportunities exist for workflow optimisation, such as when multiple equivalent services are available to fulfil a service request. In such cases semantic support to recognise equivalent services is required. In general, a workflow may be composed of abstract services that get bound to concrete service implementations either when the workflow is initially designed, or at any subsequent time prior to service invocation. Three different types of binding abstract to concrete services can be distinguished. In early binding the service binding is done statically at design time and does not subsequently change. In late binding the service binding is done at runtime immediately before a service is to be invoked. In intermediate binding the service binding is done just before the workflow is to be executed. Although a workflow may be optimised at any of these three stages, delaying the binding of a service as late as possible allows more recent information to inform the optimisation process. It also makes it more likely that unavailable services will not be selected. Late binding performs optimisation on a service-by-service basis. However, intermediate binding allows the workflow as a whole to be optimised, taking into account factors such as the bandwidth between connected nodes in the workflow graph.

The workshop will include, but not necessarily be limited to, the following topics:

• Predictive scheduling
• Performance-based middleware
• Semantic support for service selection
• Web service discovery and optimisation
• Workflow optimisation
• Workflow restructuring

The following speakers have been confirmed:

• Robert Allan, Daresbury Laboratory
• Jessica Chen-Burger, University of Edinburgh
• Ewa Deelman, USC Information Sciences Institute, USA
• Stephen Jarvis, University of Warwick
• Kostas Karasavvas, National e-Science Centre, Edinburgh
• Omer Rana, Cardiff University
• Rizos Sakellariou, University of Manchester
• Paolo Traverso, ITC Trento, Italy
• David Walker, Cardiff University

The workshop is being organised by the Workflow Optimisation Services for e-Science Applications (WOSE) project, and is funded by the e-Science Institute and by the EPSRC through the Core e-Science Programme.

Target Audience

The target audience is researchers working in the field of workflow for distributed service-oriented applications, in particular those interested in optimising scientific workflows. We would also like to attract distributed application developers interested in being early adopters of the techniques and software presented at the workshop, and also companies that might seek to exploit the IP through appropriate partnerships. It is expected that attendees will be 70% academic researchers, 20% distributed application developers, and 10% commercial companies.

Programme

This event is provisionally scheduled to start at 10:00 Thursday 19 October 2006 and close at 16:00 on Friday 20 October 2006.

A full agenda can be viewed at: http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/702/agenda.cfm

Registration for this event is now closed. To enquire about an application or to cancel a previous application please contact NeSC Administration.

Important Dates

11 Jul - Registration Opens
12 Oct - Registration Deadline
12 Oct - Date we will respond to your application by (Please note this is the latest date we will respond to your application. It is normal policy for us to respond within 5 working days where possible.)
19 Oct - Event Starts at 10:00hrs

Enquiries

Enquiries should be made directly to our Conference Administrator.

http://www.esi.ac.uk