MINUTES OF THE ANSA MANAGEMENT BOARD

held on 21st July 1998 at APM, Cambridge

 

Present: Bill, O'Riordan (Chairman), Andrew Herbert (Chief Architect), Eric Palmer (APM), Bob Briscoe (BT), Francois Horn(CNET), Dr Koji Tajima (Fujitsu), Andy Lingard (GEC-Marconi), Ian Davies (GPT), Neil Mason (GPT), Dave Picken (ICL), Bengt Thomson (ICL), Lone Thomson (ICL)

  1 WELCOME AND REVIEW OF AGENDA, MINUTES AND ACTIONS

The minutes of the last MB meeting were approved and signed. There were no matters arising and all actions had been completed.

2 STATUS OF ANSA CONSORTIUM - Andrew Herbert

Andrew gave an update on changes in the status of Consortium members.

  • BT have formally notified APM they will remain in the ANSA Consortium until December 1998. They propose to second Peter Bagnall to work part-time with the ANSA team during this period.
  • Fujitsu are in the process of renewing membership through to December 1998. Their secondee Takanori Ugai returns to Japan this month after two years with the ANSA team
  • DERA left the consortium in May 1998. Andrew and Will Harwood were unable to find a new champion to replace John Holmes.
  • APM Ltd has been acquired by Citrix Systems Inc of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Chris Phoenix becomes Director, Advanced Products, Andrew Herbert becomes Director, Advanced Technology and Rob van der Linden becomes Director of Operations in Cambridge. The Board of APM Ltd now consists of Chris Phoenix and Jim Felcyn (Citrix's Chief Financial Officer). Andrew confirmed Citrix's intention that APM would, with the other sponsor's permission, continue to be a sponsor, remain as programme manager for ANSA, continue to resource the ANSA team and act as Co-ordinator. Andrew would remain Chief Architect. This was accepted.
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    3 TECHNICAL PROGRESS - Andrew Herbert

    Andrew summarised the Technical Board meeting and overall progress against budget. In broad terms the 1997/8 programme is on schedule. The work on binding has fallen behind but should catch up with Peter Bagnall’s contribution. The work on mobile objects is ahead and the work on declarative transactions is on schedule. The work on Information Spaces has progressed well..

    It was agreed to continue with the current plan and to ensure that by the end of the project the code and documentation base was in good shape to be handed over to sponsors.

    It was noted that FollowMe runs on to March 1999. Andrew confirmed APM would make deliverables from this period available to sponsors, even though it fell beyond the formal end of the ANSA programme. He suggested a final ANSA CD-ROM would be made available at a suitable time.

    [ACTION AJH] The Technical Board made a strong recommendation that APM should publish the mobile object security work widely as it offered a compelling alternative to proposals for payment protocols and security in "active networks".

    The Management Board thanked Takanori Ugai both for his excellent contribution to the ANSA security work and for being an outstanding ambassador for Fujitsu. They wished him well for his future career on his return to Japan.

     4 MANAGEMENT REPORT - Eric Palmer

    Eric reported on cost and effort against budget and availability of deliverables against schedule, correcting a transcription error in the papers handed out at the meeting. (The copies on the file server have been corrected).

    All members are up to date with payments. APM is now only receiving ESPRIT revenue for ANSA-related work from the FollowMe and Pegasus Projects, DCAN and RETINA having now finished.

    [ACTION AJH] The work programme fell approximately two months behind in terms of man-hours during the past quarter. Andrew diagnosed this as disruption due to the acquisition process and undertook to ensure the next period catches up the back log.

    [ACTION EWP] Eric noted that the CEC were slow in paying project costs and that this was having a financial impact on APM. He said he would work with APM's accounts officer to encourage prompt settlement of the monies due..

    5 CITRIX

    Andrew gave the Citrix corporate presentation, explaining how APM's product activities aligned with Citrix Strategy. Bill O'Riordan commented that the presentation presented some important messages in terms of its focus on reducing the burden of system administration and application deployment. Andrew expressed a strong desire from Citrix to develop an ongoing commercial relationship with ANSA sponsors.

    6 Any Other Business

    Yvonne Peat has left APM, taking a change of direction in her career towards Human Resources. The Management Board recorded their gratitude for the six years of excellent service she has given the ANSA Consortium and wished her well for the future.

    Henceforth Rachel Sidaway will support Andrew with organising ANSA.

    Her telephone number is +44 1223 568995.

    (A formal presentation of an pewter ANSA goblet was made to Yvonne at the dinner following the meeting, and a pewter ANSA beer mug was given to Takanori.)

    9 Date of Next Meeting

    Andrew was asked to contact members to find a convenient date in late June / early July.

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