MINUTES OF THE ANSA MANAGEMENT BOARD

held on 8th April 1998 at APM, Cambridge

 

Present: Bill, O'Riordan (Chairman), Andrew Herbert (Chief Architect), Yvonne Peat (Secretary), Eric Palmer (APM), Peter Bagnell (BT), Jean-Bernard Stefani (CNET), Dr Koji Tajima (Fujitsu), Andy Lingard (GEC-Marconi), Ian Davies (GPT), Neil Mason (GPT), Peter Wharton (ICL)

Apologies: Bob Briscoe (BT), Robert Johnston(GEC-M), David Snelling (FECIT)

  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. All members are up to date with payments.

Two outstanding membership issues:

  • BT: a successful review meeting had taken place and Andrew is expecting a formal letter of resumed sponsorship. It is planned that Peter Bagnell will be seconded to APM for three months to work on binding.

    DERA have given notice and will leave the consortium in May 1998. Andrew and Will are currently working to find a new champion to replace John Holmes and are in the process of scheduling a meeting for late April. Will Harwood is leading this process as as he has contacts with DERA through APM’s consulting arm.

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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 now started.

    It was agreed to investigate allowing Newcastle University access to FlexiNet / MOW if it will lead to results of benefit to ANSA sponsors. Andrew will discuss this with Santosh.

     4 MANAGEMENT REPORT - Eric Palmer

    Eric reported on cost and effort against budget and availability of deliverables against schedule.

    Everyone has paid their fees.

    Andrew went through the ANSA budget spreadsheet showing income against costs. With sponsor income, associated ESPRIT grants, and secondees about 6 engineers working are on ANSA. Eric explained how claim rates work with the Commission and why APM’s labour rate is only £50/hour for CEC projects against an internal overheaded cost of £60/hour. In addition, ESPRIT hours are only funded at 50%. However, by making ANSA results available for use in ESPRIT projects relevant ANSA hours which can be charged against ESPRIT.

    Eric pointed out that with only six sponsors the budget was a very fragile structure and a budget for 1999 was an urgent item to address.

    5 CONSORTIUM FUTURE PLANS - Andrew Herbert

    Following on from Erics report, Andrew noted that to continue ANSA into 1999 we need a shared technical agenda and a replacement to ESPRIT top-up funds. With the completion of this year’s plan the ANSA Programme had reached its objective to take distributed object technology from research into practical use and to give the sponsors an advantage in understanding the technology. With CORBA and Java Enterprise Beans now being taken up by early adopters this goal could be justifiably considered achieved.

    There was general discussion of how each sponsor would want to move forwards in the light of ANSA-like technology becoming mainstream.

    Andy Lingard saide GEC-Marconi are particularly interested in security and management of information within distributed systems. They would welcome pre-competitive shared research in this area with a short to medium term goal.

    Neil Mason of GPT felt that consortium research was better directed at long range research, since short to medium term activities are often overtaken by commercial events. However the ANSA consortium was too small to continue with confidence and it was not clear how to attract further sponsors. The last new member had been Fujitsu two years ago.

    Andrew observed that these days industry groups focus very narrow areas, or else have become user led vertical activities learning sharing experiences. For example, the OMG is essentially fragmenting into a number of vertical SIGs.

    There is currently no obvious big research agenda with an opportunity for consensus building as wide as the distributed computing area. ICL is wanting to develop a model for a virtual research laboratory with a vision for the future but with way points providing short-term results. It could be operated through straight consultancy, maybe in collaboration with other interested parties, and linked to academics for more forward looking research.

    After a wide ranging discussion on the difficulties of funding and protecting long range activities in industry, there was general consensus on the benefit of a pooled a knowledge base to enable companies to intercept esoteric future ideas. Perhaps this could be accomplished by moving away from sponsoring an "Ivory Tower" to sponsoring a "window on the future (look-out tower)". It would focus on things 5-7 years ahead as this is the real future.

    In conclusion it was agreed:

    1. The ANSA Phase 3 Work Programme Vision is now in prospect as Java and CORBA converge.
    2. The ANSA Consortium has been a major contributor towards this convergence through all its phases and considers its objectives have been achieved with the current work as an excellent end point.
    3. Much work remains to be done in the field of distributed object computing, but it is now at the level of product development and exploitation for which a consortium model is inappropriate.
    4. Accordingly, the ANSA Phase 3 Work Programme would be formally closed at the end of December 1998 and APM Ltd would be released from its obligations under the Programme Execution Agreement at that time.
    5. The current sponsors would continue to support the ANSA Work Programme until the end of December 1998 on the same fees as currently agreed. APM will continue to resource the project until the end date and is committed to maintaining the standard of work produced and current style of operation.
    6. The Consortium would continue to meet informally as a forum for discussion of future technology, pooling knowledge, workshops and dinners: APM would be asked to act as coordinator and would be expected to make a reasonable charge for such services.
    7. The Sponsors would continue to interact with APM on a commercial basis through consulting contracts and technology partnerships as appropriate.
    8. There will be an end of ANSA event and a formal press release, the format to be proposed by APM.

    The Management Board recorded formally their appreciation of the excellent work done in ANSA, by the research team both past and current under Andrew's leadership.

    6 FOLLOWME Project

    The previously circulated Memorandum of Understanding between the ANSA and FollowMe Consortia was countersigned by the Chairman with the board’s agreement. The memorandum establishes an independent channel between the consortia so that they can negotiate continued cross-licensing of results should APM cease to belong to either group.

    7 DIMMA Licence agreement

    The previously circulated DIMMA licence agreement making DIMMA available for use by other than ANSA sponsors, but prohibiting exploitation was agreed and Andrew will arrange to announce availability of the software via the OMG.

     8 Any Other Business

    No other business was raised.

    9 Date of Next Meeting

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

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