Welcome to ISGC11 and OGF31 from the Programme Committee Chair and from ASGC

After several days of pre-meetings and workshops, ISGC2011 and OGF31 are now officially underway! Programme Committee Chair, Bob Jones of CERN welcomed us all to this year’s event, which is themed “Seamless distributed computing infrastructures”. Over the decade, ISGC has become a leading international distributed computing forum in Asia Pacific, promoting the awareness of grid and cloud computing and advanced e-Science applications.

Dr Jones described how research communities now make widespread use of distributed computing facilities. Linking together data centers, production grids, desktop systems or public clouds, many users are able to do more research and produce results more quickly. However, Jones said: “Our users could do much more if these infrastructures worked together more effectively. Changes in the way we approach distributed computing, and new services from commercial providers, mean that boundaries are starting to blur. This opens the way for hybrid solutions that make it easier for our users to get their job done.”

So this is why we can expect this year’s event to focus on the opportunities that better integrated computing infrastructures can bring, and the steps needed to achieve the vision of a seamless global research infrastructure.

Dr Jones pointed out that 2011 is a year of firsts for ISGC. First the title - while the acronym remains the same, its meaning has changed to reflect the evolution of computing: The International Symposium on Grids and Clouds. Secondly the programming - ISGC 2011 has always included topical workshops and tutorials. But 2011 is the first year that ISGC has been held in conjunction with the Open Grid Forum. “We are excited about the possible synergies that this could bring,” said Jones.

Another first is for the Proceedings – for 2011, the Committee will be using an open access online publishing scheme. The Proceedings will appear more quickly and more people will have access to the results, providing a long-term online archive of the event.

Bob Jones’ welcome was echoed by Dr Simon Lin of ASGC, our very generous hosts for this year’s event. Dr Lin extended a welcome to all delegates, but most particularly to the Japanese delegates attending this year – the situation there is already described in Tom Fifield’s post and Francois Grey’s thought provoking description of the Hackfest event that took place yesterday and Sunday.