:: Announcements

The International Winter School on Grid Computing ’08 was closed on Wednesday, 12 March 2008 with an inspiring keynote talk given by Malcolm Atkinson.

Preliminary results:

- 55 complete applications received

- 38 prospective participants started working on Preparatory Exercises

- 29 participants successfully completed all exercises and were invited to register

- 29 participants registered

- 28 participants successfully completed the School; the remaining participant had to give up because of unexpected commitments.

Successful participants are going to receive Certificate of Attendance comparable to International Summer School on Grid Computing certificates.

We warmly congratulate all successful participants!

More information and analysis of winter School success will be posted shortly.

The International Winter School on Gird Computing '08 starts on Wednesday, 6th February 15:00 GMT with a keynote talk given by Miron Livny, professor of Computer Sciences and leader of Condor project. Please, learn more about our keynote speakers in their section of the website.

Please, make the best out of the School and try to attend the talk. However, if you’re sure that you will not be able to attend, please notify School Co-ordinator as soon as possible.

All IWSGC'08 participants were supposed to receive e-mails with their logon details to WebCT. If you cannot find your e-mail, please let School Co-ordinator know as soon as possible.

Preparatory Exercises were closed on Sunday, 20 January at 00:00 GMT. On Tuesday, 22 January e-mails informing all prospective IWSGC’08 participants about their success in Preparatory Exercises have been sent. Here are some preliminary statistics:

- 55 complete applications received

- 38 prospective participants started working on Preparatory Exercises

- 29 participants successfully completed all exercises and were invited to register.

Congratulations to all accepted participants!

Accepted participants can take a rest from Winter School activities for a while. However, please follow information on this website regularly.

Important information:

- IWSGC'08 will take place from 6th February to 12th March 2008

- During this period, participants are required to work approximately 20 hours per week

- IWSGC'08 consists of 7 live online events and asynchronous work in between. In order to successfully complete the course, participants are obliged to attend at least 4 live events in their full duration.

Time-line of all events will be published on IWSGC'08 website soon.

There are five more days until the end of Preparatory exercises for the Winter School. Congratulations to those who did Preparatory Exercises on time - keep on the good work! Those of you who did not, please hurry up.

Even experienced participants needed help with Gilda certificates and (especially) Unix exercise. Please, do not wait till the last day with exercises.

Prerequisite exercises are designed to test both your understanding of technologies and attitude to work. Whatever the reason, participants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School.

As you can read from the website, Winter School tutoring and support is provided during week-days, i.e. Monday to Friday – Preps support is based in Great Britain, so you can expect us to work until Friday, 17:00 GMT. If you encounter a problem that you can’t solve on your own during the week-end, and no-one of your tutors decides to answer e-mails outside of regular work time (although some of us might do), you might not be able to finish your exercises on time.

Please, try to complete Gilda exercise first. After submitting your solutions for this exercise, we have to manually set your access to Unix exercise. Please, do not expect this to be done outside work hours!

We are entering the last week of Preparatory exercises for the Winter School. Checking statistics, I discovered that approximately half of you still haven’t submitted any solutions.

Please, do not wait till the last day – anything can go wrong, from your obligations to Winter School support. Even for experienced participants, it took a couple of days to complete all the exercises: do not put yourselves into the situation that you can’t make your exercises on time.

Prerequisite exercises are designed to test both your understanding of technologies and attitude to work. Whatever the reason, participants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School!

As you can read from the website, Winter School tutoring and support is provided during week-days, i.e. Monday to Friday – Preps support is based in Great Britain, so you can expect to reach us until 17:00 GMT. If you encounter a problem that you can’t solve on your own during the week-end, and no-one of your tutors decides to answer e-mails outside of regular work time (although some of us might do), you might not be able to finish your exercises on time.

The progress of Preparatory exercises is satisfactory. Approximately half of Winter School participants successfully obtained Gilda certificate, approximately one third solved Java and XML exercises. Unix exercise proved the most difficult, with only 4-5 correct solutions.

Please, continue the good work on Preparatory exercises. Try to complete Gilda exercise first – it is necessary for logging into Unix one.

Please, do not wait till the last day with exercises – anything can go wrong, from your obligations to Winter School support, and you might lose your place in the School. Whatever the reason, participants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School.

New new mailing list iwsgc08_participants@lists.nesc.ac.uk is open. Through this list, IWSGC'08 participants can discuss and share important information.

Please use this list freely!

IWSGC’08 organization apologises for all problems with prerequisite exercises. This is the first time that we run those fully online, and details that weren’t important in classroom situation showed themselves more important online.

In order to make up for all problems with the exercises, we decided to move the deadline for their completion until 20th January. In this way, you will have enough time to complete all the exercises.

We would like to remind that preparatory exercises are a very important part of selection process and have to be completed until the end. Participants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School. This is the final deadline – please, do not expect any more extensions!

Please, follow news about the School here: rather than sending e-mails, all important information will be posted in our Announcements section.

Yours truly,

Petar

IWSGC’08 Co-ordinator

Dear participants

I hope you all had a wonderful time during vacations. Some of you were also very productive: thus, we have 10 people who solved Gilda exercise, 6 people who solved Java Exercise, 8 people who solved XML exercise and 0 people who solved Unix exercise. During the vacations, I received more than 100 e-mails from with various questions and problems with the School. Tutors also have life, so I decided to solve all problems and publish solutions here.

1. One of the most frequent questions was the about GILDA certificate. A typical question sounds like this:

To get GILDA certificate in prerequisite exercise, I need Winter School Registration Code. But when I try to get registered then it says that you can not register until your application has been accepted. Please help me in this regard.

The explanation is simple: this exercise is recycled from the International Summer School on Grid Computing. For Summer School participants, Preparatory Exercises were optional – thus, they had to register before they started solving them. This problem is completely our fault, and I apologise for the inconvenience.

The solution is even simpler. GILDA instructions say: Account username - please use your Winter School Registration Code, gpr03-xx, which can be found in the Personal Information at the top of the Prerequisites Exercises web page. Please, use your Student Id instead of Registration Code. When you log into Grid People Registry, you will find your Student Id on top of the screen. Thus, for Student Id: 111, account username will be gpr03-111.

Despite this problem, it is interesting that 10 people managed to get a certificate anyway. Congratulations to everyone who bridged the problem without our help!

2. Another problem, very important although rarely asked, is excellently described in the following e-mail:

I tried to log on tc19.nesc.ed.ac.uk for the Unix assessment using both my Gilda certificate and my winter school user/password, but none of them gave me access to the machine. I selected the pkcs12 certificate authentication form and after filling in my pkcs12 Gilda certificate and my passphrase I receive the message: “keyboard-interactive authentication failed, try again?”. I also tried the “password” authentication, but it gave no result. Could it be because of my certificate or maybe I am doing something wrong?

Again, the solution is simple. We have to set up accounts on tc19.nesc.ed.ac.uk – however, we can do it only after you obtain Gilda certificates. People who already obtained Gilda certificates will get access tomorrow until the end of work-day. Others: please, obtain your Gilda certificate as soon as possible! This will allow us a day or two to grant you access to Unix exercise. This is very important: please, do not wait with Gilda exercise until the last day, because you will not be able to complete the Unix one!

3. The last question is succinctly described in the following e-mail:

The resource links for the assessments haven't been working for 6 six days. I could not reach the description of any task. Could you please help me to get the descriptions.

Due to unexpected server problem (which, naturally, occurred when everyone was off) our Digital Library was down for a while. The problem is solved now, people are back from vacations, and don’t worry – it will not happen again.

Cheers,

Petar Jandric

IWSGC'08 Co-ordinator

During the past week, ICEAGE Digital Library was temporary out of service.

Problems with the Library have been resolved, and Winter School participants are invited to continue with Preparatory Exercises.

If you find any Digital Library link temporarily unaccessible, please try again later. If problem persists for more than 24 hours, please e-mail iwsgc08_practicals_support @lists.nesc.ac.uk

Due to Christmas closure, the International Winter School on Grid computing support team will be on vacations until Monday 8th January 2008.

All enquiries sent during this period will be solved promptly after our return.

If a case of emergency you can e-mail School Co-ordinator (pjandric@nesc.ac.uk). Please, write URGENT in front of your message subject.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hogmanay!

Invitations for participation in International Winter School in Grid Computing 2008 have been sent to successful applicants.

Successful applicants are advised to start working on preparatory exercises immediately after receiving their invitation.

Participants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School.

Successful applicants are strongly advised to continue monitoring these Announcements. All relevant information regarding Winter School will be posted here.

The Admissions Committee has produced the final list of successful applicants.

Tuesday, 18 December after 12:00 GMT, applicants will receive a follow-up e-mail with instructions for access to Preparatory Exercises.

Successful applicants are advised to start working on preparatory exercises immediately after receiving an invitation for the Winter School.

Participants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School.

Applications for the International Winter School on Grid Computing '08 are now closed.

We received 55 completed applications.

25 other people started to fill in the applications form but did not complete it.

Successful applicants will receive a follow-up e-mail with instructions for access to Preparatory Exercises.

Today, 14 December at 00:00 GMT applications for the International Winter School on Grid computing will be closed. Late applications will not be accepted.

Tuesday, 18 December all applicants will be informed about the status of their acceptance.

Successful applicants will receive a follow-up e-mail with instructions for access to Preparatory Exercises.

Participants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School.

Tomorrow is the last day of applications for the Internatinal Winter School on Grid Computing '08.

Considering the high number of applications, we decided NOT to extend application deadline.

Apply now, and maybe you will get the place in one of the most prestigous online schools on grid computing in the world!

We are entering the last three days of applications for the Internatinal Winter School on Grid Computing '08.

Considering the high number of applications, admissions to the International Winter School for Grid Computing '08 are highly competitive. According to current rate of accepting the existing applications, we believe there is still a restricted number of places available.

We want only the best participants in our School. Apply now, and maybe you will get the place in one of the most prestigous online schools on grid computing in the world!

Admissions Committee has already started working on existing applications. Applications satisfying all academic requirements will be processed on first come first served basis. In order to secure your place in the School, we strongly advise you to apply and/or complete your applications now.

We are entering the last week of applications for the Internatinal Winter School on Grid Computing '08.

Admissions Committee has already started working on existing applications. Applications satisfying all academic requirements will be processed on first come first served basis. In order to secure your place in the School, we strongly advise you to apply and/or complete your applications as soon as possible!

Considering the high number of applications, admissions to the International Winter School for Grid Computing '08 are highly competitive. All successful applicants will have to complete a number of prerequisite exercises before the beginning of the School. Applicants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School.

According to current rate of accepting the existing applications, we believe there is still a restricted number of places available. The sooner you complete your application, the more likely you will get your place in the School!

We are more than pleased to announce our final list of tutors. Please, meet them in our Tutors section!

IWSGC'08 tutors will provide exciting practical exercises, discuss the challenges of building and sustaining e-Infrastructure, report its rapid influence on the way we research, design and make decisions. They will share their vision of the developments and challenges ahead.

All IWSGC'08 tutors are exceptional experts in various fields of grid technologies. They are here to teach, support and inspire: feel free to use their time and knowledge the best you can!

Dear prospective participants

We have had major email server problems for the last 5 days. If you sent an inquiry to IWSGC08@lists.nesc.ac.uk list in that time, please re-send it now.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused by this problem!

At the present moment, we have 19 complete and 23 incomplete applications. Applications satisfying all academic requirements will be processed on first come first served basis.

Considering the high number of applications, admissions to the International Winter School for Grid Computing '08 will be highly competitive. All successful applicants will have to complete a number of prerequisite exercises before the beginning of the School. Applicants who fail to complete the prerequisite exercises will not be allowed to progress to the Winter School.

In order to secure your place in the School, prospective applicants are strongly advised to apply and/or complete their applications as soon as possible!

We are more than pleased to announce our final list of keynote speakers.

The first keynote will be given by Miron Livny, the leader of Condor project and one of the leading experts in grid computing.

The second keynote will be given by Ian Foster, who is considered one of the founders of the international grid community.

The final keynote will be given by Malcolm Atkinson, UK e-Science Envoy and one of the most distinguished experts in grid computing.

After viewing each keynote, School participants will have a unique opportunity for live chat with the speakers.

In order to provide participants with a balanced view to possibilities of various grid technologies, we are constantly trying to make our Winter School as diverse as possible. For this reason, we are happy to announce that one more technology slot (Globus) is being added to the Winter School programme.

The final Winter School programme includes a total of four technologies, thus allowing students to make comparisons and see different approaches to common challenges in distributed computing.

The School will end on 12 March 2008.

Only one day after the opening of the website, we received 11 applications: one of them was complete, while 10 yet have to be completed.

We expect to accept between 25 and 30 students. We will be looking for students with commitment and enthusiasm for Grid research and development. We will expect competence and experience in some aspects of software development, distributed systems, computational systems, data systems and Grid applications.

Applications satisfying all academic requirements will be processed on first come first served basis. Considering the high number of applicants during the first day, admissions to the International Winter School for Grid Computing '08 will be highly competitive. Prospective applicants are strongly advised to apply and/or complete their applications as soon as possible!

The applications for the Interenational Winter School on Grid Computing are now open.