This is just to tell everyone with whom I've had the pleasure of working on the Access Grid, in the US and the UK, that I am taking early retirement and my last working day at RAL will be December 23.
When we first set up the RAL node, one of the first of the UK eScience nodes, I was already in a different department (BITD, not eScience) and now eScience have finally appointed a member of staff responsible for the eScience Access Grid - Paul Bonnett (see Cc: above) who works for Nick Hill (ditto), so I expect the service will improve compared with the rather informal support provided by myself and a succession of good sandwich students (interns is probably the equivalent US term!). This may also mean that support of the other Access Grids I have built at RAL and DL has a higher profile. I remain interested in the development of the Access Grid and may be taking part in the upcoming conference organized by Peter Kirstein and others at University College, London on the way forward for the basic tools (vic, rat etc..) that underpin the AG, VRVS and others, so will stay as a listener on ag-tech for some time - hopefully continuing with my current e-mail address (see From: above). It's been great to be involved in the project, and hope that it prospers in the future. As predicted by many, the problems that currently appear to restrict its roll-out - scaleability, maintenance of the basics, uneven reliability of multicast - are symptoms of its success: I hope they are seen in a couple of years time as no more of a problem than adequate single machine performance appeared to be about three years ago. Best of luck Chris
