CoAX Timing Information 18-Sep-2002 We would like to gather timing and evaluation information that could be used in slides for the talk, or in Dylan's after demo briefing. Things like how long it takes to wrap an agent to make it work on the Grid or KAoS, etc. I know we have a lot of these that are relevant. An example might be for me "time to deploy a process panel to a new country". Provide these to me separately and I will collate them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From David Allsopp, QinetiQ, 18-Sep-2002 Some timings for our translator agents (although they don't feature in the edited demo any more...): To achieve a feed from UTexas (ASW contacts) to Decision-Desktop takes about 40 minutes _from scratch_; the majority of this time is taken by writing an XSL stylesheet - a moderately experienced XSL author is assumed. Not much other time is needed since the subscription mechanism is simple, and an example message is included in the UTexas ServiceUI. To achieve a feed of submarine predictions from the UMD-Predict to Decision-Desktop took 55 minutes for writing an XSL stylesheet plus 15 minutes to write an AttrValPairs->XML translator. This took longer than the UTexas feed because the format changed at one point, and because UMD weren't using XML. The UMD feed was dependent on a feed in the opposite direction; providing Intel data to UMD from the QinetiQ-Intel agent. This took 45 minutes for a translator to produce AttrValPairs, plus (very approx) 3 hours to modify the QinetiQ-Intel agent, plus 15 minutes to enter new data into files. The data would in reality come from a human analyst; this could be done in parallel with the computer work. The coding time could be reduced substantially if a) XML were used and b) the Intel agent used a more plug-in architecture. Nevertheless, creation of feeds was feasible 'overnight' even with unfavourable data formats. For completeness, the feed from SimWorld to Decision-Desktop (which we didn't use in the end) took 45 minutes for the XSL stylesheet, plus approx 3 hours coding for a FIPA->XML translator. BBN were planning to implement XML formats for SimWorld, in which case the coding wouldn't have been needed. In practice things overall took longer because we were discovering bugs, clarifying issues etc. In each case there is of course some additional time required to run the agents, check that the feeds are as expected, test software, and so on, but I'm not sure that can be quantified. The bottom line is that the techie work required for a basic feed takes between <1 and 5 man-hours for our examples; i.e. definitely feasible overnight, assuming well-defined message interfaces, and reasonable communication between partners. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I-X - from Austin Tate, AIAI, 18-Sep-2002 6 different users conducted timed tests which were all carried out without any problems other than requiring clarifications in documentation or instructions in some cases. It is possible to mount and test run I-X process panels in a new environment and by staff who would be knowledgeable about mounting software (such as a country HQ sys admin team might be) in less than half an hour - and much of that is to go though a familiarisation test of messaging between 2 panels. The tailoring of a process panel to be country specific takes between 5 and 7 minutes.