The "Invincible Armada" arrives to Manchester
The only thing in common we have with the "Invincible Armada" is that we are all Spaniards (well, I'm just 50%). But you have to admit this is great title for a first blog entry.

We arrived in Manchester on a rainy Sunday and... Wait a minute! Who are we? We are the "GridWay Team" and we come from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. In our expedition we have both Research and Engineering Staff, all members of the Distributed Systems Architecture Research Group.

Our journey started at Madrid Barajas Airport, then we took a connection at London Heathrow to Manchester. The only "con" we encountered was that our baggage was lost. It seems the connection time at London was not long enough for letting our things to be "piped" in time to the new plane. But... no panic! we just got out of the hotel for buying some essentials and having dinner. Of course, we enjoyed walking by Manchester's streets. The first impression about the style of Manchester's architecture? If you ask me for a word I'd answer “retro-neogothic-modernistic-industrial”. Right, I'm a Computer Engineer working at the University as a Teaching Assistant and Researcher, not an architect... even if my area of research is tagged as “Computer Architecture”.

About the dinner: You definitely have to try the specialties from the Chinese/Thai restaurant at Oxford Street (walking after the Student Union). It's called "Mosso"-something and offers... over 400 different dishes! The prizes are not bad, it offers 20% student discount and the kitchen opens till 23.30 (which is a good thing in case you come from countries with late "time-habits").

Then it comes the hotel. We could manage to stay at the Palace Hotel Manchester for a prize similar to the ones proposed by the OGF. Look at the photos and judge by yourself.

And we arrive to Manchester Central. It's at a 5-10 minutes walk from our hotel, pretty near. We “logged in” early on Monday morning and everything was OK. Even, the organization gave us a present: The original cellular-shaped-joint-EGEE/OGF-calculator-timer!

Lunch consists in an ecologic paper bag filled with 2 sandwiches, potato chips, a chocolate bar and orange juice. Not bad but maybe I'd prefer the catering offered at the EGEE'06 conference. Our team started its duty on the OGF with an active participation in the Virtualization Working Group. Grids can be extended not only physically but virtually, responding to the correct machine configuration following user's requirements. This time is not the user who adapts its application to the grid machines, but the grid which adapts itself by “generating” the adequate machine.

On the other hand, we were working on the first “configurations” of the demo booth assigned to GridWay (D-40). The plasma screen is huge! The live demo will look great on it. Visitors will see how jobs are executed online in a joint infrastructure of EGEE and Non-EGEE resources.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the GridWay team has come to town!

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