As noted by @mjuric (LSST Archive and Level 3 Services: What to Expect at the LSST DAC), the vision for the LSST Science Platform is taking clear shape. However, there is already demand for such environments to do today’s survey-scale science. Indeed, there are a number of platforms, both existing and in development, with similar visions that allow the LSST community to do LSST preparatory science now, in one form or another. This breakout session would invite the developers and maintainers of these platforms to present their tools, identify the specific problems that they are designed to solve, and identify their strengths and weaknesses. It would be followed by a hack session to allow users to try out the tools for their LSST-related science interests. The goal of the session is to inform the audience of the ways in which they can do science now that will help prepare them for LSST, inform the LSST Project of the needs and issues that users encounter when using such tools, and support LSST in the evaluation of pipeline and photometric processing.
Scheduling note: if this session garners support, would be great if it could happen early in the week rather than late.