Description : Int.eu.grid project is funded by the EU within the framework of the Sixth Framework Programme, as part of the specific programme 'Structuring the European Research Area', within the 'Research infrastructures' activity area. Call name: 'Communication Network Development – eInfrastructure – Grid Initiatives', identifier FP6-2005-Infrastructures-7.
Deploying and operating an interoperable production-level e-Infrastructure for demanding interactive applications that will impact the daily work of researchers. The main features of this scientific initiative are:
- Distributed Parallel (MPI) Interactive Computing and Storage at the Tera level
- User Friendly Access through a Grid Interactive Desktop with powerful visualization
- Supporting Virtual Organizations at all levels: setup, collaborative environment, grid enhancement of applications, execution and monitoring tools, discussion of results.
In our days the collaboration between researchers in projects with intensive computing requires sharing resources from different institutions. The Grid technology offers a solution to individual researchers to access those resources uniformly, through a friendly desktop interface with powerful visualization and communication capabilities. As the Web provides a way to share and access distributed information, the Grid enables sharing and accessing computing and storage power, using also the global network, Internet.
The Interactive European Grid offers now the possibility of using the computing power of an e-Infrastructure (distributed clusters with hundreds of processors), storage (servers with several terabytes of capacity) and remote interaction (through Access Grid rooms) to European researchers in projects, with the support of 13 European institutions from Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Austria, Ireland and Slovakia.
As an example, fusion researchers use the Interactive European Grid to interactively study the simulation of particle transport inside a Stellarator, including 3D visualization. Executing a parallel version of their program code multiplies simulation speed by a large factor.
Researchers enter the Interactive European Grid through a Portal, using a digital certificate; they become members of a Virtual Organization (VO) that will support their work with other colleagues in the same area, being able to share results, experience, and resources as desired. Examples of these Virtual Organizations include areas like biomedicine, environment and physics, and new ones will be created on demand.
More specifically the project offers researchers support to:
- Adapt and improve the applications to the Grid framework (including parallelization, powerful visualization, etc.)
- Create a new Virtual Organization to collaborate
- Access existing resources in the Interactive European Grid e-Infrastructure (more than 100 cpu’s can be used in parallel in interactive mode)
- Integrate, if desired, own resources in a Grid framework
This support includes:
- Technical assistance and consultancy
- Grid tutorials and seminars on Grid technologies
- General dissemination material (brochures, posters, presentations).
The consortium involves 13 leading institutions in 7 countries, with significant computing capacity and expertise in grid technology.
While guaranteeing interoperability with existing large e-Infrastructures like EGEE by providing basic common middleware services, the initiative will exploit the expertise generated by the EU CrossGrid project to provide researchers an interactive and simultaneous access to large distributed facilities through a friendly interface with powerful visualization.
The Interactive European Grid, while interoperable with EGEE, will focus on interactive use for medicine, environment, physics and other research areas (from robotics to archaeology) where demanding interactive applications that can benefit from being grid-enhanced have been identified.
|
cesga.es
:: Telf.: +34 981 569810 - Fax: 981 594616 ::
Avda. de Vigo s/n 15705, Santiago de Compostela.