EUMed GRID
From EGI Knowledge Base
Funded by EC within the Sixth Framework Program for Research and Development and Coordinated by INFN, EUMed GRID aimed to support the development of a Grid e-Infrastructure in the Mediterranean Area and promote the porting of new applications on the Grid platform, thus allowing Mediterranean scientist to collaborate more closely with their European colleagues. EUMed GRID has disseminated Grid awareness and competences across the Mediterranean and, in the meanwhile, identifying new research groups to be involved in the project, helped them to exploit Grids’ enormous potential to improve their own applications.
The implementation and coordination of a grid infrastructure at a national (or larger) level can be regarded, especially in the beneficiary Countries, as an opportunity to optimize the usage of existing, limited storage and computing resources and to enhance their accessibility for all research groups.
The EUMed GRID project was conceived in this perspective and has set up a pilot grid infrastructure for Research in the Mediterranean Region, which is interoperable and compatible with EGEE and related initiatives. The EUMed GRID’s vision focused on improving both the technological level and the know-how of networking and computing professionals across the Mediterranean, thus fostering the introduction of an effective Mediterranean Grid infrastructure for the benefits of eScience. Accordingly, the project objectives can be regarded as belonging to two main areas: the first focusing on softer actions, with the overall aim of creating a human network in e-Science across the Mediterranean, and the second one addressing technical issues and intended to support the implementation of a pilot Grid infrastructure and applications in the area.
The Project lasted for 26 months and made a considerable step forward during the second year of the project and a number of achievements give evidence of the success of its activities. Cooperation among all the participants has been demonstrated by the enthusiastic participation to common workshops and meetings organized during the duration of the project and the great success obtained fostering the creation of National Certification Authorities and National Grid Initiatives. Impressive results were also obtained in the events of knowledge dissemination on Grid Technology and services. A large community including system administrators, researchers, and final users was involved with good results in terms of number of participants (more than 700 people) and feedback obtained through dedicated questionnaires.
The promotion of National Grid Initiatives carried out in all non-EGEE Partner Countries registered a good level of success with programs already operational in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey and well advanced plans, with clear commitments, in Cyprus, Jordan, Syria and Palestinian Territories. The project was very active in promoting the creation of national Certification Authorities which will issue digital certificates necessary for allowing secure Grid access to the users. The process is completed in Morocco, the first African Country to become member of EUGridPMA and well advanced in the other countries and, in the meanwhile, a temporary catch-all CA was created in order to fulfil the needs of EUMed GRID users. A pilot grid infrastructure, composed to date of 25 sites in 13 countries, was set up during the project’s duration. Several applications have been proposed to run on the EUMed GRID e-Infrastructure and many were selected to be supported, spanning several fields of interests: High Energy Physics, Biology and Biomedical, Hydrology, Archaeology, Seismology and Vulcanology. New communities and applications of Regional interest were also discovered by means of a survey based on web questionnaires. The works to port the first applications on the EUMed GRID eInfrastructure begun in the 1st quarter of 2006 with CODESA and ArchaeoGrid, respectively an hydrological and an Archaeological application which are of interest for the Mediterranean Region.
Another large bunch of applications was deployed during a dedicated event in Cairo: the first “EUMed GRID School for Application Porting” (EGSAP-1) on 17-28 April 2007. Conceived as a full immersion experience for selected new communities of regional interest, the school was deemed of paramount importance for the uptake of new applications on the regional pilot infrastructure. EGSAP-1 was accordingly one of the largest dissemination efforts of the whole lifetime of the project, contributing in involving new communities in the project activities, while providing them the knowledge needed to build upon the eInfrastructure and deploying their own application. All selected applications were ported to the EUMed GRID e-infrastructure. Moreover these applications have been also ported to the GENIUS web portal.
The interest of the EUMed GRID experience does not however restrict to scientific issues - although the opportunity to port applications of regional importance, such as the hydro-geological and medical ones, on the pilot infrastructure sounds really exciting. Fostering Grid awareness and the growth of new competences in EU Neighbours’ scientific communities is a concrete initiative towards bridging the digital gap and, moreover, to promote a peaceful and effective collaboration among all Partners.
At Social level e-Infrastructures can contribute to mitigate phenomena such as Digital Divide and, possibly, revert Brain Drain to allow brilliant minds in the area to contribute significantly to cutting edge European Scientific activities concretely enlarging the European Research Area (ERA). Research and Education Networks and Grids are fundamental infrastructures that will allow non-EU researcher to make high quality work in their home laboratories without the need to migrate in most advanced countries.
An extended Mediterranean Research Area could thus be seen as a first step towards the suggestion of more politically ambitious plans of open market, open transportation infrastructures, free circulation of citizens, etc.
| Project homepage | eumedgrid.org |
|---|---|
| No. of Partners | 13 |
| No. of Countries | 13 |
| Start Date | 2006-01 |
| Duration (Months) | 24 |
| Cost (€ per Year) | 835,000 |
| EU Funding (€ per Year) | 825,000 |
| FTEs (per Year) | 24.5 |
