| EGEE:
Adding Value through Related Projects |
Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) operates a Grid infrastructure for the European scientific and research communities, with more than 200 sites providing in excess of 25,000 CPUs. In addition to this, EGEE provides the gLite middleware, support for application communities and a range of other services such as training and user support.
Our long-term goals for Grid computing, however, go much further than this. The benefits of Grid computing should be available to all of us, regardless of the domain in which we are working, whether in industry, science or the humanities. These facilities should be accessible all over the world in an easy, secure, reliable and transparent way. Grids should become true “electronic infrastructures”, fully integrated into the everyday life of individuals and organisations, both public and private. This isn’t only about connecting computers to support and maintain an operational Grid service in an open and sustainable manner. It also involves tasks as diverse as educating the next generation of computer scientists, understanding digital curation and business models, and influencing national and international policy.
In order to achieve our ambitious goals, EGEE works with a range of other projects and initiatives. It can help to think about the roles covered by EGEE and these projects in three ways: expanding the infrastructure either by extending its geographical reach or tailoring it for specific tasks; meeting the needs of user communities with work on applications; and providing other key services that support the work of the Grid community, like build and test facilities for software and enhanced computer security.
Building Infrastructure
EGEE has partners not just all over Europe but also in the US, Korea and Taipei. Beyond these official partners, many more organisations contribute time or resources to EGEE without being official partners of the project itself.
EGEE also has strong ties to all parts of the global Grid community, and has been working closely with many projects developing regional Grid infrastructures across the world. These infrastructures will be able to inter-operate with EGEE’s infrastructure, multiplying the impact of what EGEE delivers. At present, EGEE collaborates with projects whose scope extends to South-Eastern Europe, the Baltic region, Latin America, the Mediterranean region, China, India, the US and Japan.
Alongside work expanding the geographical coverage of Grids, other projects are extending the functional reach of Grids. EGEE is collaborating with projects which link Grids up with e-infrastructure components such as digital libraries, environmental sensors, networking and supercomputing centres.
Developing Applications
Application projects are focused on working with communities of current and potential Grid users, to capture their requirements and translate them into software that can exploit the computing power of Grids. In particular, EGEE is supporting applications that build on EGEE’s middleware, gLite, to provide the specific functionality required for their particular research domain. Their feedback also helps EGEE to refine its operations be more responsive to users’ needs. Applications are being developed in diverse fields, from molecular biology to geo-physics and archaeology.
Supporting progress
As well as the computing infrastructure, the full adoption of Grid technology requires many other facilities and services to be put in place. Projects in areas including computer security, e-Infrastructure policy, education, dissemination and software testing are all adding essential parts to the Grid landscape.
Working with EGEE
The EGEE Related Projects Liaison Office is a point of contact for projects which are collaborating with EGEE, and it facilitates the relationships between those projects and the EGEE activities. Furthermore, EGEE is active in helping projects interact and share their experiences. This is an continuation of work begun at EU-sponsored ‘concertation’ meetings and carried on at EGEE project conferences.
EGEE also has a number of more formal relationships with other projects and initiatives. For many projects, the first step in collaborating is receiving a Letter of Support from EGEE to accompany their proposal. Other projects have drawn up a Memorandum of Understanding, stating explicitly what they will need from EGEE and what they will offer in return. Collaborative activities range from technical work on interoperability to networking activities such as organising joint training events and dissemination material. Depending on the issue at hand, different forms of co-operation might be appropriate and EGEE is open to suggestions and initiatives from any other project that wants to help move Grid computing forward.
If you would like to know more about collaborating with EGEE, please get in touch with our Related Projects Liaison Office ( project-eu-egee-rp-lo@NOSPAMcern.ch).
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