| Amsterdam 17 September 2007
On September 17, Big Grid has been officially launched in Amsterdam. Big Grid is a large Dutch eScience Grid effort that will run until 2011 with a budget of 28.8 million Euro. Big Grid board member Jaap van Herik explained the project. BiG Grid will be connected to the European Grid. Currently that is EGEE. Its director, Bob Jones, explained the rationale behind the new EGEE3 project, that currently is under review by the European Commission, is based on national organised Grids that are connected, as opposed to the current EGEE2 where its is the individual centres, organised in regions that are partner of the project. Both Van den Herik and Jones emphasized the need to turn the eScience Grid into a sustainable e-Infrastructure. there should be a structural funding, not based on projects that may or may not be approved.
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Van den Herik explained that the biggest part of the Big Grid funding, about 50% will go to hardware: processors, storage, and the like. It will be acquired on an as needed base. I.e. when for instance the LHC collider in Geneva is starting to produce results that need to be stored and analyzed, it must be possible to install some hardware within a few weeks time. This poses a challenge to the official European tender procedure that has to be followed. About 25% of the funding is for user support and for application-specific support. This will be used to help users use the Grid middleware and infrastructure and to provide assistance in porting new applications to the Big Grid. About 25% of the budget will be used for running costs: housing, power, and the like.
Van den Herik, and some of the other presenters at the inauguration, emphasized that the Big Grid funding is incidental. They urge there should be a sustainable infrastructure funding after 2011. (Of course, one cannot start early enough with such a process, because it can take a long time to achieve this, but there should also be a real need with scientists to use this infrastructure. Big Grid still has to show it can attract large number of scientist that deliver scientific break throughs.)
On a European level currently the same situation exists. The European Grid infrastructure for eScience is mainly maintained by the EGEE project. With some other projects providing specialized or regional infrastructures. DEISA - supercomputer Grid - and SEEGRID - south-east European Grid, are some examples. Bob Jones explained that EGEE is already in its third generation, where each generation hase been funded seperately by the European Commission: DATAGRID, EGEE1, and EGEE2.
Also on a European level, Bon Jones said, we need a sustainable eInfrastructure. Two efforts are under way to achieve this: EGI and EGEE3. Both are based on the idea that there should be a sustainable Grid based on National Grid Initiatives, comparable to the National research networks (NRENs) and the European funded Geant connecting network.
EGI, see: 36 national Grids initiatives in Europe support the EGI concept , is undertaking a design study that should lead to a blueprint of the new structure. Meanwhile, EGEE3 should provide the continuation of the current EGEE2 einfrastructure. But the organisational structure will be a bit different and already be based on a national structure. |
