HPCwire: EGI Blueprint Discussed at EGI Workshop

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July 11, 2008

EGI Blueprint Discussed at EGI Workshop

July 10 -- The Third European Grid Initiative (EGI) workshop was organised at CERN on the 30th of June, and followed by the EGI Policy Board meeting on the 1st of July. More than 100 attendees took part in the CERN workshop and discussed the EGI Blueprint proposal prepared by the EGI Design Study. The purpose of this EGI Blueprint draft is to assess a possible model for the future sustainable grid infrastructure in Europe and to get feedback leading to the final Blueprint that should be produced by September 2008.

The Director General of CERN, Dr. Robert Aymar, welcomed the participants emphasizing the increasingly important role of Grids for science in Europe in many domains and in particular for CERN and its community. He underlined the importance of the ongoing and exceptional support given by the European Commission to European Grid projects. He wished success to the EGI project in building on these achievements by establishing a sustainable Grid infrastructure.

The organizer of the workshop Jürgen Knobloch from CERN expected as outcome of the workshop feedback and critical questions from the national representatives and from grid users allowing to arrive at the final blueprint in time for the next workshop in October 2008 during the EGEE'08 conference in Istanbul.

The EGI Blueprint draft was presented for the audience by different members of the EGI Design Study team. Dieter Kranzlmüller, the EGI Design Study Project Director, stressed in his overview the need for a sustainable European grid infrastructure. Grid users need to be assured that their investment in grids and long-term perspectives in the field will be protected. The EGI grid infrastructure should be a large-scale production grid infrastructure built on national grids that interoperate seamlessly at many levels. The infrastructure should offer reliable and predictable services to a wide range of applications. Kranzlmüller also named the key players. The EGI will include both the EGI organization and National Grid Initiatives (NGIs) which are recognized national bodies that ensure operations of the grid infrastructure in each country. Representation will include that the requirements of the scientific community and the resource providers are met. The role of the EGI organization will be to facilitate interaction and collaboration between the NGIs and to provide a common managerial framework for the pan-European grid infrastructure. The EGI Council would be the sole governing and decision making body of EGI.

The EGI operations and Middleware and user support questions awoke vivid discussions. Tiziana Ferrari from INFN introduced the EGI operations. They will include a set of services, such as coordination of resource allocation, central repositories and ticketing, security and Middleware rollout. These services are needed to ensure optimal functionality of the pan-European grid infrastructure and overall seamless effective interoperation of national and regional grids.

Ludek Matyska from CESNET concentrated on the Middleware evolution. He stated that the Middleware is considered an essential part of EGI, and its existence and further development are of utmost importance for EGI Grid. The EGI Blueprint proposes a common middleware solution based on the Universal Middleware Toolkit (UMT) with common policies, rules, quality and standard compliance criteria for UMT components.

Patricia Mendez Lorenzo from CERN introduced the EGI user support section of the Blueprint. She highlighted the need to ensure a smooth transition to an NGI support infrastructure for users. The goal is to ensure that all current communities will continue to be supported and that the infrastructure will be rapidly ready to admit new communities.

Legal aspects and NGI guidelines for EGI were expanded by Anne-Claire Blanchard from CRNS. She presented plans for the location bidding process that will be launched soon.

Michael Wilson from STFC made a presentation of the plans for EGI Resources and Finances. It became clear that for the initial period and in order to sustain innovation co-funding by European sources will be crucial.

Bob Jones, the EGEE Project Director from CERN, presented some key issues for the transition from EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-sciencE) to EGI seen from the EGEE side. He emphasized the need for cooperation with other infrastructure projects. EGI should also take into account the experiences and knowledge gained in the EGEE project.

The closed Policy Board (PB) meeting chaired by Gaspar Barreira followed the workshop on Tuesday where of great number of NGIs were represented. Kyriakos Baxevanidis presented the European Commission's view on the future of e-Infrastructures in Europe. Otherwise the EGI PB discussion concentrated on the EGI Blueprint proposal, focusing on EGI Functionality, NGI Responsibilities, and the EGI funding model.

About the European Grid Initiative

The EGI Design Study project was launched in September 2007 with the support of the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme. The project will continue until the end of November 2009. According to the current plans, the EGI organization will start functioning in early 2010. The EGI_DS has nine principal partners, CESNET, CERN, CNRS, CSC, DFN, GRNET, GUP, INFN and STFC, and is already endorsed by 38 National Grid Initiatives. www.eu-egi.eu.

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Source: European Grid Initiative

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