The EPIKH Project (Exchange Programme to advance e-Infrastructure Know-How) User training and support: two key factors for the adoption of the Grid paradigm Roberto Barbera University of Catania & INFN & COMETA - Italy EUMEDGRID-Support Workshop Beirut (Lebanon),

2 Outline The path to the uptake of the Grid paradigm: Awareness & Information; Training; User Support; The EPIKH project and its opportunities; Summary and conclusions.

3 The Global Grid EELA/ GISELA OSG Teragrid/XD NAREGI EUMEDGRID BalticGrid SEE-Grid EU-IndiaGrid EUAsiaGrid EUChinaGrid DEISA/ PRACE EGEE/EGI SAGrid

e-Infrastructure at «world» scale 4 >340 sites in 56 countries ~300,000 CPU cores >250 million GB of storage ~28 million jobs/month >12,000 users in >200 VOs How you can join all this ?

Path to the uptake of the Grid paradigm 5 Training User Support

CHAIN Knowledge Base ( 6 Largest e-Infrastructure related knowledge base. Information dynamically available for about half of the countries of the world.

7  RREN(s)  NREN  NGI  CA(s)  ROC(s)  Grid site(s)  Application(s) CHAIN Knowledge Base (

8 Global view for Europe dynamically linked to the EGI.eu databases.

CHAIN Knowledge Base ( 9

10

The CHAIN Application Database ( 11

The CHAIN Application Database ( 12

EGI-InSPIRE RI The EGI AppDB ( 13

14 The Triangle of Knowledge Research & Development Innovation Education & Training Building e-Infrastructures is a waste if we don’t “build”, at the same time, their users. Along with e-Infrastructures, t-Infrastructures and training programmes are also needed. e-Infrastructure t-Infrastructure

15 The EPIKH Project ( “Exchange Programme to advance e-Infrastructure Know-How” (EPIKH) –EU FP7- Marie Curie Actions – People - International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) Consortium “numbers”: –23 partners; –18 countries; –4 continents (Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America); –115 persons involved; –>650 researcher-months; –>500 secondments; Duration: March, 1, 2009 – February, 28, 2013 (48 months) EC contribution: 1,188,000 €

16 The EPIKH Partners (

17 The EPIKH goals Strategic aims: –Reinforce the impact of e-Infrastructures in scientific research defining and delivering stimulating programme of educational events, including Grid Schools and High Performance Computing courses; –Broaden the engagement in e-Science activities and collaborations both geographically and across disciplines. Specific actions: –Spreading the knowledge about the “Grid Paradigm” to all potential users: both system administrators and application developers through an extensive training programme; –Easing the access of the trained people to the e-Infrastructures existing in the areas of action of the project; –Fostering the establishment of scientific collaborations among the countries/continents involved in the project.

18 EPIKH on the web wiki.epikh.eu documents.epikh.eu agenda.epikh.eu

19 EPIKH events in the world (

20 EPIKH Schools (1/2) 1-week tutorials for site administrators (with remote installations) More than 12 new Grid sites already installed in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

21 Grid Schools 2 entire weeks devoted to applications’ “gridification” call for applications widely open A total of 24 1-month Grid & HPC schools and related thematic workshops foreseen in the period 3/ /2013! EPIKH Schools (2/2) Next one will be in Jordan in Nov/Dec You’re welcome to participate!

22 Applications’ “virtuous cycle” of EPIKH Dissemination (workshops) Training events (schools) “Gridification” Deployment on large Infrastructures and inclusion in the portfolio of demonstrative applications

23 Call for applications (

24 EPIKH applications’ lifecycle

25 List of already “gridified” applications ( Total = 53

GILDA ( 26

GILDA figures 27 >900 users registered in the GILDA VO >17,400 certificates issued since More than 30% renewed at least once. >490 tutorials in 54 countries since Up to 6 at the same time!

The GILDA Training Material Repository 28 More than 100 topics sub-divided in three levels of difficulty

29 Africa ROC ( 29 Acceptable Use Policy available in English, French and Arabic

Warning ! Every Grid transaction is «signed» with a digital certificate 30

GOCDB ( EGI compliant tool to maintain ROC and related Grid Site information – Get/Register Downtimes – List/Monitor available services 31

32 Support System (

Support System Support system relies on xGUS ticketing system The official one of EGI.eu customized for Africa ROC 1 st Level support (local) – People belonging to EUMED partners and other projects – The responsibility of tickets assigned due to scheduled time shifts – 1 st Level tries to solve the problem immediately; if not possible tickets will be escalated to the 2 nd Level support 2 nd Level support – Team of experts with people belonging to EUMED partners and other projects – Solving problems escalated by the 1 st Level – Each team specialized in a particular expertise: Security, Info Sys, Job Management, Data Management, Site support, Application support, etc. This model easily escalates to national support systems centrally supervised (Africa ROC) 33

Ticket lifecycle 34 1 st Level Support Operator On Duty USER Country 1 Country n 2 nd Level Support Exp. Grp. 2 Exp. Grp. m Responsibility by rotation shifts Assignment on expertise basis

35 Summary and conclusions e-Infrastructures are: –changing the way to do scientific research; –allow to tackle unprecedented challenging multi-disciplinary problems; –are considered key enablers of the progress of a country; It is very important that Lebanon could join this community building an e-Infrastructure in the country; First steps could be to: –Create a Registration Authority of either the INFN or the CNRS Certification Authority and, at the same time, start the creation of a Lebanese CA for e-Science; –Organise a local training and/or participate to the EPIKH Grid schools that will take place in Jordan in Nov/Dec with the aim to:  Set-up a pilot site at S. Joseph University and join the EUMEDGRID infrastructure;  Start “gridifying”and deploying some champion applications on the EUMEDGRID infrastructure; CHAIN, EPIKH and EUMEDGRID-Support projects are willing to help and support you.

Thank you very much ! Any questions ? 36