Grid Infrastructures as means for advancing research and education: European Experience/ EUMEDGrid Federico Ruggieri Project Director INFN Developing Lebanese National Research and Education Network – Beirut 21 October 2011

Outline Why eInfrastructures ? The European Vision The National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). EUMEDCONNECT – regional network Infrastructure Regional Grid Infrastructures EUMEDGRID-Support Conclusions

R&E eInfrastructures Why should we build ICT Infrastructures dedicated to Research and Education ? Which are the advantages in adopting a National R&E strategy in this arena ? Does this address the needs of a vast majority of R&E or is it a toy for a few beneficiaries ? Are there social and/or ecnomical benefits ? Does it cost more ?

Computing intensive science Many research challenges require community effort Fundamental properties of matter Genomics Climate change Medical diagnostics Research is increasingly digital, with increasing amounts of data Computation ever more demanding e.g.: experimental science uses ever more sophisticated sensors Huge amounts of data Serves user communities around the world International collaborations

The European Vision The Research Network infrastructure provides fast interconnection and advanced services among Research and Education institutes of different countries’ Projects: GEANT, SEEREN, EUMEDCONNECT, etc. The Research Grid infrastructure provides a distributed environment for sharing computing power, storage, instruments and databases through the appropriate software (middleware) in order to solve complex application problems Projects: EGEE, SEE-GRID, EUMEDGRID etc. This integrated networking & grid environment is called electronic infrastructure (eInfrastructure) allowing new methods of global collaborative research - often referred to as electronic science (eScience) The creation of the eInfrastructure is a key objective of the European Research Area Network Infrastructure e-Science Collaborations Grid Infrastructure

NO R&E Network University A University B Provider X Provider Y Lebanon Internet US or EU Local communication (A & B) passes by International (high cost) links A & B pay their own International Link No Community Building

National R&E Network (NREN) University A University B NREN Lebanon Internet US or EU Provider X Universitie s EU High Quality Local communication (A & B) stays local (low cost, high bandwidth) A & B pay their share of a larger International Link (better Performance/Price) Connectivity to R&E sites in EU is Direct, Dedicated, HQ Economy of Scale and Strong Community Building

Some Reasons for R&E Networking Technological Satisfy high demand eScience initiatives: Multimedia Collaboration, Distributed High Performance Computing (HPC, GRIDs) for Earth Sciences, High Energy Physics (CERN, LHC…), Bioinformatics, Computational Chemistry, Radio- astronomy (eVLBI), Engineering Planning RTD (computations, emulations & simulations), Cultural (archiving, collaborative digital access & processing) … Social Common culture of R&E community Virtual Organizations (Vos), collaborative research, tele-education Smoothing the Digital Divides in the countries and regions, affordable high bandwidth linkage to the Global R&E community  Solidarity Economic Demand aggregators: University & school staff - students, researchers Consolidation & control of diverse public expenditures Promotion of Information Society (e-Government, e-Business, e-Health …) Stimulation of technological developments & telecom markets  Competitiveness

EUMEDCONNECT 2 -> 3 Is providing regional network infrastructure for R&E since 2004 with European Commission funding support 3rd phase just starting. Runs until 2014 with 36% EC funding. Algeria, Morocco and Palestine are joining, other Arab countries expected to follow Managed by DANTE (also operates GEANT) with EU NRENs of France, Greece, Italy and Spain ASREN is also a partner

Joining EUMEDCONNECT3 Lebanon is eligible for the EC’s EUMEDCONNECT3 co-funding support Lebanon needs to set up a National R&E Network to provide the national connectivity. Needs to secure budget for its national network and its share or EUMEDCONNECT3 co-funding (typically 100 – 200K Euro per year). Funding typically from ministry (ICT or HE) and/or user institutions. EC bilateral funding also a possibility Advice and assistance to set up NREN available from DANTE, European NRENs, and through ASREN.

European NREN’s – GÉANT A Success Story: Some Factors Century old Telecom (+ 40 years ARPAnet - Internet) experience: Proven strong “Network Externalities”  Sharing tradition Industry needs for Next Generation Network proofs of concept, synergy with R&E community: The ARPAnet the USA inspiring the “US of Europe” Foresight of National + EU funding authorities, triggered by NREN planning – SERENATE ( and EARNEST ( & Studieshttp://terena.nl/pubications/files/SERENATE-FINAL.pdfhttp:// EU Lisbon Agendas: Ubiquitous, secure, fast, cost-effective connectivity to all A decade (+) of success in serving R&E needs of the Continent  Smoothing-out digital divides & enabling powerful education communities (educators, students, pupils?) NREN’s as public utilities for the R&E communities – “commons” principle Solidarity – human networking of NREN community Stable Governance: NREN Policy Committee (NREN PC)

Click to edit the outline text format Second Outline Level  Third Outline Level Fourth Outline Level  Fifth Outline Level  Sixth Outline Level  Seventh Outline Level  Eighth Outline Level Ninth Outline LevelFare clic per modificare stili del testo dello schema Secondo livello Terzo livello Quarto livello Quinto livello R&E Networking Model in Europe A 3-tier Federal Architecture, partially subsidized by National and EU Research & Education funds: The Campus Network (LAN/MAN) > 3,500 Institutions, >30 M Users The 34 NREN’s (MAN/WAN) The Pan-European Interconnection: TEN34  TEN155  GÉANT (GN1 in EC FP5)  GÉANT2 (GN2 in EC FP6): Hybrid Optical Backbone (+ Cross Border Fibers) Total GN2 Cost: 40 M€/year (co-funded by the EC and NREN’s) GN2 EC Subsidy < 10% of total European R&E Networking Cost GÉANT Governance: NREN Policy Committee GN3 Project Management: Exec, DANTE

e-Infrastructures Vision Scientific resources..... Linking at the speed of the light Sharing computers, software and instruments Sharing and federating scientific data astronomy community physics community biomedics community empower research communities through ubiquitous, trusted and easy access to services for data, computation, communication and collaborative work

Globalisation of Grid Infrastructures CNGrid Garuda EUAsiaGrid

European Grid Infrastructure Steven Newhouse - EGI-InSPIRE Update, Lyon 2011 Logical CPUs (cores ) 248,424 EGI (+29.3%) 337,608 All PB disk and PB tape Resource Centres 329 EGI 346 All (+6.8%) 93 supporting MPI (+6.8%) Countries (+11.5%) 50 EGI 57 All 38 NGIs providing resources 26 National Operations Centres 12 NGIs in 4 Federated Operations Centres 1 EIRO providing resources (CERN) 19 countries in 4 non-European Operations Centres

Virtual Communities & Impact e-Infrastructures support wide geographically distributed communities and they:  enhance international collaboration of scientists  promote collaboration in other fields. Grids and networks allow the access of many researchers to scientific resources (laboratories and data):  disparity can be reduced;  larger participation and contributions to high quality research. The e-Infrastructures promote the usage of network connectivity and stimulate scientific and technical development of countries  contribute to fight the digital divide and brain drain.

EUMEDGRID-Support Support Action co-funded by European Commission under: Capacities specific program - Research Infrastructures - FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES Project ID Duration: 24 months Started: 1st January 2010 Total Cost: in excess of 840,000 € EU contribution: 740,000 €

Project Partners 14 Partners + 2 Third Parties from 13 Countries

Objectives & Strategic Actions Support the consolidation and expansion of the EUMEDGRID Infrastructure with a special emphasis on sustainability. Bottom-Up approach: Create a Two Levels network of Competence Centres Involve new user communities Strongly cooperate with other projects and initiatives relevant for the Mediterranean Create critical mass to exploit the available resources and build consensus Top-Down approach: High Level Policy Dissemination Involve institutions and ministries to include eInfrastructures in the political agenda Foster the creation of a Regional Organisation able to coordinate and manage the eInfrastructures in the area

EUMEDGRID countries & operating sites

Forthcoming event December 2011 E-AGE2011 Event in Amman, Jordan, in cooperation with: EUMEDGRID-Support and EUMEDCONNECT3 Meetings co- located. Lebanese representatives are welcome.

Africa ROC ( Support of Users and Site Administrators Same tools of EGI Set up in collaboration with SAGrid, EUMEDGRID- Support, CHAIN, EPIKH. …

For further information Federico Ruggieri (Project Director) Mario Reale (Technical Manager) Sara Garavelli (Dissemination) Riccardo Bruno (Applications) Roberto Barbera – EPIKH Visit: Contact:

Conclusions Building stable e-Infrastructures is a must for advanced R&E communities. ICT infrastructures for R&E are considered now responsible for rapid development and innovation of many countries and this is estimated to have a value of a few percent GDP increase. Research & Education are interconnected and should be both supported by modern ICT infrastructures. World wide spread Virtual Research Communities have started to appreciate the opportunities of working together on large inter-regional e-Infrastructures. Science is Globalised and liberalised. The rising tide of large data volumes produced in the world deserves new efforts and strategies that should be defined for Data Access, Data Curation, Data Management and Analysis of Large Distributed Data Repositories. A Grid Infrastructure, based on high quality Network allows to attack such problems using the paradigm of resource sharing, providing also mitigation to Digital Divide and Open Access to High Quality Scientific resources. EUMEDGRID-Support is actively supporting a Grid Infrastructure for the Mediterranean, Middle-East and Gulf region. Lebanon can join and start an initiative to deploy High Speed Communication Networks and Grids for Research and Education.

Thank you !