1. The CHAIN Project ISGC2011 Taipei 22-25 March 2011
Federico Ruggieri (INFN) & Ludek Matyska (CESNET)
Presented by Ludek Matyska on behalf of the CHAIN project

2. Outline
Regional Grid Infrastructures co-funded by the European Commission
Commonalities and differences
A common strategy for the future
The CHAIN Project
Conclusions

3. Globalisation of Grid Infrastructures
CNGrid
NKN & Garuda
EUAsiaGrid
SAGrid & SANREN

4. Why ? - To extend the ERA (European Research Area)
e-Infrastructures support wide geographically distributed communities
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 and 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.

5. Who ? - Two (at least) scenarios
Greenfield regions/countries
No previous Grid and e-Infrastructures activities
Scarce knowledge and/or experience in deploying/managing large e-Infrastructures.
Isolated spots of research activities with high computing demands.
Advanced regions/countries
e-Infrastructures already started/deployed
Locally developed MW.
Fair to good knowledge and experience in e-Infrastructures
High quality research groups and institutions with world wide collaborations.

6. In Greenfield regions:
Specific topics
In Greenfield regions:
gLite and European approaches have been exported;
the Grid infrastructures have been promoted and are not yet sufficiently mature to be sustainable;
The same process in Africa is just starting.
In large, rapidly developing, countries:
they have already well defined Grid infrastructures (China, India);
different Middleware implementations (not only gLite and ARC);
Internal (national) sustainability should not be an issue.
Interoperability and interoperations with European Infrastructures and sustainability are the main goals
presently addressed in the activities of short lived projects (2 years max.) with different speeds and time shifts due to the different EU calls where they have been approved;
coordination, alignment of results, common road-maps are difficult to achieve, although being strongly pursued by all the projects.

7. Coordination of Regional Initiatives
Coordination & Harmonisation of Advanced eINfrastructures

8. CHAIN Objectives
Define a strategy and a model for external collaboration, in close collaboration with EGI.eu which will enable operational and organisation interfacing of EGI and external eInfrastructures.
Validate this model, as a proof-of-principle, by supporting the extension and consolidation of worldwide Virtual Research Communities such as Environment & Climate Change.
Explore and propose concrete steps forward towards the coordination with other projects and initiatives (e.g. PRACE, EUMEDGRID-Support, EUIndiaGrid2, LinkSCEEM2, National Knowledge Network, etc.).

9. Status & Partners
Grant Agreement signed with EC for a total contribution of 1.1 M€
Total cost: about 1.9 M€
Start Date: 1st December 2010 and 24 Months duration.
Partners:
INFN (Italy - Coordinator)
CESNET (Czech Republic)
CIEMAT (Spain)
GRNET (Greece)
IHEP (+ CNIC + PKU + BUA - China)
UBUNTUNET (Africa)
CLARA (Latin America)
PSA (India)
ASREN (North Africa/Middle East/Gulf)

10. Work Packages

11. WP2 Objectives
Conduct a state-of-the-art analysis regarding current solutions for European Grid interfacing with Grids in other world regions (D2.1 and results)
Produce a set of guidelines for operational and organisational interactions, customised for the type of region (D2.2)
Disseminate the NGI concept in the regions where this is needed, and conduct actions for national and regional sustainability (D2.3)

12. D2.1 “State of the art” questionnaire – GRNET – M4 (March)
WP2 Deliverables
D2.1 “State of the art” questionnaire – GRNET – M4 (March)
D2.2 “Interoperability and interoperation guidelines” – INFN – M10 (September) “analysis of the questionnaire data and proposed solutions for regional organisational and operational interactions.”
D2.3 “Regional sustainability report” – GRNET (September 2012)

13. WP3 WP3 is a SUPPORT Activity WP3 “Present and emerging needs of
trans-continental scientific communities”
Task 3.1 Scientific communities across the continents
(INFN)
Task 3.2 Proposed road-map of services for communities to be deployed on the e-Infrastructures
(CIEMAT)

14. WP3 in DoW WP3 list of Deliverables
D3.2 Road-map of trans-continental e-infrastructures for virtual
communities (M12 – Nov 2011)
D3.3 Trans-continental scientific and technical communities Updated (M18 – May 2012)
D3.4 Road-map of trans-continental e-infrastructures for virtual
communities Updated (M23 – Oct 2012)
D3.5 Results of the validation of the reference communities (M24 – Nov 2012)
WP3 list of Deliverables
D3.1 Trans-continental scientific and
technical communities (M06 – May 2011)

15. WP4 Objectives
Study and propose a model for cooperation and interoperation between EU and non-EU e-Infrastructures
Perform an organizational study, taking into account regional “customization”
Produce a roadmap for the follow-up of extensions to the EGI, based on feedback from actors worldwide on the proposed model
CHAIN PMB meeting, Lyon
20/9/2011

16. WP4 Structure and deliverables
Task 4.1: Organizational study
Leader CESNET
First deliverable at Month 22 (September 2012)
D4.3: Organizational study for interoperations of EGI with external grid infrastructures
Task 4.2: Regional Operations Studies
Leader INFN
First deliverable at Month 8 (July 2011)
D4.1: Specificities of the various regional e-Infrastructures
Second deliverable at Month 16 (March 2012)
D4.2: Report on the applicability of the preliminary results of the Organizational Study
Task 4.3: Roadmap
First deliverable at Month 24 (November 2012)
D4.4: Roadmap of follow up activities
CHAIN PMB meeting, Lyon
20/9/2011

17. WP5 - Introduction
Dissemination and Outreach (WP5). The WP will deploy a large activity of dissemination focused on different targets:
stakeholders and policy makers (high-level conferences, brochures, contacts DB),
scientists and technical people (thematic workshops, dedicated web tools, contacts DB),
industry (specific meetings, memoranda and web tools) and
general public (web platform and press releases).
Specific Actions:
organisation of thematic workshops (two per year) , with real intercontinental participation, on topics of large scientific and/or social impact that are, or could be, better addressed by the adoption of e-Infrastructures and, at the same time,
promote the stability of existing and emerging e-Infrastructures and gathering of feedbacks by means of a limited (one per year) number of high-level conferences.

18. WP5 - Objectives
Disseminate the benefits of e-Infrastructures in the scientific and technical communities, training them and supporting the transition of relevant applications to the new e-Infrastructure paradigm.
Get the consensus of scientific communities on the usefulness and relevance of these e-Infrastructures for the improvement of their research activities.
Solicit the policy makers, stakeholders and governments to get awareness of the relevance of e-Infrastructures in the development of intercontinental scientific and technological research and, thus, in the general development of countries and continents.
Promote the involvement of funding agencies and governments in the planning and evolution of e-Infrastructures in the countries and regions favouring the inclusion of specific budget lines in their future planning.

19. MoUs signed with other Projects

20. Nairobi - November 2011 UbuntuNet Connect Annual Conference
24-25 November 2011, Nairobi, Kenya, Africa
CHAIN Meeting on November
CHAIN sponsored Workshop on 23 November 2011

21. Amman – December 2011 INTEGRATING ARAB E-INFRASTRUCTURE e-AGE 2011
Co-organised with EUMEDGRID-Support, ASREN, EUMECONNECT3, Internet 2
12-14 December 2011
Amman, Jordan

22. Deliverables & Milestones
Del. no.
Deliverable name
Lead bene- ficiary
Delivery date
(PM)
D5.1
Collaborative tools and CHAIN Web platform
INFN
2 Delayed of 40 days
D5.2
Analysis of the outcomes of the first year workshops. 12
D5.3
Analysis of the outcomes of the second year workshops. 23
Milestone
no.
Milestone name
Lead beneficiary
Delivery date from Annex I
Comments
(Means of verification)
M5.1
Web portal – first static version
INFN
PM2
Web site accessible
M5.2
First thematic workshop
PM4
Press release
M5.3
First high level conference
PM12
M5.4
Final high-level conference
PM24

23. Knowledge Base (http://www.chain-project.eu/)

24. Knowledge Base - Country View

25. Knowledge Base - Site View

26. Application Registry

27. CHAIN-REDS Nuova proposta
Co-ordination & Harmonisation of Advanced eInfrastructures for Research & Education Data Sharing
EC Call: FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES
Topic: INFRA : Studies, conferences and coordination actions supporting policy development in the context of international cooperation for e- Infrastructures
EC Call Deadline: 23 November :00 Brussels time
Estimated Project start and Duration: 1 December 2012 – months

28. Objectives
CHAIN-REDS aims to promote and support collaboration across different eInfrastructures and continents in order to facilitate the uptake of eInfrastructures not only by established and emerging VRCs but also by single researchers, promoting instruments and practices that can facilitate their inclusion in the community of users.
Study the opportunities of data sharing across different eInfrastructures and continents widening the scope of the existing CHAIN Knowledge Base to Data Infrastructures.
Propose lines of actions, possible future initiatives and projects that can fit into the European Digital Agenda and the next Horizon 2020 work program calls.

29. Participant organisation name
Participants
Part.
no.
Participant organisation name
Part. short name
Country 1
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Coordinator)
INFN
Italy 2
Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas
CIEMAT
Spain 3
Greek Research and Technology Network
GRNET
Greece 4
CESNET, ZAJMOVE SDRUZENI PRAVNICKYCH OSOB
CESNET
Czech Republic 5
Ubuntunet Alliance
UBUNTUNET
Malawi 6
Cooperación Latino Americana de Redes Avanzadas
CLARA
Uruguay 7
Institute of High Energy Physics – Chinese Academy of Sciences
IHEP
P.R. of China 8
Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India
PSA
India 9
Arab States Research & Education Network
ASREN
Germany 10
Sigma-Orionis
SIGMA-ORIONIS
France

30. Work Packages

31. Funding Total cost: 2.000.000 € EC requested contribution: 1.500.000 €
Parte INFN: € (incluso overhead 7%)

32. agINFRA A data infrastructure for agricultural scientific communities.
Based on an open linked data architecture harmonizing semantics and ontologies.
Aggregating data of existing systems and taking advantage of advanced Grid services and infrastructure.
Devised for scalability and maximum interoperability by adapting existing widely used components.
Fostering diverse communities of heterogeneous providers and users.
Providing researcher-centric services as conceptualized in the VOA3R project and covering CERIF.

34. agINFRA dati sintetici
Progetto CP/CSA (I3)
Contributo EU di €
Parte INFN circa € (inclusi overhead al 60%)
CRA terza parte INFN con € (inclusi nel budget di cui sopra)
Partenza 15 Ottobre 2011
Durata 3 Anni

35. Richieste RM3 6 FTE su 9 persone Missioni Estere per:
Eventi e Meeting di CHAIN (4)
Eventi e Meeting per agINFRA (4)
Partecipazione a EGI CF e TF (2)
Scuole EPIKH (2)
Riunioni e presentazioni a Bruxelles:
Review Finale di EUMEDGRID-Support (2 persone)
Prima Review di CHAIN (2 persone)
Negoziazione per nuovo progetto CHAIN-REDS (2)
Presentazioni a convegni internazionali (2)