1. The EPIKH, GILDA, GISELA and CHAIN Projects
Diego Scardaci
INFN Dept. of Catania
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPIKH School in Valparaiso (Chile)

2. Outline Background and concepts The EPIKH project
The GILDA t-Infrastructure
Educational formats and services
EPIKH training activities with GILDA
The GISELA Project
The CHAIN Project
Conclusions
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

3. e-Science Virtual Organisations e-Infrastructure Applications Data
Instruments
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

4. The Global Network
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

5. The Global Grid TeraGrid EGEE OSG EELA SEE-Grid BalticGrid DEISA
NAREGI
EUMedGrid
BalticGrid
SEE-Grid
EUIndiaGrid
EUAsiaGrid
EUChinaGrid
DEISA
EGEE
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

6. The Triangle of Knowledge
Research & Development
t-Infrastructure
e-Infrastructure
Education
& Training
Innovation
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.
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

7. The EPIKH Project (www.epikh.eu)
“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 (Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe);
115 persons involved;
>650 researcher-months;
>500 secondments;
Duration: March, 1, 2009 – February, 28, 2013 (48 months)
EC contribution: 1,188,000 €
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

8. The EPIKH Partners
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

9. The EPIKH goals Strategic aims: Specific actions:
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.
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

10. EPIKH secondments’ programme
1st Phase:
Non-EU → EU
(selected)
Res. Programs
2nd Phase:
EU → Non-EU
Grid Schools
(with 1st phase tutors)
Workshops
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

11. EPIKH Quality & Certification Programme
All seconded people must be officially selected against their CVs;
All Non-EU→EU secondments must have a Research Program agreed between “sending” and “accepting” organisations;
All secondments must have final reports both from the seconded person and the “accepting” organisation
If both reports will be successfull the seconded person will be provided with an official certificate
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

12. EPIKH on the web
wiki.epikh.eu
documents.epikh.eu
agenda.epikh.eu
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

13. Grants and applications (wiki.epikh.eu)
The call for applications is already open !
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

14. GEOMAP Views - Partners
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

15. GEOMAP Views - Events
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

16. GEOMAP Views -
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

17. EPIKH Applications
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

18. GILDA: the “de facto” standard EPIKH t-Infrastructure
GILDA: Grid INFN Laboratory for Dissemination Activities
GILDA is a complete Grid production quality infrastructure fully devoted to demonstrate/disseminate Grid computing
GILDA is an international effort funded by multiple sources
GILDA is adopted by several Grid projects worldwide
It runs the latest version of the gLite middleware and supports other middleware such as Condor, Globus, OurGrid, UNICORE, etc.
Using GILDA is free of charge
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

19. The GILDA “island” on GridMap (gridmap. cern
The GILDA “island” on GridMap (gridmap.cern.ch/gm/#topo=gilda&layout=tc&vo=OPS&serv=Site&sitenames)
GILDA sites are part of the EGEE
production infrastructure and
are monitored by the same tools
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

20. The GILDA formats and services (https://gilda.ct.infn.it)
Training on Grid
Tutorial for Users
Tutorial for Site Admin
Grid Schools
Tutorial for Trainers
Customized events
University courses (Degree, Ms.C, Ph.D, etc.)
Training materials: Wiki pages, Printable Documentation, Demos, Videos, etc.
Grid Application development
Support to Grid application development
Deployment of the applications into the GENIUS and P-GRADE grid portals
GILDA Ticketing support system
Infrastructure
GILDA CA
GILDA VOMS
Creation of pilot test-beds: EELA, EUMED, EUCHINA, EUINDIA, SAGRID, etc.
Testing and development on new available gLite services
Dedicated Software repository/Virtual services (INFN Grid)
Monitoring (GStat, SAM, GridMap, etc. )
We’re doing it NOW!
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

21. Users’ assistance provided by GILDA
Training material
Wiki page
Video tutorials
Step by step instructions
Support system
GILDA Forge
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

22. GILDA “numbers” so far >14,000 certificates issued since 2004.
>1000 users registered
in the GILDA VO
>14,000 certificates issued since 2004.
More than 30% renewed at least once.
>410 tutorials in 56
countries since 2004.
Up to 6 at the same time! 1 2 3 4 5 6
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

23. EPIKH training activities with GILDA (1/2)
1-week tutorials for site administrators (with remote installations)
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

24. EPIKH training activities with GILDA (2/2)
Grid Schools
2 entire weeks devoted to applications’ “gridification”
call for applications widely open
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

25. Applications’ “virtuous cycle”
Dissemination
Training events
“Gridification”
Deployment on large
Infrastructures and inclusion in the portfolio of demonstrative applications
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

26. Conclusions
EPIKH can represents for young brilliant scientists and technologists a unique occasion to learn and adopt the Grid paradigm through stimulating research programmes;
Thanks to EPIKH activities, Organisations can setup “clones” of GILDA locally to implement campus grids or even nation-wide e-infrastructures (good examples are already existing both in South Africa and Cuba);
EPIKH/GILDA can offer free technical support for anyone willing to organize local training events on Grid computing:
It can be undergraduate courses, M.Sc. courses, Ph.D. curricula, tutorials, Grid Schools, etc.
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

27. GISELA Countries & Partners
15 Countries (11 in Latin America)
19 Partners (14 in Latin America)
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile), 27 27

28. GISELA Objectives and Goals
Ensure the long- term sustainability of the e-Infrastructure in the Latin American continent
Provide full support to the Virtual Research Communities spanning Latin America and Europe, using the e-Infrastructure.
Focus on two inter-related goals:
Implement a sustainability model rooted on National Grid Initiatives (NGI), in association with CLARA, NRENs and collaborating with EGI.
Provide the communities with the suited e-Infrastructure and Application-related Services required to improve the effectiveness of their research. This will address both:
The current EELA-2 User Communities whose research investigations are carried out at the Institution level or in small collaborations.
The larger Virtual Research Communities as Life & Earth Sciences, HEP
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile), 28 28

29. CHAIN Project name: Coordinator: Call and topic: Contract no.:
Co-ordination and Harmonisation of Advanced e-INfrastruc tures
Coordinator:
INFN (Italy)
Call and topic:
FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES ; INFRA – Support Actions
Contract no.:
260011
Total cost and EC Requested contribution:
1.58 M€; 1.1 M€
Start date and duration:
1st of December 2010; 24 months
CHAIN objectives:
Define a strategy and a model for external collaboration, in close collaboration with EGI.eu, which will enable operational and organisational interfacing of EGI and external e-Infrastructures;
Validate this model, as a proof-of-principle, by supporting the extension and consolidation of worldwide Virtual Research Communities;
Explore and propose concrete steps forward towards the coordination with other projects and initiatives (e.g. EGI.eu, EUMEDGRID-Support, EUIndiaGrid2, GISELA, LinkSCEEM, the National Knowledge Network, PRACE, etc.);
The project will act as a worldwide policy-watch and coordination instrument, by exploring and proposing concrete steps for the coordination with other initiatives and studying the evolution of e-Infrastructures towards not only Grids and HPC but also Cloud Computing, Virtualisation, Voluntary Computing and other trends that may emerge; this interaction with other Infrastructures will also imply a strong commitment to standards’ adoption.
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile), 29

30. CHAIN PARTNERS
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

31. Thank you very much!
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),

32. http://www.epikh.eu https://gilda.ct.infn.it Useful bookmarks
EPIKH home page
GILDA home page
GILDA Support System
GILDA Form for tutorial bookings
GILDA Repository of Training Material
ICEAGE Library
GILDA Virtual Services
Joint CHAIN/GISELA/EPiKH School, Valparaiso (Chile),