1. The CHAIN project
5th Iberian Grid Infrastructure Conference (IBERGRID2011) Santander, June

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

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

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
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.
Greenfield 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.
Advanced regions/countries

6. How ? - Instruments & methods
National Grid Initiatives
Internal (national) Infrastructures sustainability is still an issue
Regional coordination
Difficult to shape the demand of collaboration with Europe in a Regional perspective (bilateral agreements always preferred)
Coordination and interoperation with EGI
Stable Communication Networks co-operations still under development
Synergistic approach with GEANT and EU NRENs and specific regional networks projects, i.e. ALICE-2, EUMEDCONNECT2…

7. Coordination & Harmonisation of Advanced eINfrastructures
A new project
Coordination & Harmonisation of Advanced eINfrastructures

8. Timing 2009 2010 2011 2012 EGEE III EGI EUAsiaGrid SEEGRID-SCI EELA II
GISELA
EUMEDGRID-Support
EUIndiaGrid2

9. CHAIN project CHAIN is an EC (260011) funded project Structured in
~ 1.6 M€
Structured in
WP 1 Project Management
WP 2 Consolidation of existing state of the art
WP 3 Present and emerging needs of trans-continental scientific communities
WP 4 Modelling the cooperation of European e-Infrastructures with non-European ones
WP 5 Dissemination and Outreach

10. CHAIN project 281.5 PM in 24 Months (started in Dec 1st 2010) Partners
INFN
CIEMAT
CESNET
UBUNTUNET
CLARA
IHEP
PSA
ASREN
Asia-Pacific consortium

11. 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 e- Infrastructures
Validate this model, as a proof-of-principle, by supporting the extension and consolidation of worldwide VRC
Explore and propose concrete steps forward towards the coordination with other projects and initiatives 11

12. Work Packages

13. WP2
Conduct a state-of-the-art analysis regarding current solutions for European Grid interfacing with Grids in other world regions
A questionnaire has been prepared and is On-Line
Target people are persons responsible of a NGI or a Regional Grid Infrastructure (2 different surveys)

14. WP2
The analysis of the Questionnaire will lead to a set of guidelines for operational and organisational interactions, customised for the type of region
Disseminate the NGI concept in the regions where this is needed, and conduct actions for national and regional sustainability

15. WP3
To provide (limited) support to the existing and well experienced VRC (LHC, Biomed…)
To provide support for communities interested to widen their activities collaborating with other continents
To discover and attract new scientific communities or merging similar ones operating worldwide.

16. WP3
Producing studies of the necessary steps for e-Infrastructures to fulfil the requirement of present and emerging VRC with trans- continental span based on
The existing plans of relevant organisations, projects and/or committees (ESFRI, e-IRG, EGI, PRACE…)
The feedbacks received during the thematic
workshops and high-level conferences

17. But to do it, being sustainable is a must!
WP3
Thus, the final goal is to involve at least a couple of reference communities to validate the proposed model (services)
But to do it, being sustainable is a must!

18. WP3: Synergies CHAIN collaboration with ‘INFN-coordinated’ projects
Later in this presentation
CHAIN collaboration with GISELA (WS at EGI UF 2011)
Projects presented what can they offer to VRC
VRC presented their necessities
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19. VRC Candidates We-NMR (http://www.wenmr.eu)
Dr. Alexandre M.J.J Bonvin – Universiteit Utrecht
Structural biology, making use of NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), SAXS (Small Angle X-ray Scattering), computational modelling or other related techniques to study biomolecules

20. VRC Candidates
We-NMR partners in red

21. VRC Candidates WRF4G (http://www.meteo.unican.es/es/software/wrf4g)
Dr. Antonio Cofiño – Universidad de Cantabria
Meteorology and other Earth Science related areas willing to enhance their forecasting techniques on Idealized simulations, Regional and global applications, Parameterization and Data assimilation or Forecast and hurricane research
Dissemination within CORDEX project

22. VRC Candidates
WRF4G partners in red

23. VRC Candidates jModelTest/ProtTest (http://darwin.uvigo.es/)
Dr. David Posada – Universidad de Vigo
Evolutionary Biology for the statistical selection of best-fit models of nucleotide substitution and amino acid replacement for given set of aligned sequences (molecular systematics, phylogenetics, phylogenomics, molecular evolution and/or bioinformatics)

24. VRC Candidates jModelTest/ProtTest registered users Modeltest ~ 30.000

25. VRC Candidates
DC-NET / INDICATE (http.// and
Dr. Antonella Fresa – Promoter
These initiatives are working on coordinating policy and best practice regarding the use of e-Infrastructures for digital cultural heritage

26. VRC Candidates
INDICATE / DC-NET partners in red

27. VRC Candidates DECIDE (http://www.eu-decide.eu) Dr. Laura Leone – GARR
Design, implement, and validate a GRID-based e-Infrastructure building upon neuGRID and relying on the Pan-European backbone GEANT and the NRENs. Over this e-Infrastructure, a service will be provided for the computer-aided extraction of diagnostic markers for Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia from medical images

28. VRC Candidates
DECIDE partners in red

29. VRC Candidates Climate Change
Synergies with EuIndiaGrid-2, EUMEDGRID Support

30. WP4
Study and propose a model for cooperation and interoperation among European and non-European e-Infrastructures
Perform an organizational study that will take into account a regional “customisation” applied to a shared model for sustainability

31. WP4
Request and collect feedbacks from qualified actors in the field of e-Infrastructures worldwide on the proposed model and produce a final version with a road-map for the follow-up of extensions to the European Grid Infrastructure
Brainstorming meetings with EGI.eu were held in Rome (Dec 2010) and Amsterdam (Jan 2011)
A Workshop on Interoperations was organised in cooperation with EUIndiaGrid-2 at OGF 31 (April 2011)

32. WP5
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, stake holders, funding agencies, etc. on the usefulness and relevance of these e- Infrastructures for the improvement of their research activities

33. WP5
Several MoUs
Flyers, banners…

35. New Identity Federation

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

37. CHAIN Knowledge Base RREN(s) NREN NGI CA(s) ROC(s) Grid site(s)
Application(s)

38. CHAIN Knowledge Base

39. CHAIN Knowledge Base Linked to a world wide Application Database
Federated with the EGI AppDB.

40. Africa ROC In production
Will be integrated in a dedicated instance of the EGI Dashboard

41. Africa ROC Nagios

42. China ROC
Dedicated instances of GOCDB and Support System will soon be put online
Customizations of the service are in progress

43. ASREN Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN)
Association of the Arab region NRENs and strategic partners.
Promotes world-class Pan-Arab e-Infrastructures and e-services for the Research and Education communities to boost Scientific Research and regional Cooperation

44. CHAIN geo-map

45. Conclusions
To build stable and sustainable e-Infrastructures has been the main effort of several regional projects
Different levels of development have been achieved, but every e- Infrastructure aims to collaborate with the rest
It is time to produce a coherent, multi-region and multi-path road-map for the sustainability and interoperations of those Regional e-Infrastructures towards EGI and among themselves

46. Rafael Mayo (on behalf of the CHAIN project)
Thank you
Rafael Mayo (on behalf of the CHAIN project)