1. CHAIN Project: a summary Giuseppe Andronico, INFN

2. Outline Introduction Objectives General information and CHAIN vision
Workplan
State of the art analysis
Data analysis and recommendations
Virtual Research Communities
Interoperation & Interoperability
Events & dissemination
Conclusions
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

3. 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
Example: experimental science uses ever more sophisticated sensors
Huge amounts of data
Serves user communities around the world
International collaborations
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

4. Regional Grid infrastructures
CNGrid
NKN & Garuda
EUAsiaGrid
SAGrid & SANREN
GISELA
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

5. CHAIN: global coverage
Coordination & Harmonisation of Advanced eINfrastructures
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

6. Project 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
Explore and propose concrete steps forward towards the coordination with other projects and initiatives (e.g. EGI.eu, EUMEDGRID-Support, EUIndiaGrid2, LinkSCEEM2, NKN & Garuda, etc.)
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

7. Project information
Grant Agreement for a total EC contribution of 1.1 M€
Total cost: about 1.9 M€
Start Date: 1st December Duration 24 Months
Partners:
INFN (Italy - Coordinator)
CESNET (Czech Rep.)
CIEMAT (Spain)
GRNET (Greece)
IHEP (China)
UBUNTUNET (Africa)
CLARA (Latin America)
PSA (India)
ASREN (Med./Middle East/Gulf) Since 1 August 2011
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

8. Project strategic vision
A world-wide Distributed Computing Infrastructure can address big scientific challenges that are not manageable with departmental computing systems
Virtual Research Communities can transparently access different kind of resources: scientific applications and tools, Data Repositories, down to CPUs and Disks. The vision is that of VRCs sharing resources ubiquitously across different administrative domains
Regional e-Infrastructures should be made interoperable among each other. CHAIN is committed to promote and validate a proof-of-concept that addresses this
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

9. Project workpackages
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

10. Project workplan State of the Art Assessment Disseminate (WP5) (WP2)
Involve the VRCs
(WP3)
Analyse the different Regional Approaches
(WP2, WP4)
Demonstrate the usefulness of interoperation
(WP3, WP4)
Propose a Road-Map and Intermediate solutions
(WP4, WP3)
Make Recommendations
(WP2, WP3, WP4)
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

11. State of the art analysis (WP2)
Analysis of existing NGI literature and related questionnaires
Creation of the regional and NGI questionnaires
Questionnaires being implemented and published online
Collection of contact points from all continents
Questionnaire is kept open and collection of contact points from all continents is continued
Questionnaire data provided through the CHAIN Knowledge Base
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

12. Knowledge base (WP2, WP5) www.chain-project/knowledge-base
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

13. Country view
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

14. Data analysis (WP4, WP2) Number of sites and number of CPUs
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15. WP2 Recommendations 74 Detailed recommendations classified by:
Short (1 year), Medium (3 years) and Long term (5 years)
High, Medium, Low priority
National Grid Initiatives (9):
General (5); Regional (4)
Interoperations (14):
General (1), ROC (3), User Support (1), Monitoring (3), Security (2), Core Services (2); Middleware (2)
Interoperability (2): General (1), Input/Output (1)
Virtual Research Communities’ perspective: General (2)
Regional planning (47):
Africa (9), Asia Pacific (6), Central Asia (5), China (7), India (4), Latin America (5), Mediterranean & Arab Countries (11)
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

16. Africa & Arabia ROC (WP2, WP4)
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17. Virtual Research Communities (WP3)
Two VRCs already involved (MoUs signed)
WeNMR – Structural biology, making use of NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), SAXS (Small Angle X-ray Scattering), computational modelling or other related techniques to study biomolecules
WRF4G - Meteorology and other Earth Science related areas (forecasting techniques, forecast and hurricane research, etc.)
Others to follow
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

18. CHAIN interoperability test: objectives
To demonstrate that:
e-Infrastructures can be made interoperable to each other using standards (with the meaning of interoperability given above)
VRC-specific applications can be submitted from anywhere and run everywhere
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

19. CHAIN interoperability test: e-Infrastructures involved
e-Infrastructure/Project
EUAsiaGrid
EUChinaGRID
EU-IndiaGrid
EUMEDGRID
GISELA
IGI (Italy)
SAGrid (South Africa)
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

20. Access: the Science Gateway model (WP3, WP4)
Embedded Applications
Administrator
Power User
Basic User
App. 1
App. 2
App. N
Gateway
Science
Standard-based middleware-independent
Grid Engine
Users from different organisations having different roles and privileges
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

21. Standards
The framework for Science Gateways proposed and fostered by CHAIN is fully web-based and adopts official worldwide standards and protocols, through their most common implementations:
Web interface: JSR 168 and JSR 286 standards (also known as "portlet 1.0" and "portlet 2.0" standards)
Authentication: OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) standard and its Shibboleth and SimpleSAMLphp implementations;
Authorisation: Lightweight Direct Access Protocol, and its OpenLDAP implementation
Digital certificate management: Cryptographic Token Interface Standard (PKCS#11) standard and its Cryptoki implementation
Application interface: Open Grid Forum (OGF) Simple API for Grid Applications (SAGA) standard and its JSAGA implementation
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

22. MyJobsMap (1/3)
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23. MyJobsMap (2/3)
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24. Dissemination (WP5) CHAIN website Leaflets Pop-up banner Gadgets
Publications
Press releases
eScienceTalk collaboration
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25. Events in the first year (WP5)
One High-level conference on Climate Change
10 co-organised workshops
5 Schools in cooperation with EPIKH and other projects
ICTP Trieste May 2011
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012
Beirut, Lebanon October 2011
ISGC2011 Taipei March 2011

26. MoUs with other Projects (WP5, WP4, WP3)
In preparation
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

27. Conclusions
CHAIN project has successfully reached its first year goals
All deliverables contain crucial information with added value:
Providing first detailed analysis and regional comparisons
Delivering clear and detailed recommendations
The second year activity is already clearly planned and the project goals are set and refined
No major issues have been encountered so far and the minor difficulties were overcome thanks to the proactive management and good spirit of cooperation shown by all the partners and by other collaborating projects
EPIKH Asia4 Final Workshop – Beijing, 24 Apr 2012

28. Thank you