1. © 2006 Open Grid Forum The Astro Community and DCIs in Europe and the role of Astro-CG C. Vuerli - INAF

2. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 2 Outline EGI and NGIs The Astro Community in EGI Other projects and initiatives Interactions between DCIs and DDIs Horizon 2020 New astronomical projects Challenges and possible answers Astro-CG and its potential strength But how should Astro-CG be operated?

3. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 3 EGI and NGIs Presentation by Steve Brewer at the OGF35/Astro-CG session Presentation

4. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 4 The Astro Community in EGI MAGIC and Planck: the first astronomical projects in EGEE First porting of astro applications (five funded astro partners in EGEE-III) The Astro Community recognized as HUC in EGI Partnership in EGI-InSPIRE to develop and maintain astro-dedicated tools and services (WP SA3, Task 5) and prepare their long term sustainability Visualization tools Interoperability of different DCIs Interoperability of DCIs and DDIs

5. © 2006 Open Grid Forum SHIWA: Project Objectives Enable user communities to share their WFs Publish the developed WFs Access and re-use the published WFs Build multi-workflows from the published WFs Toolset: SHIWA Simulation Platform WF Repository (production) SHIWA Portal (production) SHIWA Desktop (prototype) 5

6. © 2006 Open Grid Forum SCI-BUS: Motivations There are many user communities who would like to access several DCIs (grids, clouds, clusters) in a transparent way They do not want to learn the peculiar features of the used DCIs They want to concentrate their scientific application Therefore they need a science gateway 6

7. © 2006 Open Grid Forum SCI-BUS: Main Objectives Create a generic-purpose gateway technology Elaborate an application-specific gateway building technology and customisation methodology Establish production gateway services both for NGIs (horizontal user communities) and various science communities (vertical user communities) Create and maintain a Liferay portlet repository that enables the quick creation of user specific customised gateways Develop business models to guarantee sustainability and commercial exploitation 7

8. © 2006 Open Grid Forum SCI-BUS: Generic Gateway Based on Liferay WS-PGRADE (Web Services Parallel Grid Runtime and Developer Environment) gUSE (Grid User Support Environment) architecture General purpose Workflow-oriented portal framework Supports the development and execution of workflow-based applications 8

9. © 2006 Open Grid Forum SCI-BUS: gUSE/WS-PGRADE Scalable architecture based on collaborating services Seamless access to various types of DCIs: clusters service grids desktop grids clouds Advanced data-flows and workflow concept: Embedded workflows Parametric nodes Legacy codes Web services Advance input data management: Cross product Dot product 9

10. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 10 Other projects and initiatives Which other projects? It is not trivial to be aware of DCI- related initiatives in progress (or planned) within astro projects Why? It could happen that… People dont know the existence of a coordination at European level People dont see any convenience if they coordinate within EGI People are overloaded and forced to focus on key topics of their projects/activities

11. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 11 DCIs-DDIs interactions Interactions between computing and data e-Infrastructures are crucial for astronomy Data repositories play a key role The definition of standards enabling DCIs and DDIs to share and access data repositories is of utmost importance New astro projects try to face and overcome this gap but more (and coordinated) effort is still necessary to fully achieve this objective

12. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 12 Horizon 2020 It is the forthcoming (starting in 2013) European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Special emphasis is put on data exploitation and data preservation Horizon 2020 seems then to be strongly data-oriented Various initiatives in progress to make the astro community ready to answer to Horizon 2020 calls In this new scenario the interoperability between DCIs and DDIs become crucial

13. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 13 New projects: challenges The size Large scale projects spanning over different countries and involving many Institutes Their efficient management is not trivial Technological advances Need to operate astronomical instrumentation increasingly powerful and sophisticated New data processing/storing challenges Avalanches of complex data to process and archive in a reasonable time Cross-correlation of data coming from different projects and facilities Long term preservation of produced data to maximize their scientific exploitation

14. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 14 New projects: possible answers Enforce the collaboration between projects, research groups and Institutes Be aware of new opportunities offered by advances of technologies sitting behind DCIs Joint analysis of their respective requirements and needs in terms of tools and services Explore together and jointly with IVOA The interoperability issue between DCIs and DDIs Common standards in accessing and processing data New challenges coming from topics like data preservation and data exploitation How to manage legacy data and legacy software Improve the transfer/sharing of knowledge Improve the communication level and the flow of information between different projects and initiatives with coordinating entities like OGF and EGI

15. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 15 Astro-CG potential strength Strength points empowering Astro-CG Its worldwide geographical coverage Its mission Sharing of expertize and knowledge Sharing of common issues Collaboration in looking for and providing possible solutions and interoperability paths between different e-Infrastructures and the underlying technologies Definition of services and interfaces enabling the integration of e-Infrastructures and of their related resources Understanding and overcoming issues and limitations that hamper the exploitation of DCIs and their related technologies The liaison group with IVOA (GWS WG)

16. © 2006 Open Grid Forum 16 But how to operate Astro-CG? Collaboration tools are crucial to open new communication channels Passive tools and services Dedicated mailing lists Thematic web pages Web based collaboration tools Proactive initiatives Establish individual contacts with astro projects and research groups Definitely the most time-consuming and challenging task Promote inter-projects communication channels and thematic discussion topics Efficient exploitation of OGFs At each OGF identify a hot topic and focus the Astro-CG session on it, fostering related communications by the various projects and RGs