The eInfrastructure sustainable development in South-East Europe

1. The eInfrastructure sustainable development in South-East Europe The SEE-GRID-2 initiative is co-funded by the European Commission under the FP6 Research Infrastructures contract no. 031775

2. Outline • SEE-GRID-2 project - May 2006 - June 2008; WP2 - main actions for promote sustainable operation and development of GRID infrastructure: • Forming NGI; • signing bilateral and group’s of interest MoUs; • elaboration of national strategy of GRID infrastructureoperation and development; • Realization of recommendations for regional and national initiatives SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 2

3. Strategic priority: NGIs • Formation of stable NGIs is the key to long-term sustainability • National Grid Initiatives are concentrated efforts taken at National level in order to deploy, operate, and expand grid infrastructures in a coherent and coordinated way • NGI involves the inter-connection and inter-operation of academic and research-based resource centers under an umbrella of a national program aiming to integrate the available resources in order to establish an e-Infrastructure for the benefit of the R&E (e-Science) community, and in the long-term for the society at large SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 3

4. Beneficiary regions & states: recommendations • Carry out complementary but coordinated actions • Training! • Unified form of NGI establishment, but allow for separate national strategies/agendas of NGIs: no sliver bullet • Broad partnerships through MoUs and joint work: EGEE, SEEGRID, other regional projects • Use EC financing as seed money – seek other sources • Organize in federations with clear relations and modus operandi; scalable structure needed • Distribute Grid and management services to spread the know-how and ensure joint responsibility and control • Aim to have possibility of stand-alone operations, independent on related federated Grids and projects • Adopt good technical solutions but also pursue alternatives • Have clear/quantified target/criteria for migrating to EGEE SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 4

5. EGEE project EGEE-II aims to build on the work of the EGEE project, which was conceivedas the first two-year phase of a four-year programme, to provide a productionquality Grid infrastructure across the European Research Area and beyond. Researchers in academia and industry already benefit from the EGEE e-Infrastructure, which simultaneously supports many applications from diversescientific areas, providing a common pool of resources, independent ofgeographic location, with round-the-clock access to major storage, computeand networking facilities. The EGEE-II project will significantly extend and consolidate thisinfrastructure, which links national, regional and thematic Grid efforts, as wellas interoperate with other Grids around the globe. The resulting high capacity,world-wide infrastructure greatly surpasses the capabilities of local clustersand individual centres, providing a unique tool for collaborative computeintensive science (“e-Science”). SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 5

6. EGEE project • The EGEE Grid is built on the EU Research Network GÉANT and exploit Grid expertise generated by many EU, national and international Grid projects to date. • Funded by the European Commission, the EGEE project community has been divided into 12 partner federations, consisting of over 90 contractors and over 30 non-contacting participants covering almost all Europe SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 6

7. NGI long-term strategy • Strategic success metrics of regional Grid initiatives: • not Gbps/sec • not the number of nodes • not the TBs of storage • The initiatives are puzzle pieces of RTD efforts to sustain regional development • Increasing the retention of talented scientists in the region • Pursuing joint R&D efforts among countries in the region • Making available the benefits of the Information Society for citizens • Easing the digital divide between the region and the countries at other side of spectrum • Improvement of regional competitiveness in all market sectors • Regional political stability and cohesiveness • The basis for new applications and national GRID infrastructure development • The project results sustainable status can be achieved by national RTD efforts combining with EC co – finding: new SEE-GRID-SCI proposal elaboration SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 7

8. Conclusions • SEE-GRID projects are the first step for regional eInfrastructure integration • SEE-GRID-2 is the essential step towards SUSTAINABLE Grid-related ACTIVITIES (NOT just infrastructure!) in the in Moldova and in SEE region in general • SEE-GRID-2 and MD-GRID NGI are open for discussions, feedback, inputs to other related regional and national initiatives • SEE-GRID-SCI is possible further contribution in SUSTAINABLE Grid-related activities development at national and regional levels SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 8