Making EGI a bright star in the e-Infrastructures constellation EGI Technical Forum Amsterdam, 14 September 2010 Kostas Glinos European Commission - DG INFSO Head of Unit, Géant and e-Infrastructures

EGI: a success story 10 years of EC engagement and 100 million funding From ideas and testbeds to production quality infrastructure From first adopters to serving many disciplines From a few engaged users to 1000s of routine users From a scientist dream to national and European policies EGI is now an essential e-Infrastructure… … and expectations are high! Consider mentioning the over 100M€ EC investment in the 10 years but knowing that many people consider this excessive! Use last sentence: - to refer to the successful transition phase by thanking those who contributed in assuring a seamless transitions, e.g. key EGEE-III partners; and - for the transition to the challenges ahead 2

The broader policy perspective ERA and “5th freedom” in Lisbon Treaty EU2020 Digital Agenda Innovation Union e-Infrastructures strategy: e-Science excellence; production quality services; innovation Towards FP8

Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (part of the ‘Lisbon Treaty’) - Art. 179 “The Union shall have the objective of strengthening its scientific and technological bases by achieving a European research area in which researchers, scientific knowledge and technology circulate freely […].” The ‘fifth freedom’; complementing the free movement of people, goods, capital and services

The broader policy perspective ERA and “5th freedom” in Lisbon Treaty EU2020 Digital Agenda Innovation Union e-Infrastructures strategy: e-Science excellence; production quality services; innovation Towards FP8

Digital Agenda for Europe the policy context DAE is one of the flagships of "Europe 2020: a strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth" The Digital Agenda for Europe is about generating growth, by simulating a virtuous cycle of removing bottlenecks to new services and innovation, to stimulate demand and increase incentives for the new investments in infrastructures and our capacity to innovate. In other words – we need to make the virtuous circle work. Attractive content and services stimulate demand, which creates the business case for investment in faster networks. We have seven pillars in the Digital Agenda for Europe. These areas were chosen because they address the biggest ICT related challenges which businesses and citizens face today. They are also the areas where coordinated efforts at EU level could have the greatest impact. To exit definitely from the economic crisis requires that we have a long term capacity to grow and to service our existing levels of expenditure and dept. We need a trigger to growth otherwise Europe will decline and Europeans will see their levels of wealth falling year by year. No digital agenda = no long-term exit strategy. 6

The broader policy perspective ERA and “5th freedom” in Lisbon Treaty EU2020 Digital Agenda Innovation Union e-Infrastructures strategy: e-Science excellence; production quality services; innovation Towards FP8

Future perspectives for e-Infrastructures e-Infrastructures in transition Towards infrastructure-as-a-service From connectivity and grids to an integrated offer involving networks, data, all computing and software Progressive and disparate involvement of users Governance and financial models in evolution What role for innovation? More emphasis on Scientific Data Infrastructures International dimension continues to be important Enabling open Science, research and innovation

Characteristics of e-infrastructures Infrastructure: “The basic systems and services … a country or organisation needs to work efficiently” Maturity Ubiquity Accessibility Transparency Reliability Formation through connecting isolated systems and networks Cambridge dictionary Notion includes technical, legal and organisational systems, as well as social and cultural dispositions ••• 9

Main user communities supported

Future perspectives for e-Infrastructures e-Infrastructures in transition Towards infrastructure-as-a-service From connectivity and grids to an integrated offer involving networks, data, all computing and software Progressive and disparate involvement of users Governance and financial models in evolution What role for innovation? More emphasis on Scientific Data Infrastructures International dimension continues to be important Enabling open Science, research and innovation

Funding per type of e-infrastructure (2003 – 2010)

rising tide of data… A fundamental characteristic of our age is the raising tide of data – global, diverse, valuable and complex. In the realm of science, this is both an opportunity and a challenge. Report of the High-Level Experts Group on Scientific Data, to be published in October “Riding the wave How Europe can Gain from the rising tide of scientific data” 13 13

vision 2030 high-level experts group on Scientific Data “Our vision is a scientific e-infrastructure that supports seamless access, use, re-use, and trust of data. In a sense, the physical and technical infrastructure becomes invisible and the data themselves become the infrastructure – a valuable asset, on which science, technology, the economy and society can advance.” high-level experts group on Scientific Data 14 14

Data as Infrastructure Vision 2030 of the High-Level Group on Scientific Data

Community Support Services Data Services Community Support Services Astronomy Climatology Chemistry History Biology Computing Infrastructure Persistent Storage Capacity Integrity Authentication & Security API Data Discovery & Navigation Workflows Generation Demography Scientific Data (Discipline Specific) Other Data Researcher 1 Non Scientific World Scientific World Researcher 2 Aggregated Data Sets (Temporary or Permanent) Workflows Source: High-level Group on Scientific Data Aggregation Path

Future perspectives for e-Infrastructures e-Infrastructures in transition Towards infrastructure-as-a-service From connectivity and grids to an integrated offer involving networks, data, all computing and software Progressive and disparate involvement of users Governance and financial models in evolution What role for innovation? More emphasis on Scientific Data Infrastructures International dimension continues to be important Enabling open Science, research and innovation

e-Infrastructures enable open Science Collaborate globally Share tools, resources Open processes, organisations Leverage (in and out) Spin off innovation All depends on the interaction between the infrastructure and its users!

astronomy community physics community biomedics community e-Infrastructures Vision empower research communities through ubiquitous, trusted and easy access to services for data, computation, communication and collaborative work Scientific resources . . . . . Linking at the speed of the light Sharing computers, software and instruments Sharing and federating scientific data astronomy community physics community biomedics community ••• 20 20

ICT infrastructures for e-Science COM(2009) 108 Three vectors of a renewed European strategy: Europe as hub of excellence in e-Science Sustainable and continuous services of production quality 24/7 Innovation by exploiting know-how beyond science (public services, large scale experimentation,…) e-Infrastructure ••• 22 22

Planned Call 9 (closing 23.11.10, €95m) eScience Environment €27M Network layer Data layer User Communities biology space climatology astronomy geosciences physics fusion environment spectroscopy medical ICT … NCPs Support actions €43M PRACE €20M Simulation software & services layer Computing layer: Distributed Computing & PRACE €1M

EGI: the challenges ahead Service orientation and user friendliness Attracting more users Fostering innovation A functioning EGI ecosystem Nurture emerging NGIs and grow them strong Making EGI sustainable and gaining political support Derive lessons from similar experiences like GEANT - The challenges ahead: - Service orientation and user friendliness (e.g. embrace cloud and virtualisation and provide integrated services with other e-Infrastructures) - Attracting more users (distinct roles for NGIs and EGI) - Innovation: - “Give and take” role (“give” = move developments to wider adoption; “take” adopt emerging technologies and do not become stuck) - Technology scouting role (EGI being technology agnostic can play the neutral broker role) - Drive take up and spill-overs beyond science (e.g. input to public cloud efforts) - Handling the data deluge: end-to-end perspective, temporal axis, alliances with producers - A functioning EGI ecosystem both, in technology and governance terms. Note that there is an pressing need to stabilise the EGI governance model: the starting phase bonus will soon be over. It will have to be kept flexible to adapt to a changing environment. Some say that the transition to EGI has been successful only because of the inertia from previous projects. The proof of the pudding will be to see how the EGI ecosystem works; there are some unclear points e.g. governance of EGI.eu, EGI, EGI-InSPIRE and the links to related projects like EMI, involvement of non-Europeans in the governance structure, … - Nurture emerging NGIs and grow them strong - Making EGI sustainable and gaining political support: the (unclear) road to sustainability - Derive lessons from similar experiences like GEANT in the creation of pan-European sustainable e-Infrastructures. Reference PRACE as well. Should data be next? 24

e-Infrastructures underpinning a creativity machine… “We humans have built a creativity machine. It’s the sum of three things: a few hundred million of computers, a communication system connecting those computers, and some millions of human beings using those computers and communications.” Vernor Vinge (Nature, Vol 440, March 2006) In the end, computers plus networks plus people [researchers] add up to something significantly greater than the parts. The ensemble eventually grows beyond human creativity. To become what? We can’t know until we get there. 25 25