The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December An e-Infrastructure in Europe: a strategy and policy driven approach

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Remind from Athens meeting Progress with telecommunication industry rather than against! But: Significant amount of DIY will be increasingly required NREN organisation is getting stronger and better organised Sustained political support must be maintained

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December From Athens to Roma! e-Infrastructure is not just physical networks. e-Infrastructure is also services, like GRIDs, communities, access to other research infrastructures or just a top-quality Internet to access information. Further global development is not only technology driven: Need to set up the basis of a policy and strategy-driven approach to answer the user needs

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December EUROPEAN CONTEXT - NREN European NREN Consortium made of +30 Members representative of countries : NRENPC Collective action for the deployment of the successive pan-European backbone network infrastructures Policy driven decision making rules put in place by the NREN Policy Committee Coordination and operational tasks delegated to DANTE, a not-for-profit company owned by the NRENs Infrastructure cofunded by EC and NRENs

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December EUROPEAN CONTEXT - NREN Back-up NRENs are installed by the Member States (+ other countries), which support their activity. NREN’s policies are defined and implemented nationally NREN’s collective action (like GEANT) is supported by the EC (via co-funding), and matches with the EU policy and startegic objectives.

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December EUROPEAN CONTEXT - NREN Current achievement is GEANT network, which brought back Europe on the forefront of the world scene of Research Networks More than the technology, the organisational model of GEANT is the more significant achievement It allows Europe to expand its influence in other world regions (Med, LAC, AP), but also to revise the cost sharing habits for intercontinental connectivity! Dedicated to serve all scientific communities (including but not only GRIDs) with shared AUP rules

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December EUROPEAN CONTEXT - GRIDS GRID Projects oriented services to users (EGEE, DataGrid, DEISA, SEE-GRID, + many others) Development projects oriented towards : –Scientific communities with wide coverage of services like grid computing, distributed storage, on-demand resource allocation (EGEE) –Usages for targeted users (like High Performance Computing with DEISA)

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December EUROPEAN CONTEXT - GRIDS Virtual organisations (VO) for Research –Astronomy (VLBI, Virtual Observatory, Stellar databases, etc…) –Climate (European Computing Facility, Real time data assimilation) –Earth observation (Data acquisition and merging) –Biology (today: distributed collaborative databases, to-morrow: on-line distributed instant computing) –Cooperative engineering (Aero, Auto, etc…)

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December EUROPEAN CONTEXT - GRIDS Other virtual organisations (VO) which may be found outside the R&E world: –Health care –Public services and administrations –Cooperative arts and cultural heritage –etc…

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December EUROPEAN CONTEXT - GRIDS Other projects oriented IT technology development like 6NET + many national initiatives (IT, GR, DE, HU, UK, etc…) + numerous FP6 projects still in preparation)

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December EUROPEAN CONTEXT - GRIDS Back-up GRID projects are issued from FP (or national) project calls When selected, they are supported by EC and the project partners All projects are dedicated to develop and/or to serve (communities) but not from a national policy decision (even if they are welcomed)

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December ESFRI (1/2) “European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures” Created as a follow-on action from the RI Conference in Strasbourg in September Made of high level government representatives of the EU Member States + EC Address all science fields in the context of Research Infrastructures of European significance

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December ESFRI (2/2) Marine Research, Neutron sources, Free Electron Lasers, etc… Working Group on High Performance Computing and Networking since June 2003 Inventory of available resources across Europe Identify science cases of which progress depend on HPCN development Propose strategic guidance to progress

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Other bodies and fora ESF, EURAB, EIFORUM may happen to discuss about networks, grids and related topics. International cooperation (NA, AP, LAC, AU, etc…) both for infrastructure, middleware, normalisation and standards at all levels of the eInfrastructure. Interactions with the non-R&E world!

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December How does this work? (1/4) 1) Variations about access? Compliance with an AUP (GEANT) Suited to the project objectives (DEISA) Membership of the project itself (EGEE, 6NET) or of a predefined community (LCG) ?

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December How does this work? (2/4) 2) Scientific Excellence? Scientific criteria for admission : the scientific bodies, within projects/organisation are competent for evaluating the project/organisation itself, but not the scientific activities of users (except for community grids like LCG) or objective scientific evaluation is made by the funding authorities.

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December How does this work? (3/4) 3) Variable geometry and geographical coverage? GRID infrastructures (including research networks) are a unique opportunity to integrate all countries in a European Research and Education Area Networks are also THE way for all researchers to access large scale shared facilities in Europe and worldwide.

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December How does this work? (4/4) 4) Information dissemination? NRENs are not known from most users! Internet is! And users require very high quality Internet GRID concept is unknown from almost everyone in Europe. Most researchers ignore what is (or could be) made available to them. But only the service needs to be properly advertised to users! Surprisingly, big companies are marketing “on- demand computing” to the commercial without using the word GRID!

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Requirements for a policy approach (1/4) Cooperation between networks and services layers, organisation-wise Cooperation at the technical and operational level: a GRID service may require non- standard network resources in a completely automated manner

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Requirements for a policy approach (2/4) Network infrastructures are expected to be informative, but reactive and adaptive as well GRIDs infrastructure may not expect using non existing network resources There are a huge potential for sharing resources between GRIDs and networks (NOC, monitoring tools) to avoid useless duplication

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Requirements for a policy approach (3/4) Need to implement a user oriented approach for the presentation of services: Most users do not need GRID services, while they need network services. European integration will not occur without the full implementation of end-to-end services eInfrastructure must be also a vector to prevent/fight the digital divide

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Requirements for a policy approach (4/4) Require to articulate the network and GRID initiatives/projects with the national and European science programmes and policies In particular, there is no global resource allocation policy, able to combine peer review, funding constraints, national policies etc… Global discussion, political support etc…

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Rationale for a policy approach E-Infrastructure is neither just networks, nor GRIDs, nor services: It is all! Avoid duplication between projects Share information about available resources, best practices, service architecture, access, etc. Standardisation of service interfaces for users Based on long term strategy or vision (longer that the project timescales)

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December END OF PRESENTATION! ? Questions

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Future trends Not to substitute to telecommunications operators, but acquire products and services not off-the-shelves. Cooperate with Telcos but convince them to provide raw capacity at the lowest rates as possible and bring most of the technology mastering in the NRENs hands: WDM instead of SDH, lit fibres instead of WDM, and eventually dark fibres instead of lit fibres when feasable. Customize and provide network services by the NRENs themselves (DANTE for collective actions)

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Challenges Not to be destructive for the telecommunications industry, but incentive for new services Coordinate disparate actions like xx-Light initiatives which promote lambdas rather than usages Account for differentiated economical and regulatory contexts to harmonize the European network and reduce the digital divide. TEN-155/GEANT issue was to managed simultaneously liberalized markets and monopolies: Next will be to manage also markets with no rules!

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Facts It is acknowledged that TEN-155 and GEANT have significantly improved the research network situation in Europe. However, the gap between extremes has also significantly increased. Today, SEE countries are among the most expensive countries from GEANT point of view! Poland and Czeck Republik have adopted a different approach to be among the most advanced partners.

The EU eInfrastructure initiativeRoma, 9 December Facts The difficulty, reported for the SEE is well confirmed by the EUMEDCONNECT tendering process! Better to cooperate (eventually being VERY incentive) with telcos than to fight them to improve the market situation, induced by the lack of competition. Governments may help, because of specific needs for Education and Research. New European rules for procurement will help.