The OMII-Europe Project and the Impact of European Union Funding Dr Alistair Dunlop University of Southampton

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Talk Overview EU Funding –What’s the Motivation –Preparing a bid –Running a project OMII-Europe –How has EU funding shaped OMII-Europe? –An overview of the project and its constituent parts

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Motivation - Why pursue EU funding for OMII- Europe? I Preface… –OMII-Soton already exists with goals to Reuse, reengineer and integrate grid software components that have already been developed within the UK e-science programme –EU officials liked OMII model and wanted an equivalent within EU Also exists within USA in NMI –Hence a call was created within FP6 (framework Programme 6) to fund an equivalent entity

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Motivation - Why pursue EU funding for OMII- Europe? II Primary reasons to lead a proposal –Protect “OMII” brand –We were expected to do it –If we didn’t do it someone else would have –Addresses sustainability of institute through diversity of funding sources Primary reasons why NOT to LEAD a proposal –Want money to do our own interesting research

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Prerequisites before starting to preparing an EU bid 1: Find the right EU call (cordis.europa.eu) and read the call, rules, requirements –Requirements include specifying: Closing Date Composition of Consortium (Number of partners and which member states) Instruments available (the format needed for the proposal) 2: Go to Brussels to talk to the relevant unit head/s to find explore a proposed call –More subtle requirements Approximate budget available/suggested Which institutions to include/exclude Tone of proposal Level of competition

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Before writing a proposal… Meet with prospective partners to: –Understand what they want to do – but don’t agree! –Get commitment from them to help and not compete –Describe the level of budget available and their share –Ensure they understand the EU rules as this impacts what partners can do: In FP6 research activities are 50% funded. (1:1) In FP7 this is 75%. (3:1) Sketch an outline proposal that conforms to the EU instrument, identifying partners to activities and partner funding

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Outline proposal… The outline proposal for OMII-Europe was not exactly as first thought: –The Instrument dictates certain tasks in the proposal I3 (Integrated Infrastructure Initiatives) muct include Network Activities, Service Activities and Joint Research Activities –Politics dictates inclusion of certain partners –The proposal has to be written to fit partners not the other way around => You can shape a proposal but you can’t dictate it

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE The full bid Preparing the Bid: –Admin part (takes a lot longer than you would expect) –“Part B” or the “Description of Work” Approx 100 – 150 pages of text conforming to template describing what will be done All partners must sign this off Takes approximately 3 months of pretty much full-time work After closing date ~ 2 months to hear if proposal is shortlisted –=> proposal is fundable Hearings ~ 6 weeks thereafter to rank fundable proposals Outcome ~ 6 weeks later

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Before you start… Negotiations with commission –Take at least 3 months –Could cut budget and insist on changes to proposal (not technical) –Need to complete a “consortium agreement” – allow at least 3 months Total time from submission to start is approx 8 months to 1 year

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE The good and bad news Good News: –Finance department is experienced and very helpful in managing finances of EU grants –Plenty of other people who can help –Gives you plenty of time to get a good project manager in place! –After you lead one project you make a name for yourself and get invited to participate in others –Good news for individual researchers employed on project – travel, salary, etc... Bad News: –Large administrative overhead with little resource –The admin costs are lumped with your research costs so to achieve balance you forfeit some research funding

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Impact of EU funding on OMII-Europe Emphasis changed from “Reuse, Reengineer and Integrate” grid components to “Interoperability and Quality Assurance of grid components” due to partner contributions The partner list resulted in grid components and grid middleware distributions being included that were not initially considered The Instrument for submitting the proposal required the inclusion of tasks that were not foreseen

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE An Overview of the OMII-Europe project EU funded FP6 project (RI) –Starting May 2006, initial 2 year duration –16 partners (8 European, 4 USA, 4 Chinese) Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute for Europe –Complimentary to existing national programmes (OMII-UK, NMI, C-OMEGA, OMII-China…) Goal is to provide key software components for building e-infrastructures Project will demonstrate “proof of concept” with expectation for a follow-on project in FP7

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE What will OMII-Europe do? Initial focus on providing common interfaces and integration of major Grid software infrastructures Common services: –Database Access, Virtual Organisation Management, Portal, Accounting, Job Submission and Job Monitoring These represent many of the outputs from the standards function groups –Capability to add additional services –Emphasis on porting and re-engineering work, not developing from scratch Infrastructure integration –Initial EGEE/UNICORE/Globus interoperability –Interoperable security framework

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE OMII-Europe guiding principles Committed to standards process –Implementing agreed open standards and working with standards process (GGF/Oasis) Quality Assurance –Published methodology and compliance test –All software components have public QA process and audit trail –Working with similar projects and organisations to agree policies Impartiality –OMII-Europe is “honest broker” providing impartial advice/information on e-infrastructures

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE What will OMII-Europe deliver? Repository of open-source, quality assured software services for gLite/EGEE, Globus, UNICORE and CROWNgrid –Some services bundled with major grid distributions –Initial integration work with EGEE, UNICORE and Globus Public reports on grid infrastructures –Initial benchmark results –Impartial advice and information Evaluation infrastructure to “test” services –User support and training for services

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Who benefits from OMII-Europe? E-infrastructure providers –Choice of grid software to deploy can be determined by selecting the most appropriate system to manage resources. –Achieved through common interfaces and interoperability of grid systems Decisions not constrained by membership of a particular VO Not required to deploy and manage multiple grid distributions E-science users –Common methods for accessing grid Infrastructures –Access to resources beyond the immediate e-infrastructure running a specific grid distribution Achieved through low level interoperability of Grid distributions –Users not restricted to a specific, fixed set of resources E-science application developers –Applications can be deployed and run on multiple grid environments through adherence to common services Not required to develop different solutions for different grids

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Why Globus, UNICORE, gLite and CROWN? Minimal significant set: –gLite is a complete set of middleware developed within EGEE and is deployed to create a grid containing more than 150 sites and 30 countries –UNICORE is a major EU and national middleware initiative and is deployed at many supercomputer sites, in particular those available through DEISA –Globus is the world-leading open-source platform for Grid computing developed within the USA and is used for many research projects world-wide –All three grid platforms have significant user bodies within Europe –CROWNgrid is the middleware used on the major Chinese grid infrastructure

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Database Service Implementation of the OGSA-DAI specification from the DAIS- WG within the Data function group of GGF –OGSA-DAI service federates data resources with different support mechanisms (Relational/XML Databases/flat files) allowing uniform access across these resources Number of other data specifications emerging that may be considered later. –transaction management; byte IO; Grid file systems etc DAIS implementation already available for Globus 4 – Work is to port to UNICORE and gLite – Alpha releases scheduled for May –Evaluating OGSADai4UnicoreGS

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Job Submit and Job Monitoring Service Implementation of the JSDL (job submission description language) and BES (Basic execution service) specifications from the Compute working group at GGF –Common way to specify and control jobs (abstraction of O/S and cluster controller) Other specifications such as scheduling, but above are essential and well developed with implementations Work is to make BES and JSDL available on Globus, UNICORE and gLite –Initial version for UNICORE available in May 2007 –JSDL translator (using XSLT) for gLite in testing

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Virtual Organisation Management Service Authorisation service available for Globus and gLite. –Provides information on the user's relationship with Virtual Organization: groups, roles and capabilities Work to make VOMS available under UNICORE and to extend VOMS with SAML support –SAML (Security Authorisation Markup Language) from OASIS Technical Committee. (standard for XML exchanging authentication and authorisation data between security domains) –Alpha version for UNICORE with SAML support scheduled for May 2007

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Accounting Service Implementation of the Resource Usage Service (RUS) from the management working group within GGF –Tracks use of resources (accounting in traditional UNIX sense), but not concerned with payment –Closely related to Usage Record (UG-WG) within GGF Specification available for public comment Alpha version of RUS (or equivalent) available in May 2007 for Globus, gLite and UNICORE

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Portal Service Integration of the Gridsphere portal framework with Globus, UNICORE and gLite and provide portlets for job submit, accounting, etc… –Provide application level portability at a portlet level –Portlets available for main OMII-Europe services

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Additional Services Current solution: Chinese partners will make all services available on Chinese CROWNgrid infrastructure In May 2007, launch of the second round of service integration

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE OMII-Europe JRA1 re-engineering activities OGSA DAIBESVOMSRUS Grid Sphere Etc. Identified Components EGEE (GLite) UNICORE Globus Etc. OMII-UK, USA, China

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE OMII-Europe Infrastructure Integration This activity goes beyond the adoption of common services and focuses on full grid infrastructure integration through employing: –A common security infrastructure Much similarity (X509) and differences (handling of proxies, authorisation, anonymity and auditing) Intention to define a common security base Provide a strengthened form of X509 credential management through using Myproxy –job migration between Globus/gLite/UNICORE Builds on Globus/UNICORE Grip project Close collaboration with GGF GIN WG

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Project Structure and Effort Allocation Networking activities –Management, Outreach, Training –8% Person Effort Service Activities –Repository, QA, Support –25% Person Effort Joint Research Activities –Re-engineering, new services, integration, benchmarking –67% Person Effort

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Effort (Person Years) per Activity

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE OMII-Europe Project Partners 114 person years over 2 years, 5 million Euro, 4 major Grid infrastructures University of Southampton UK (coordinator)University of Chicago USA Fujitsu Laboratories Europe UKNCSA, University of Illinois USA Forschungszentrum Juelich Germany University of Southern California Los Angeles USA Kungl Tekniska Högskolan SwedenUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison USA Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare ItalyBeihang University China Poznan Supercomputing & Networking Center Poland China Institute of Computing Technology Beijing China University of Edinburgh UK Computer Network Information Centre Beijing China CERN, European Organisation for Nuclear Research Switzerland Tsinghua University China

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE OMII-Europe project summary Interoperability is difficult not because of technical issues but because it requires agreement –No one wants to be seen to “lose out” to someone else OMII-Europe has support from the major grid Infrastructure providers to deliver interoperability –No point to be trying to solve the problem without vendor support OMII-Europe’s emphasis on standards provides a non-biased approach towards interoperability –An open independent process needs to be used to arrive at technical decisions Achieving interoperability is a long term goal, don’t try and eat an elephant in one go! –OMII-Europe will improve overall USABILITY of grid Infrastructures and improve INTEROPERABILITY of grid infrastructures over the next two years

EU project: RIO31844-OMII-EUROPE Concluding Comments EU research budget is moving towards 2% of total EU GDP. Getting a share isn’t that difficult but you need to be politically aware It provides a means to support real collaborative research within the EU Participating is far easier than being coordinating partner