1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. Main user communities supported

11. 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

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

13. 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

14. 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

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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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!

20. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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