1. Grid Technology and Applications in The North European Region
Abstract:
The North European countries are active participants in Grid technology development and its applications. The Scandinavian countries - Denmark, Norway and Sweden, together with Finland, were the first in the region to join international efforts in this area, followed by the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, North-West region of Russia, and Iceland. Several national and regional Grid projects are active these days. Their activities range from Grid technology and software development, to deployment and operational support, and to networking and education. Every year, more and more North European researchers turn to Grid for computing resources. An incomplete list of application areas include high energy physics, information technologies, biomedical sciences, material, organic, inorganic, quantum and theoretical chemistry, climate modelling, genomics, neutrino physics, combustion, physics of materials, nano-materials, space physics, statistical physics, farmacology and bioinformatics. This presentation gives an overview of the Grid projects and their status in the Northern Europe.
Oxana Smirnova (Lund University/CERN) / ISGC 2005, Taiwan

2. Outlook North European Region NORDUNet Past Present Future
NORDUnet2, Nordic Testbed for Wide Area Computing and Data Handling, NGC
Present
NorduGrid, DCGC, Swegrid, Norgrid, M-grid, Eesti Grid
Future
NDGF, NGN, Baltic Grid

3. Northern Europe
This presentation covers Scandinavia, Finland, Baltics and North-West Russia

4. NORDUnet: reliable connectivity
External connections
Only Researh and General Internet shown here
There are also Testbeds (155M for 6NET, 2.5G for “Lambda”)
General Internet capacities are physical
GEANT upgrade to 10G will happen in October
RUNNet was just upgraded, largest R&E outlet of Russia
Talk about central Nordic system later

5. NORDUNet2 NORDUNet2 HEP (ATLAS) groups in Lund and Copenhagen
A project ran in , financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers
Purpose: secure Nordics’ leading place in international Internet development
Focused on 4 application areas:
Remote education
Telemedicine
Digital libraries
Infrastructure services
HEP (ATLAS) groups in Lund and Copenhagen
Different countries, but only 50 km apart (Stockholm is 600 km away)
Wish to contribute to ATLAS production via Grid (EDG)
Perfect application for NORDUNet2

6. Nordic Testbed for Wide Area Computing and Data Handling (1/2)
Ran in as a part of the NORDUNet2 program, aimed to enable Grid middleware and applications in the Nordic countries
Middleware: EDG
Applications: ATLAS DC1, theory (Lund, NORDITA)
Participants: academic groups from 4 Nordic countries
DK: Research Center COM, DIKU, NBI
FI: HIP
NO: U. of Bergen, U. of Oslo
SE: KTH, Stockholm U., Lund U., Uppsala U. (ATLAS groups)
Funded resources:
3 FTEs
4 test Linux clusters
4-6 CPUs each
Variety of GNU/Linux OS: RedHat, Mandrake, Slackware
Other resources:
2-3 × 0.5 FTEs
Rental CPU cycles

7. Nordic Testbed for Wide Area Computing and Data Handling (2/2)
Strong links with EDG
WP6: active work with the ITeam; Nordic CA
WP8: active work with ATLAS DC1
WP2: contribution to GDMP
Attempts to contribute to RC, Infosystem
Had to diverge from EDG in 2002
January 2002: became increasingly aware that EDG won’t deliver a production-lever middleware
February 2002: developed own lightweight Grid architecture
March 2002: prototypes of the core services in place
April 2002: first live demos ran
May 2002: entered a continuous production mode
Became known as the NorduGrid (

8. NGC High Performance Computing labs go Grid, too
Nordic Grid Consortium set up in 2002
Cooperation between CSC (Finland), Parallab (Norway), and PDC (Sweden)
Set up an own CA
not to be confused with NorduGrid CA which is EDG/LCG/EUGridPMA-accredited:
/O=Grid/O=NorduGrid/OU=<your_organization>/CN=<your_name>/
/O=Grid/O=NordicGrid/OU=<your_organization>/CN=<your_name>/
Resources: a diversity of platforms
IBM SP, SGI Origin, IBM Regatta, Linux clusters
Plan to do joint Grid middleware and application development
So far leaned to UNICORE for the middleware

9. NorduGrid
Since end-2002 is a research collaboration between Nordic academic institutes
Open to anybody, non-binding
Hosts Nordic Certificate Authority
Contributed up to 15% to the ATLAS DC1 ( ) using local institute clusters and rental resources from HPC
Since end-2003 focuses only on the middleware support and development
The middleware was baptized Advanced Resource Connector (ARC) in end-2003
6 core developers, many contributing student projects
Provides middleware to research groups (ATLAS, theory) and national Grid projects
ARC is installed on 40+ sites (~5000 CPUs) in 10 countries

10. ARC
One of the few Grid solutions developed by a (relatively small) regional project
Attractive for resource owners
Non-intrusive
Portable (variety of OS, LRMS)
Simple installation procedure
Attractive for users
Robust
Portable
Client can be installed everywhere by anyone
Supports any application

11. DCGC Danish Center for Grid Computing, established in August 2003
3 years project, aiming to
Provide Grid-access to test facilities (including HPC)
Host development activities
Provide user support
Aims at getting industrial partners and users involved
Uses ARC for middleware

12. Swegrid Swedish Grid testbed, inaugurated in March 2004
600 processors in 6 clusters at 6 different sites
Hardware is financed by a private KAW foundation
Operational costs and personnel for support and maintenance are funded by the Swedish Research Council
Heterogeneous OS-wise (RH7.3, FC1, Debian)
Resource allocation for users is done via the Swedish National Allocation Committee, upon requests
1/3 is allocated for LHC computing
The rest is distributed between chemistry, genomics, bioinformatics, climate studies etc – whoever applies
Uses ARC for middleware
Upon EGEE request, likely to be replaced by LCG2/gLite on the resources committed to EGEE

13. NORGRID
Norwegian project for Grid competence building, January – December 2004
ca. 3 FTE
Partners : NTNU, UiB, UiO, UiT, UNINETT
Funding 50% NFR and 50% partners
Objectives:
competence building on Grid middleware and related technologies in Norway
Prepare a middleware infrastructure for the next HPC project (starting 2005)
Emphasis on distributed data management, meta-scheduling, portals
Presently uses ARC
Evaluates it against UNICORE, GT4.x and LCG2/gLite

14. M-Grid
Finnish Material Sciences National Grid Infrastructure, started in early 2004
Coordinated by CSC
Partners: HIP, Helsinki U., Helsinki TU, Jyväskyla U., Tampere TU, Oulu U., Lappeenranta TU, Turku U.
Geared primarily towards users in Material Sciences
Physicists, Chemists and some Bioscientists
Hardware: heterogeneous resources; NPACI Rocks
Clusters are accessed both locally and via Grid middleware
ARC is chosen as the middleware
Built upon GT3.2.1

15. Eesti Grid Estonian national Grid initiative, started in 2004
Tallinn and Tartu Universities, NICPB, EENet
Hosts Estonian and Baltic Certificate Authorities
One of the best Grid coverage per capita
49 users,15 sites for 1.4 mln total population
Applications: physics, chemistry, IT; plans: bioinformatics, medical applications, nuclear safety, animated movies
Hardware: heterogeneous clusters
AMD and P4 architectures, PBS
ARC is chosen as the middleware
Education: Tartu University holds a 50 students strong Grid course

16. NDGF
Initial success of NorduGrid provided grounds for a Nordic Grid facility
Nordic Data Grid Facility pilot project was launched in spring 2003
Funds for 1 director + 4 postdocs in each country
Strong emphasis towards portal development and storage facilities
Aimed to evaluate various Grid solutions, uses ARC so far
Will produce recommendations for the Nordic Grid facility
Aims to harness all the resources in the Nordic countries
Grid of Grids with a large centralized storage facility
This facility is expected to become the Nordic Tier1 candidate

17. NGN
Nordic Grid Neighborhood is a networking project funded by the Nordplus program, started in September 2004
Joins efforts in Scandinavia, Finland, Baltic states and North-West Russia (St.Petersburg)
20+ partners
supports and strengthens contacts in the field of Grid technologies
activities cover education, reciprocal knowledge transfer and Grid research and development
Plans to set up a testbed to deploy and demonstrate ARC and AliEn
The scope is to attract and educate users that can benefit from Grid, e.g., medical applications

18. Baltic Grid Initiated in October 2004 Set up the Baltic CA
Propagation of Grid computing in the Baltic region
Applies for the EU funding, supported by EGEE
Partners from Baltic states, Sweden, Poland
Set up the Baltic CA
Might get split into country-specific CAs
So far, sites use different Grid middleware
Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden: ARC
Poland, some Swedish sites: LCG2
Still in the very initial stage

19. Summary North European countries are perhaps a unique region Grid-wise
Historically strong ties
Geographically compact region
Cultural and social similarities
Cooperation is stimulated for generations on government levels
Aligned laws and regulations
Exceptionally good Internet connectivity
Yet relatively small and scattered computing and storage resources, of different ownership
Cross-national Grid initiatives came first, followed by national ones
Both centrifugal and centripetal forces are in action, depending on the size/ownership of a resource
Hopes for a regional Grid facility, providing Tier1-level services
Most projects chose ARC as the basic middleware
There are more Grid activities, e.g., individual participation in European Grid projects like EGEE, NextGrid, Enacts, CoreGrid etc