The european e-infrastructure ecosystem

Key concepts

• Managed e-Infrastructures
• Different needs for general-purpose and specialised e-Infrastructures
• Layers of e-Infrastructures and the role of standards
• Academic and commercial e-Infrastructures
• Convergence of e-Infrastructures

Introduction

e-Research requires seamless access to computational, storage, and network resources, which can be provided by a variety of different means ranging from volunteer systems, to community based infrastructures, to general-purpose infrastructures federating resources across different institutions. These resources are made available to different scientific communities via well-defined protocols and interfaces exposed by a software layer ( Grid middleware ). Such federated infrastructures are referred to as e-Infrastructures and provide a number of advantages to researchers and service providers alike.

Of these different approaches, well managed e-Infrastructures are of particular importance. Apart from enabling seamless access to heterogeneous, independently managed resources, well managed e-Infrastructures also provide their users with common operational procedures such as accounting, support and support systems, and usage policies (etc). Moreover, different service levels can be negotiated, allowing the user to establish service level agreements with such an e-Infrastructure. As a consequence, researchers experience the usage of an e-Infrastructure in the same way as using a single system managed by a local resource provider. It is important to realise that in order to achieve this deployment of standardised services is needed as well as a harmonization of operational and security procedures across the different independent resource providers. Multi-purpose e-Infrastructures are also desirable from a resource provider point of view, as a single infrastructure can serve several communities and thus reduce the need for dedicated community services that require additional operational effort.

However, it is unlikely that a single common infrastructure will eventually be able to serve all needs as different legislative regulations, usage models, and other regional or thematic peculiarities demand the creation of separate e-Infrastructures. As a consequence, national and regional e-Infrastructures as well as thematic ones like e-Infrastructures focusing on the federation of supercomputing resources have emerged. Europe, through ambitious national research and infrastructure programs and dedicated European Commission programs, is playing a leading role in building multi-national, multi-disciplinary e-Infrastructures and has devised a roadmap for a pan-European e-Infrastructure. This road-map acknowledges the need for different infrastructures but also envisages these infrastructures embedded in an ecosystem that allows users to easily access resources managed by different infrastructures.

Two ecosystem paths – the egi and prace infrastructures

The establishment of a European e-Infrastructure ecosystem is currently progressing along two distinct paths: the EGI and PRACE. The European Grid Initiative (EGI) intends to federate national and regional e-Infrastructures, managed locally by National Grid Initiatives (NGIs) into a pan-European, general-purpose e-Infrastructure as pioneered by the EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-sciencE) project that unites thematic, national and regional Grid initiatives. EGI is a direct result of the European e-Infrastructure Reflection Group (e-IRG) recommendation to develop a sustainable base for European e-Infrastructures. Most importantly, funding schemes are being changed from short term project funding (like 2 years funding periods in the case of EGEE) to sustained funding on a national basis. This provides researchers with the long-term perspective needed for multi-year research engagements. All European countries support the EGI vision and at the time of writing the organisational and legal details are being defined with the aim of starting EGI in 2010.