Austria
From EGI Knowledge Base
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| NGI Full Name: | Austrian Grid Initiative |
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| Acronym: | AGrid |
| URL: | http://www.austriangrid.at |
The AUSTRIAN GRID consortium combines Austria's leading researchers in advanced computing technologies with well-recognized partners in grid-dependant application areas. The goal of the AUSTRIAN GRID is to start and support grid computing in Austria in general, and to provide coordination and collaboration between research areas interested in grid computing.
The AUSTRIAN GRID is closely connected with the Johannes Kepler Universität (JKU) Linz, in particular GUP - Institute of Graphics and Parallel Processing which coordinates this initiative; it is recognized by the Austrian Ministry BMBWK.
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[edit] Objectives
Since Austrian Grid was originally intended to run in two phases, the Austrian Grid consortium proposed in phase 1 research on the employment of the idea for applications that are relevant for the following application areas:
- Medical sciences
- High-energy physics
- Applied numerical simulations
- Astrophysical simulations and solar observations
- Meteorology and geophysics
- Environmental applications
Additionally in phase 1 the Austrian Grid project was established as a national Grid based on the following two aspects:
- Development and usage of Grid applications
- Installation and operation of a Grid testbed for future Grid developments
The resulting Austrian Grid infrastructure is composed of three layers, which realize the intended Grid infrastructure as well as the applications adopting them. These layers are:
- Layer 0 represents the basic Grid infrastructure, which is needed to build and operate any computational or data Grid. It is intended to offer corresponding services for providing the Grid technology to application developers.
- Layer 1 establishes the software between the infrastructure layer and the application layer. Some amount of the requirements of the middleware layer are already fulfilled by Grid toolkits (such as Globus), while others need to be appended or modified for the actual means of the application developers.
- Layer 2 contains software packages adapted to the underlying Grid middleware. In terms of the Austrian Grid initiative, applications from the application areas as described above have been chosen.
Besides the aims of phase 1, phase 2 lays its focus on the following aspects:
- Extending the strengths of Austrian Grid researches in the area of Grid middleware research as well as tools and Grid applications.
- Establishing a sustainable Grid infrastructure which can be seamlessly integrated in the European Grid Infrastructure.
- Consequently encouraging users in new application areas.
- Offering information and training for institutions which could be relevant for Grid and service oriented architectures.
- Offering possibilities for the Austrian industry to jump on the Grid.
- Creating a smooth transition from Austrian governmental funding to an initiative funded by other means.
[edit] Project History
The Austrian Grid was originally intended to serve as a platform for medical research, as Austrian Medical Grid. In 2002 this approach was extend by adding different other research areas to establish a more general Grid infrastructure supporting research in fields relying on some sort of computational power. One of the reasons was definitely the support of application in the research area of high-energy physics. To be part of CERN's Large Hadron Collider experiments appropriate ressources had to be provided.
Austrian Grid basically consists of 2 phases:
- Phase 1 started in April 2004 and officially ran until the end of 2006, funded by the Austrian Ministry BMBWK
- Phase 2 started in 2007 and is expected to end in 2009, funded by the Austrian Ministry BMWF
[edit] Organizational Form
In Phase 1 Austrian Grid was structured into 3 layers. The actual work within these layers was carried out in workpackages, where each of them targeted one particular task of the project.
Interconnections and strong relations have been established between each of these workpackages and its associated partners.
* Coordination, Dissemination and Exploitation
WP 0: Coordination, Dissemination and Exploitation
* Infrastructure Layer
WP I-1: Hardware and Infrastructure Services
* Middleware Layer
WP M-1: Security and Authentication
WP M-2: Visualization and Interfaces
WP M-3: Multimedia and Compression
WP M-4: Databases, Data Mining and Data Retrieval
WP M-6: Programming Paradigms and Methods for the GRID
WP M-7: Mobility Support in the GRID
* Application Layer
WP A-1: Medical Sciences
WP A-2: High-Energy Physics
WP A-3: Applied Numerical Simulation
WP A-4: Astrophysical Simulations and Solar Observations
WP A-5: Meteorological Simulations
WP A-6: Environmental GRID Applications
WP A-7: Electronic Structure with WIEN2k
Phase 2 introduced new organizational structures consisting of 3 core centres:
- AG-research center
- AG-service center
- AG-development center
While the first one involves workpackages doing basic Grid research, the second one is mainly responsible to serve as a national EGI center and as point of contact for Grid users as well as operating the Austrian Grid infrastructure. The third one is responsible for establishing cooperation with industry
[edit] Resources
Austrian Grid comprises five sites distiributed around the whole country. Most of the ressources are offered by the participating partners, some of them funded by the Austrian government. Approximately 800 CPUs have been made available for the Grid users, 220 of them are working using a valid Grid certificate.
| Number of users with valid Grid Certificate: | 220 |
| Number of sites (Resource Centres): | 5 |
| Number of CPUs: | around 800 |
| Total storage (in TB): | around 10 TB |
[edit] EGI Functions: Current Rating
[edit] Functions proposed in survey of late 2006
| Coordination of infrastructure operations | No Opinion |
| Testing, certification and validation service including middleware | No Opinion |
| Managed resource centers to provide initial resources for new user communities | No Opinion |
| Coordination of user and application support | No Opinion |
| Coordination of dissemination and training efforts | No Opinion |
| Representation of European Grid efforts on standards bodies | No Opinion |
| Representation of European Grid efforts with similar bodies from other continents | No Opinion |
