EU projects
The following EU funded Grid projects are directly relevant to the STFC programme:
DataGrid (EDG) (link opens in a new window)
This is currently the largest EU funded grid project. EDG is a €10M project and will run for 3 years (2001-2003) and the main project objectives are:
- To develop a sustainable grid computing model.
- The development of middleware for fabric and grid management
- To collaborate and complement other European and US projects
- To provide large scale production quality test beds for the chosen application areas, namely
- High Energy Physics
- Biology
- Earth Observation
- To pursue an open source model together, communication with other projects/fields and technology transfer.
STFC are the UK signatories to the EDG project (the other members being CERN, INFN, CNRS, NIKHEF and ESA-ESRIN) and as such are responsible for providing the UK personnel and the UK contribution to EDG test bed.
The EDG is the first large scale international grid project and the first aiming to deliver a grid infrastructure to several different "Virtual Organisations" (the 4 PP experiments, biology and Earth Observation) simultaneously.
DataGrid Trans-Atlantic Grid (DataTAG)
A two year programme providing personnel and resources (networking) to allow collaboration between the EDG project and the US, in particular the iVDgL project. The major focus of the project is on high performance (transatlantic) networking and QoS developments thereon. STFC again are the UK members of the consortium with the main work taking place at UCL, Brunel and CLRC.
Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (AVO) (link opens in a new window)
The AVO is a three year €2M project, starting in 2002, to perform preparatory work for the development of Virtual Observatories. The work covers the science case, interoperability of data sets and Grid Technologies. The UK, through AstroGrid, lead the latter work. Jodrell Bank are also members of AVO.
European Grid for Solar Observation (EGSO)
A project similar to the AVO project but focussed specifically on the European Solar physics data sets. EGSO is led by MSSL.
GridLab (link opens in a new window)
A project to develop grid enabled Problem Solving Environments (PSE). A PSE is essentially a tool for controlling and performing data analysis, often including facilities for workflow management. GridLab will build on two existing distributed PSEs; Cactus - a commonly used system for performing distributed complex simulations, and Triana - a java based data analysis tool suit. UK involvement is via Cardiff Computing and Physics Departments.
Other major EU Grid projects, with little or no direct STFC community involvement, include:
Page last updated: 20 April 2011
by Andy Mckinna
