URL: http://www.ecri2007.de/e15/e1029/e1042/index_eng.html
W. von Rüden, Director of the IT Department at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Global Virtual Communities
The development of large scientific instruments being designed, constructed and exploited by world-wide collaborations has been accompanied by the establishment of Global Virtual Communities and sophisticated Grid-based e‑infrastructures combining computing resources in support of the distribution, storage and analysis of vast amounts of data.
Europe’s large investments have put us in a world-leading position. It is now time to ensure sustainability in moving from short-term project-based funding to long-term institutional funding at National and European levels while pursuing the current good collaboration with similar efforts outside Europe.
Examples of Virtual Communities exploiting e‑infrastructures will be presented as well as an attempt to anticipate what we might see (or wish to see) in the coming years.
B.-H. Seo, Vice President, Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI)
Integrating developing regions in global research communities:
APII and TEIN for Common Prosperity
This presentation covers the origin and evolution of research and education networks in Asia. Although there have been various initiatives for the common prosperity of the region, e.g. Asia Pacific Information Infrastructure (APII), Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) and others, the first large-scale regional research network was successfully achieved through Trans-Eurasia Information Network projects (TEIN1 and TEIN2). Learning from the success of a common approach like TEIN2 for more effective construction and management of intra- and inter- regional networks, continuing efforts for the next phase of TEIN2 seems to be crucial for regional integration and global research communities.
A. Bachem, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Research Centre Jülich (FZJ)
High-Performance Computing facilities for Europe: the case of PACE
In its Roadmap published in 2006, ESFRI identified High Performance Computing as a strategic priority for Europe. Scientists and engineers (e.g. in climate research, earth science, nanotechnology, computational chemistry, high energy physics, life sciences), must be provided with access to cutting-edge, high-performance computers in Europe to remain internationally competitive and to maintain or regain leadership.
As a result, the HPC in Europe Taskforce (HET) group has been established to develop a policy framework for the provision of High Performance Computing within Europe in order to meet the needs of the European academic community, industry, and society.
A consortium, PACE, was set up to apply for the preparatory phase, and a Memorandum of Understanding for a European Tier 0 HPC service was signed by 14 countries.
The presentation will describe the further work needed to create a powerful “European High Performance Computing infrastructure and service”.
J. Thornton, Director of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI)
Scientific repositories and their management:
Constructing a Sustainable Infrastructure for Biological Information in Europe
With the advent of high-throughput biology, the last few years has released a flood of biological information unprecedented in this area of science. Increasingly novel discoveries are made by exploiting these data to understand and predict the molecular basis of life and to simulate biological systems. ESFRI recognised that a robust infrastructure for this information was one of the top priorities within Europe to ensure continued excellence in all aspects of biology from academic research to medicine, agriculture and the environment. The European Bioinformatics Institute, which is the European centre for core bio-molecular data, is co-ordinating the ELIXIR proposal to prepare for the construction of an internationally integrated infrastructure to support
Life Sciences and society over the next 20 years. This presentation will explain the needs and benefits of such an infrastructure and the challenges we face in its construction.
© 2012 Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
