The DECI-11 call is managed by the PRACE-3IP project, which receives EC funding (RI-312763) and enhances the implementation of the HPC Research Infrastructure PRACE. PRACE-3IP is responsible for the Tier-1 access through the DECI calls.

Opening date: 8th May 2013, 12:00 CEST

Closing date: 10th June 2013, 12:00 CEST

Allocation start date: 1st Nov, 2013

Allocation period: 1 year for Project Access

Type of access: DECI (Tier-1)

Η συγκεκριμένη πρόσκληση αποσκοπεί στη δοκιμή και ανάπτυξη κώδικα και δίνει την δυνατότητα στους ερευνητές να βελτιστοποιήσουν και να δοκιμάσουν τον κώδικά τους πριν αιτηθούν για πρόσβαση σε επίπεδο παραγωγής (production).

Οι διαθέσιμες υποδομές επιπέδου Tier-0 για Preparatory Access αυτή τη στιγμή είναι οι εξής:

• “CURIE”, BULL Bullx cluster (GENCI@CEA, Bruyères-Le-Châtel, France)
• “FERMI”, IBM Blue Gene/Q (CINECA, Casalecchio di Reno,Italy)
• “HERMIT”, Cray XE6 (GCS@HLRS, Stuttgart, Germany)
• “JUQUEEN”, IBM Blue Gene/Q (GCS@JSC. Jülich, Germany)
• “MareNostrum”, IBM System X iDataplex (BSC, Barcelona, Spain)
• “SuperMUC”, IBM System X iDataplex ( GCS@LRZ, Garching near Munich, Germany)
• “EURORA”, Eurotech SandyBridge+Intel MIC hybrid cluster (CINECA, Casalecchio di Reno, Italy) , 2013 pilot case (13th & 14th cut-off dates only)

Οι αιτήσεις γίνονται δεκτές όλο τον χρόνο, αλλά οι τεχνικές αξιολογήσεις πραγματοποιούνται κάθε τρεις μήνες. Η 13η προγραμματισμένη αξιολόγηση αφορά σε αιτήσεις που θα υποβληθούν έως τις 3 Ιουνίου 2013.

Σημειώνεται ότι για τη συγκεκριμμένη και επόμενη περίοδο είναι δυνατή η υποβολή προτάσεων για πρόσβαση σε πιλοτική υποδομή εξοπλισμένη με Intel MIC.

Περισσότερες πληροφορίες για την πρόσκληση υποβολής προτάσεων μπορείτε να βρείτε εδώ.

In April 2013, with the end of the EMI and IGE projects, the EGI community lost its two largest technology providers and contri- butors to the Unified Middleware Distribution.

This is a milestone for EGI and grid computing in Europe: for the first time since 2001, we will have no dedicated project for grid middleware development. But just because EMI and IGE are over, development is not finished. Most of the teams involved in EMI and in IGE are still active, fixing bugs for the communities who depend on their products. Some teams even implement new functiona- lities in their software, but the coordination and integration provided by EMI and IGE are gone. For EGI, the answer is the EGI Platform Architecture – a new software integration and provisioning process.

A platform-based EGI

EGI started developing its platform architecture in early 2012 and refined it over the last 14 months. The platform-based EGI is capable of supporting a broad customer base with a very diverse set of requirements, and with a much smaller central coordination effort.
The platform-based EGI consists of:

1. EGI Core Infrastructure Platform, to operate and manage a distributed infrastructure (e.g. accounting);
2. EGI Cloud Infrastructure Platform, to operate a federated cloud based infrastructure;
3. EGI Collaboration Platform, for information exchange and community coordination (e.g. AppDB), and
4. Community Platforms, service portfolios customised for scientific communities.

The Platform Architecture allows any type and any number of community platform to co-exist on the physical infrastructure. Some can provide a grid functio- nality – similar to EMI’s and IGE’s services. Others can include completely unique services that run, for example, in Virtual Machines.

A flexible system

EMI’s and IGE’s distributions included a large number of services that very few commu- ities required in bulk. In practice, most user groups require a relatively simple, but variable set (e.g. a service for job execution and a file storage service, plus some services for security and access control). The flexibility of the new system allows the ‘long tail of scientists’ to be better represented in the platform-based EGI.

More choice for developers

EGI.eu will support the develop- ment of community platforms integrated and operated by scientific communities in collaboration with the NGIs. EGI.eu

will facilitate the interaction of software developers, scientific communities and platform integrators within EGI. Software developers will be able to choose from three levels of involvement in this process.

• Integrated providers’ have the strongest ties with EGI and scientific communities, via MoUs and SLAs, and support is provided by the EGI Helpdesk. They are represented in the Technical Coordination Board and can influence EGI’s evolution.
•  
• Community providers’ simply make their software available via AppDB, now extended to incorporate a Community Software Repository.
• Contributing providers’ are in between – they will offer guarantees on the quality of their software and user support, but not as regimented as for integrated providers.

EGI will move to the platform- based model gradually. The focus will now be on establishing new links between software developers, software integrators and operators across the community.

The conceptual change is big but what scientists will notice is the added freedom and options offered by the EGI Platform Architecture. 

Inspired // Issue #11 April 2013

Climate models use mathematics and the laws of physics to simulate the interactions of the basic components of the climate system. Differential equations are used to relate fundamental physical quantities (e.g. temperature, pressure, wind etc) to each other.  Each equation is solved at discrete grid points on the earth’s surface, at a fixed time interval (time-step) and several vertical layers, defined by the regular three-dimensional grid. Horizontal resolutions of global climate models range between 100-200 Km while of regional climate models from 10 to 50 Km.

In the Department of Meteorology and Climatology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki high resolution (10 Km) transient (1961-2050) climatic simulations were performed over South Eastern Europe with the regional climate model RegCM3 (http://gforge.ictp.it/gf/project/regcm/) using the HellasGrid resources within the framework of the ongoing project Geoclima.

The simulations were performed under the IPCC A1B scenario (http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/029.htm). Projected near-surface temperatures staring from present climate until the middle of the 21^st century are shown in Figure 1. 

Figure 1 - Evolution (1961-2050) of near-surface temperature over South Eastern Europe simulated in AUTH using the Hellas-Grid computational resources

The final aim of Geoclima (www.geoclima.eu) project is to develop a Geographical Information System (GIS) allowing the user to visualize, manage and analyze the information which is directly or indirectly related to climate and its future projections over SE Europe. 

Contact details: 

• H. Feidas (PI), Associate Professor, AUTH, hfeidas (at) geo.auth.gr

• P. Zanis, Assistant Professor, AUTH, zanis (at) geo.auth.gr

• E. Katragkou, Lecturer, AUTH, katragou (at) auth.gr

• Scientific Computing Center, AUTH, contact (at) grid.auth.gr

References

1. IPCC, 2007: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, Pachauri, R.K and Reisinger, A. (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 104 pp.

Τονίζει την συμβολή του Grid Computing στις καθημερινές του εργασίες και το γεγονός ότι η εξέλιξη της βιολογίας στις μέρες μας σχετίζεται άμεσα με τις υποδομές e-science. Δεδομένα όπως η εξελικτική ιστορία πρωτεϊνών και γονιδίων, μελετώνται πιο αποδοτικά με την χρήση των υποδομών του Grid. Ο κ. Ψωμόπουλος αναφέρει ότι ασχολείται περίπου 10 χρόνια με το Grid Computing και παροτρύνει τους νέους ερευνητές των βιολογικών επιστημών να εξοικειωθούν με τα εργαλεία που είναι διαθέσιμα και να έρθουν σε επαφή με άλλους ερευνητές που ήδη χρησιμοποιούν το High Performance Computing και το Grid Computing στην έρευνα τους διαχειριζόμενοι δεδομένα μεγάλης κλίμακας.

Today the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) formalised its longstanding relationship with the Asia Pacific region by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre (ASGC). The agreement will allow wider, long-term cooperation in many areas, bringing benefits to the whole EGI community.

The following services are affected:

The following services are affected:

The following services are affected: