EGI_DS News

5th EGI Council Meeting in Amsterdam - 3rd February 2010

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:43:00 GMT

The 5th EGI Council meeting will take place in Science Park, Amsterdam on 3rd February 2010. For more information on the agenda please visit the meeting page at http://web.eu-egi.eu/MaKaC/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=102

Last EGI workshop in Stockholm!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:35:00 GMT

The last EGI workshop will be held in Stockholm, on 3-4 December 2009. This is the last workshop organised by EGI_DS, and will be an excellent opportunity to get the latest news on the EGI project. A Christmas dinner will be held on the 3^rd to celebrate the end of the EGI_DS project. Please join us in Stockholm!

More information on the agenda, and registrations at:

http://web.eu-egi.eu/events/workshops-and-meetings/stockholm-2009/

EGI Industry Day in Vilnius

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:49:00 GMT

EGI_DS is organizing an Industry Day, together with the Lithuanian NGI (LitGrid) and the BalticGrid-II project in Vilnius on 17 December 2009. The event will focus on the role and use of the e-Infrastructures (grids and clouds) in business.

More informaton on the event and registrations at: http://web.eu-egi.eu/events/industry/vilnius-2009/

EGI Newsletter released

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:56:00 GMT

In the last issue of the EGI eNewsletter you will find information on the latest progress of the EGI project, a list of EGI-related coming events, and a presentation of the Polish and French NGIs.

eNewsletter 3 (November 2009)

Bof session at SC'09 on "European HPC and Grid Infrastructures"

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:27:00 GMT

A â€œBird of a Featherâ€ (Bof) session on European HPC and Grid Infrastructures will be organised at SC09 by EGI, DEISA, PRACE and EEF, on Tuesday 17 November.

Schedule: Tuesday, 17 November, 05:30-07:00 pm, Room D135-136

Abstract: EGI, the European Grid Initiative, represents an effort to establish a sustainable European grid infrastructure. Its foundations are the National Grid Initiatives (NGIs) and the EGI Organization (EGI.eu). The first phase of EGI implementation is prepared to start in May 2010. DEISA is a consortium of the most powerful supercomputer centres in Europe, operating supercomputers in a distributed but integrated HPC infrastructure. It regularly hosts the most challenging European supercomputing projects and prepares a turnkey operational solution for a future integrated European HPC infrastructure. PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe1, prepared the creation of a persistent pan-European HPC infrastructure to support world-class science on world-class systems. PRACE will become operational in 2010 and deploy up to five leadership systems at renowned partner sites. For EEF, the recently formed European E-Infrastructure Forum will present its ideas on a future European compute ecosystem.

Agenda: 1) â€œThe European HPC and Grid Infrastructuresâ€œ (Konstantinos Glinos, European Commission); 2) â€œThe Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Application (DEISA)â€ (Hermann Lederer, Max Planck Society); 3) The Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE)â€ (Thomas Eickermann, FZG); 4) â€œThe European Grid Initiative (EGI)â€ (Ludek Matyska, Masaryk University); 5) â€œThe European eInfrastructure Forum (EEF)â€ (Bob Jones, CERN).

More information at http://scyourway.nacse.org/conference/view/bof159

EGI Council Elected its Chair

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:11:00 GMT

The EGI Council elected its chair on 24 September 2009, during the EGEEâ€™09 conference in Barcelona, Spain. Per Ã–ster, representative of the Finnish National Grid Initiative (NGI), was chosen by the European Grid Initiative (EGI) Council members to lead the projectâ€™s governing body. Read the full press release on this event

1st EGI Council in Amsterdam

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:54:00 GMT

Amsterdam was the host city for the first EGI Council on 9 July 2009. The Council took place after reception of the signatures of the EGI Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by 24 NGIs.

*

During the first quarter of 2009, very important steps have been taken towards the establishment of the EGI. On 20 January 2009, the EGI Policy Board endorsed the EGI Blueprint, the document defining the common roadmap for the construction of the new European grid organisation taking over the responsibility for the grid infrastructure from current projects. On 2 March 2009, the city of Amsterdam was chosen to host the EGI organization (EGI.eu, formerly called EGI.org), the coordinating body for the EGI. * The signing of the MoU by the NGIs, and the organization of the first EGI Council represent further important steps towards the establishment of the EGI. Ludek Matyska, the EGI_DS Director, emphasized this point at the Council meeting in Amsterdam: â€œBy signing the MoU, the NGIs confirmed that they were ready to implement the EGI as defined in the EGI Blueprint, and to commit financially to the establishment of the EGI.eu. The first EGI Council showed the wide support for the EGI through several important decisions taken, including the appointment of the interim EGI.eu director and confirmation of leaders of the Editorial Board, who will be responsible for preparing the EGI projects. Thus, lead persons necessary to actually prepare and run the EGI are identified and their positions assured.â€ * The EGI Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is an important document covering the period up to the formation of the EGI.eu and the establishment of the EGI statutes. By signing this document, the NGIs have agreed on the role and responsibilities of individual parties, the membership fees and other issues necessary to finalize the setup of the EGI. * The Council represents the governing body of the EGI. It is made up of NGIs as well as other members such as European institutions represented in the EIROFORUM and non-voting observers from NGIs that, while eligible for membership, have not yet signed the MoU. During the first EGI Council, additional experts representing either the EGI_DS project or other current grid infrastructures were also present. From now on, the EGI Council will represent the main decision-making body of the EGI. * The EGI Design Study (EGI_DS) project was launched in September 2007 with the support of the European Commissionâ€™s 7th Framework Programme. The project will continue until the end of November 2009. According to current plans, the EGI Organization will begin its functions in early 2010. The EGI_DS has nine principal partners: CESNET, CERN, CNRS, CSC, DFN, GRNET, LMU, INFN and STFC, and is already endorsed by 42 National Grid Initiatives.

EGI eNewsletter 2 2009

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:57:00 GMT

In the last issue of the EGI Newsletter, you will find information on the first EGI Council held in Amsterdam on 9 July 2009, and a presentation of NorGrid and BEgrid. This last issue can be downoaded here.

MoU document sent to NGIs and other relevant Parties for signature

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:48:00 GMT

On the 13th of June, the final version of the MoU document was sent to NGIs and EIROForum members for signature. You can find all the relevant documents here.

Letter to NGIs regarding the MoU signing process

June 25, 2009

Dear Policy Board members,

I would like to thank all of you for the continuing interest and support
of the EGI and in particular setting the EGI Collaboration through the
EGI MoU.

As there were several questions related to possible modification of the
MoU, I take this opportunity to clarify them:
The EGI_DS is not considering any change in the MoU before the deadline
set for the first round of signatures. Therefore, please continue with
the signing process using the current version of the MoU. Do not change
or amend the MoU in any way, as this may cause your version of the MoU
could not be accepted and you will be treated as not signing it (=the
correct MoU version). If you need to add something, please do it through
an accompanying letter, where you spell out any objections or
modifications you would like to see.

As we discovered several minor inconsistencies as well as omission in
the Annex 2 table, we plan to provide an MoU amendment after the EGI
Council meeting on 9th July to correct these and eventually incorporate
few minor modifications (usually to make the text clearer or more
explicit, not to introduce changes in body and meaning of the MoU). This
way we hope to clarify any remaining issues while not endangering the
current process of MoU signing.

Several of you noticed that the Annex 2 table differs in some details
from the current Terena distribution key. This is due to the fact that
we based the distribution key on a somewhat older version of the Terena
distribution key. As Terena is updating its key regularly while we did
not foresee such changes during the lifetime of the MoU, and also
because not all expected EGI partners are explicitly covered by the list
provided by Terena, please use the Annex 2 table "as is" ("based on the
Terena key but not necessarily identical to it"). In case some country
does have a serious problem with its classification in the Annex 2 table
deviating from the current Terena key, please let me know and we can
include such minor Annex 2 table changes in the amendment.

Once again, thank you for your support of the EGI and I am looking
forward to receive more signed MoUs in the next days. You can follow the
progress on this web page: http://www.eu-egi.eu/partners/egi-council/

See you all in Amsterdam on 9th July.

Best regards,

Ludek Matyska
EGI_DS Project Director

Letter to NGIs from EGI_DS Project Director

Tue, 19 May 2009 15:46:00 GMT

You can read letter to NGIs from EGI_DS Project Director here.